Trans Gobi Desert

In June 2024, Nomadic Road's Trans Gobi Desert expedition took a group of overlanders 2,500 kilometres across Mongolia's southern desert over 12 days. The route stuck mostly to dirt roads, with extended off-track sections where the convoy navigated by GPS across open valley floor. June is early summer in Mongolia, with the steppe just turning fully green and the long daylight hours that make the country's summer driving window unmistakable. The 2024 edition worked through the heart of the Gobi: gravel plains stretching to the horizon, low red-rock outcrops, scattered saxaul forests, and the kinds of valleys where the convoy spread out and chose its own lines. Several days the lead vehicle picked routes across open ground that had no track at all, with the rest of the convoy following at distance. Bactrian camels appeared regularly along the route, gazelles spooked at distance, and the occasional steppe eagle worked the thermals overhead. Cultural stops were a central part of the experience. The convoy spent time with several nomadic families along the route, sharing tea, dried curd and the slow conversations that Mongolian hospitality makes possible. Camps were private, often set up near small rivers or in protected valleys, with shared evening meals and the kind of star fields that only deep-desert nights deliver. The June 2024 Trans Gobi Desert expedition delivered one of Nomadic Road's signature Mongolia routes at the start of the summer driving window, with the route's full visual and cultural range on display. The June 2024 edition reinforced what makes the Trans Gobi format worth the distance: real driving across genuinely remote country, nomadic culture encountered on its own terms, and the kind of landscape scale that the standard Gobi routes only partially capture.