Independent holiday on Lake Baikal, recommendations from an aborigine

This article is about popular places for camping with tents and car camping on the shores of Lake Baikal. The largest lake in Russia is a good choice for “savages”! There are plenty of places where you can stay on Lake Baikal with tents. Camping with tents on Lake Baikal is the best way to feel the atmosphere of this place and see the most incredible landscapes and places. There is a great variety of natural beauty in the vicinity of Lake Baikal.

Tourists set up tent camps both on the outskirts of villages and in the wild. On the shore it is easy to find parking areas with fire pits, tent decks, tables, benches and wooden toilets. No matter what - but still comfort! If you like uninhabited places and are ready for bad roads, go to the taiga northeast of the lake.

I will deliberately exclude the surroundings of Listvyanka from the descriptions, although you can relax with tents there too. But Listvyanka is the most visited place on Baikal and most likely those who like to camp in tents will be interested in less crowded areas.

Step-by-step instructions on how to get to Baikal in 2022 and save on transport

There are myths that a trip to Lake Baikal is extremely expensive. Here is an advertisement for 2 tours of Lake Baikal. The price of a trip to Lake Baikal is 89,000 rubles. for the most expensive and 75,000 rub. cheaper. Vouchers are offered for 8 days. Apparently in the summer (although this is not known). This, comrades, is more expensive than going to Turkey.

Let's try to calculate the price of an independent holiday on Lake Baikal. We will include in our trip the points indicated in these tours around Lake Baikal. First we will visit Ulan-Ude and the Ivolginsky datsan, then we will go to Baikal. We will fly from Moscow. The route is not optimal, but let's repeat after the organizers.

What other advantages are there in an independent holiday on Lake Baikal besides being cheap?

I’ll give you a few reasons that the travel agency won’t tell you about. Honestly and without embellishment.

You can stay in the places you like (and don’t like) as much as you want or have planned.
Your holiday will be individual. You won't go with a crowd of 30 people. You won't have to run faster to get to the tourist bus. You choose when to have a snack, where to go. Completely free to choose. Depend only on your own wishes.
You can choose your own hotel or guest house. Really good, not the one the travel agency would book. You can relax inexpensively in a hotel with a balcony overlooking the glorious Sea. Or rent a private house with a kitchen and amenities. Below is a photo of the guest house where he lived. It’s very nice, there is a kitchen (which is convenient when traveling with children), and the area around is well-equipped. It would be hard to call this place a hostel. Living costs for the whole family range from 1,500 to 2,000 rubles per day. In an expensive hotel you will have to pay 15,000 - 20,000 rubles. But you are free to choose for yourself.
If you come by car with tents in the summer, then you don’t need a hotel. Instead of air conditioning there will be Baikal itself. Take as many things as you want. Go wherever you want.
If you don’t like walking under the scorching sun somewhere on the Small Sea, it’s easy to change your location. Independent recreation is, first of all, active recreation. You are in no way tied to your place of residence or to other people. With an organized vacation, you will rest only where the travel company accommodates you.
It will be more convenient to relax on Lake Baikal with children on your own. Agree, it’s difficult to constantly hurry up children when tourist transport is waiting.
The price of a holiday on Lake Baikal in winter is cheaper due to lower transport prices. But you will have to live in hotels, so there is nothing to do as a savage on Lake Baikal in winter. Prices for hotels near Lake Baikal are lower in the spring, before the May holidays.

Olkhon

The equipped parking lot “Flower under the Snow” is located in the village area of Khuzhir, the administrative center of Olkhon. To set up a tent, you need to pay five hundred rubles (price per day). A parking space for a car costs three hundred and fifty rubles per day. Facilities provided: community kitchen, clean water for drinking, washing facilities and toilets. Wild recreation on the Sarai coast is prohibited, because it became part of the national park. Lighting a fire or leaving trash is also prohibited by law. Now tourists are forced to pay to stay in these picturesque places. The cost of living (per day) is fifty and one hundred rubles. A smaller amount is intended for local residents. There are no amenities on the coast.

Choice of transport. How to go to Baikal: by car or by train/plane?

If you arrived by plane or train and are not so mobile. Holidays with family are cheaper by car. Single holidays are cheaper by train or plane (mainly due to the price of petrol).

Traveling by plane or train has an undeniable advantage: you don’t get tired of the road.

Driving by car will take about a day for 1000-1200 kilometers. On the other hand, you can look at cities and attractions along the way. For example, the Krasnoyarsk pillars in the west or the datsan of Rinpoche Bagsha in Ulan-Ude in the east of Lake Baikal.

Train or plane tickets must be purchased in advance or wait for special offers. With a car you can go on a trip whenever you want. You can save money on accommodation in the summer - a tent on the shore of Lake Baikal costs nothing.

Independent holiday by car. Holidays for “savages” on Lake Baikal.

