Kazakhstan Travel Guide - Getting Around

Air Astana (website: www.airastana.com) operates frequent domestic flights. While Air Astana does maintain aircraft to European JAR-145 standards, travellers should note that maintenance procedures for some aircraft operating internally may not conform to internationally accepted standards.

Domestic airports include Astana (website: www.astanaairport.com), Almaty (website: www.almatyairport.com), Kyzylorda, Oral and Aktau.

River trips can be taken in Semipalatinsk on the River Irtysh.

There are two TurkSib trains leaving Chimkent daily, one to Tashkent (Uzbekistan) and the other to Novosibirsk (Russian Federation), stopping at destinations in between. The cost of rail travel in Kazakhstan is minimal in comparison with Western Europe and there are regular connections between all the main centres. Queues at stations to buy a ticket can be long and passengers should bring their own food and drink for the journey. It may be advisable for foreign visitors to travel by bus between cities, owing to an increase in robberies on trains.

Traffic drives on the right. There is a reasonable network of roads in Kazakhstan connecting all the towns and regional centres. Petrol supplies are reasonably reliable in comparison with other Central Asian republics.

Bus: There are regular bus connections between all the main cities of Kazakhstan. However, visitors should be aware that bus maintainence is generally poor.

Taxi: These are available in all Kazakh cities. Travellers should not use unlicensed taxis.

Car hire: Available in Almaty and Astana and at the airports.

Documentation: An International Driving Permit is required.

Almaty is served by trolleybuses and buses.