Where to go in Kazakhstan in September, and what the weather allows

Kazakhstan in September is a good time to visit if you are heading south or west: deserts, steppe and old towns that are too hot in summer rate best this month. Of the 24 places compared here, 14 score top marks for September and none is ruled out. The trade-off is in the far east and the high mountains, where the short summer is ending.

September favours the south and west

The clearest pattern is that most places that peak in May also peak again in September. (The Botanical Garden, best in April–May, is an exception.) These are the desert, steppe and southern sites, where summer is the off month: Mangystau’s summer goes above +40 °C, and Shardara has long, very dry summers.

The table lists every place in this collection that rates best in September, with its base city and the kind of trip it demands.

For a traveller, this means the month rewards a route through the west or the south, not a lake holiday.

The western deserts: Mangystau, Beket-Ata, the Aral Sea

The west is the strongest September case, but also the hardest trip. Bozzhyra and the Mangystau landscapes lie about 300 km from Aktau, reachable by off-road vehicle only, with no mobile signal. Nearby are Sherkala, the stone balls of Torysh and the Karagiye depression, 132 m below sea level.

Beket-Ata, an underground mosque cut into a chalk cliff at Oglandy, is 280–285 km from Aktau, a drive of 4–5 hours with Shopan-Ata on the way. Since July 2026 it has been part of a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is a pilgrimage place: photography inside is not allowed, and visitors should dress and behave accordingly.

The Aral Sea is further still, about 463 km in a straight line from Kyzylorda, with jeep trips and no road signs. Without a private vehicle, all three need planned transport; we could not confirm how to arrange that independently.

Birds, rockets and the steppe

September also suits three places that are about something other than scenery. Akzhaiyk Reserve, about 19 km in a straight line from Atyrau, protects the Ural River mouth on a migration route between Siberia and East Africa, where flamingos, pelicans and swans stop over. Access rules need checking before you go.

Baikonur, which launched Sputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin, is still an active cosmodrome leased to Russia until 2050, so it is not a casual day trip. The Ulytau Mountains, a 200 km granite range about 106 km in a straight line from Zhezkazgan, hold Jochi Khan’s mausoleum and hundreds of recorded monuments; transport has to be planned in advance.

Around Shymkent: old towns and hot water

The far south is the easiest region to combine in September. Sairam, about 15 km in a straight line from Shymkent and now a district of the city, holds the graves of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi’s parents and mausoleums dated from the 9th to the 18th centuries. It is a day trip from a Shymkent base.

Saryagash rates best in April–May and again in September–October. Its sanatoriums run on 37–50 °C water struck in 1946 by geologists looking for oil, and most sit in the village of Kokterek, roughly 127–130 km from Shymkent. Shardara Reservoir, about 183 km in a straight line from Shymkent on the Uzbek border, is the remote option, with few confirmed visitor services and access to check.

Almaty in September: easy day trips

If your trip is built around Almaty, September keeps most nearby sights at their peak. Kok-Tobe is reached by a cable car from Dostyk Avenue in about 6 minutes, or by buses 95 and 99. Medeu’s 150 m mudflow dam has 842 steps to the top and is served by city bus No. 12, though the skating rink is closed for reconstruction until a planned finish at the end of 2028.

Alma-Arasan has radon and sulphur springs at about 1,780–1,830 m, about 16 km from Almaty; bus 28 runs to the Olen stop. The Green Bazaar, a covered market on a site trading since 1868, scores best in May, September and October. Further out, Tekeli in the Dzungarian Alatau foothills, about 235 km in a straight line from Almaty, stays at its best from June to September for Burkhan-Bulak waterfall.

Where September is already late

Lakes, the Altai and the high peaks drop from best in August to merely good in September, and fall further in October. If these are your goal, early September is safer than late.

Scores: 3 best, 2 good, 1 possible, 0 not sensible. Khan Tengri is an expedition peak with no trail, so September is only relevant to climbers already on a planned expedition.

What we can say about the weather

We could not confirm nationwide September temperatures or rainfall for this page, and Kazakhstan is too large for one figure to be useful. The season scores above are the practical guide: they mark September as comfortable for deserts and the south, where summer heat is the main obstacle, and as the tail end of the season in the east and north, where lakes freeze from November. For month-by-month climate, open the individual place pages; Baikonur and Shardara, for example, carry their own tables.