The logistics hub (or center) on Lake Baikal is Irkutsk. This city has the largest selection of transport and opportunities for independent travel. In addition, Irkutsk is located only 70 kilometers from Lake Baikal.

If you decide to go by car, plan a route to your vacation spot. Yandex or Google maps are good navigators. It is optimal to use the 2GIS program (double-gis). The program works on phones, tablets, laptops, and takes up little space. We download maps of Irkutsk, Irkutsk region, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia and North Baikal in advance. The program plots a route to the desired point when there is no Internet.

There is also such a program as SASPlanet for detailed navigation in places where there are no roads or communications.

Where to go by car, how to choose a parking place? I will talk about this in separate articles for each of the tourist places.

Holidays by car will bring more impressions than by train or plane.

If you are relaxing as “savages” on Lake Baikal, I will tell you how to stay in this or that tourist place. It is important not to forget that “man is the king of beasts, only the beasts do not know about it.” Avoid remote places far from housing. A tent will not protect you from either a bear or elk.

There are not many beaches on Baikal. The lake is of tectonic origin. After the construction of the Irkutsk hydroelectric power station, the water rose several meters and flooded many beaches. For example, in Listvyanka. Often the shores are sheer cliffs several hundred meters high. Take a boat and swim to the beach isolated by rocks. In this case, beware of rockfalls.

Always keep an ax or hacksaws handy. This will help both in setting up the camp and in defense. If you meet an animal, do not run away under any circumstances. Don't attack. Try to raise your arms and show that you are bigger and taller. Knock loudly with metal things, this will scare away the animals. A regular rocket launcher works well. Together with the charges, it weighs 150 grams, but it will scare off the beast 100%. In a hopeless situation, you should shoot a rocket launcher at the beast itself, and it will run away.

Don't forget about almost invisible enemies - ticks and snakes.

It is better to place tents near trees and tie them down. It is better to place it behind a car or a hill to protect it from wind and sun. It is quite difficult to predict where the wind will blow on Lake Baikal.

Take tiles and dry rations with you. Making fires on Lake Baikal is strictly prohibited. If you get caught, you'll pay a fine.

How to choose a hotel on Lake Baikal on your own without a travel agency in 2022

As a local resident, I often travel to and from Lake Baikal to various points on the map of Russia. Therefore, I can offer you proven methods that I constantly use myself. I often heard reviews from tourists about how they got to Baikal on their own.

First, select the points of departure and arrival.

If you are a foreigner from Europe or America or a resident of the central part of Russia, it is wiser to start your journey from Moscow. This way you can save a lot on tickets. You must take a plane ticket to Irkutsk or Ulan-Ude. If you travel by train, you can get all the way to Lake Baikal. Don't forget that a train trip is 3.5 days, and a plane flight is 5-6 hours to Irkutsk. To Ulan-Ude it is four days or 7 hours of flight.

Depending on the purpose of your trip, you should choose a hotel. If you are planning an active holiday, it is cheaper to book hotels in your holiday destination.

There is a good selection of hotels and hostels in Irkutsk or Ulan-Ude. If you are planning to go to Listvyanka for a day and walk around Irkutsk, then it is better to take a hotel in Irkutsk. Prices start from 500 rubles and above depending on the tourist season.

We decided to relax in Listvyanka itself - rent housing right there, and not in Irkutsk. The price of housing can start from 500-800 rubles per day. In Listvyanka, in addition to numerous hotels, hostels, rooms, there are also houses on the shore. Nowadays it is called a common fashionable phrase “guest house”. Such housing is located at the source of the Angara River from Lake Baikal. A good cheaper housing option would be to rent a house or room in the village of Nikola near Listvyanka. The traffic in Listvyanka is quite busy. If you like silence, rent housing on the streets in the depths of the village. At least 100 meters from the shore. I suggest looking for housing options on Yandex and Google maps, in 2GIS. And of course, favorite services like Booking, TripAdvisor and others. House owners often publish advertisements for renting houses on the social networks VKontakte or Odnoklassniki, Avito and Yula services. Google it.

On the Small Sea (MRS) and Olkhon Island, in addition to tourist centers, they rent housing from local residents. Just like in Listvyanka, residents are building additional guest houses on their site. Until recently, in the village of Khuzhir (Olkhon Island), living in a private house was the only option for renting housing. The price of such housing starts from 800 rubles per day per family.

In the cities of Severobaikalsk, Baikalsk, Slyudyanka, it is possible to rent a city apartment or room to live near Lake Baikal. There are hotels and guest houses.

On the Barguzin Peninsula (Chivyrkuisky Bay), and in other places of “wild recreation” there are options to rent a house for living. At recreation centers you can rent a place for a car, tent and fire for money.

In summer, there is a free option to “put up a tent” everywhere. In nature reserves and nature reserves, you will have to pay from 200 to 1000 rubles for a place to pitch a tent. Often, for this fee, they will provide firewood and an equipped camp site (bench, table, fire pit with barbecue).

In winter, you can only put up a tent with the proper level of preparation. Snow, wind and frost are a serious test.

For active recreation on Lake Baikal, tourists hire minibuses or jeeps to deliver things to Lake Baikal. In this case, you can live comfortably as “savages”. Rent equipment and inventory from the owners of such counters for the delivery of tourists. The price of such transportation starts from 1000 rubles, depending on the distance of the route. You will have to pay a deposit to rent equipment.

Sometimes you can rent a winter hut on the shores of Lake Baikal and feel like a real hermit far from civilization. They will deliver to the winter quarters by water in the summer and by car over the ice in the winter. To deliver tourists and their equipment to any point of Lake Baikal, you can hire khivus trucks in the village of Listvyanka. In winter this is the only safe form of transport.

The situation is similar in Ulan-Ude on the eastern half of Lake Baikal. Optimal for price and quality (if you don’t save on every penny) choose the Buryatia hotel. But you can only rent a hotel in Ulan-Ude if you are traveling around the city or its environs. In Enkhaluk, Goryachinsk, Gremyachinsk it is better to take places in local holiday homes or guest houses.

Life hack: you can use the option to reimburse you 50% of the cost of your child’s holiday in a children’s camp in the Baikal region, and you can travel around Baikal yourself. Valid from May 2022.

How to choose tickets.

The author uses the Yandex-schedule service. The service is simple, easily accessible and offers a variety of transport routes. Flights from Moscow to Irkutsk by plane, depending on the time of day and airline, cost the same as reserved seat seats on a train.

Small Sea

The seventy-six kilometer coastline is the crown of a beach holiday. Warm water, smooth entry into the water, wonderful nature. The coastline stretches from Sakhyurt to Kurm. Tents are permitted on campsites. The pleasure is not free - from two hundred to five hundred rubles per day. Wild recreation is also possible on the Small Sea. However, not all places are suitable for driving. Some trails are closed to vehicles. The further from the village, the fewer vacationers. The winds on the coast of the Small Sea are fierce, so you need to secure your tent well.

Where to go? Tourist places on Lake Baikal.

From Irkutsk it is more convenient to travel to the North of Baikal, to the Southern and Western coasts of the Great Lake. By plane, train or shuttle bus you can get to other large cities: Ulan-Ude in the east, Severobaikalsk in the north, Slyudyanka, Baikalsk, Kultuk in the south. The tourist areas on Lake Baikal closest to Irkutsk are:

Listvyanka village;
Bolshoye Goloustnoye village;
Maloe More and Olkhon Island.
The southern tip of Lake Baikal (the village of Kultuk, the cities of Slyudyanka and Baikalsk, the village of Vydrino).

Tourist areas closest to Ulan-Ude:

The Selenga Delta at its confluence with Baikal and Proval Bay.
Enkhaluk village, Posolsky Sor (Kultushnaya).

To the north from Ulan-Ude there is a road to Goryachinsk, Gremyachinsk and the Barguzin Peninsula.

According to the author’s personal experience, the best tourist infrastructure is in the village of Listvyanka. In this locality there is an option to relax with great comfort. There is a Limnological Museum, a Nerpinarium, and the possibility of traveling around the lake itself (on ships, boats and even hovercraft).

If you want to swim (not in the icy water of open Baikal), sunbathe. If the safety of a vacation with children is important, then you won’t find anything better than Proval Bay and Posolsky Sor. There is warm water (in summer) and a safe depth of hundreds of meters all around (1-1.5 meters). It is impossible to drown.

Peschanaya Bay

An excellent place for trekking on Lake Baikal is Peschanaya Bay. If Listvyanka is compared with Anapa, then Peschanaya is popularly called the Baikal Riviera. The bay is famous for its turquoise water and light sandy beach. The Siberian taiga is like a cherry on the cake, making the landscape unique.

The bay is located near the village of Bolshie Koty. You can get there by hovercraft from Irkutsk in 4 hours or from Listvyanka in 2.5. There are also regular buses from Irkutsk to Bolshoye Goloustnoye. From there you will reach Peschanaya along the hiking trail.

In the bay itself, on the shore, tents cannot be set up for environmental reasons, but in the neighboring Babushka and Sukhaya bays you can easily set up a camp. You can also put up a tent on the territory of the camp site with the same name “Peschanaya Bay” and “Baikal Dunes” for an additional fee.

A beautiful view of Peschannaya opens from the Obozreniye Rock, whose height reaches 260 meters. On the way, you will definitely see a local landmark - bizarre stilted trees standing as if on long legs. This occurs due to sandy soil being blown away from tree roots.

The best season to visit is from June to September. In July and August, if you're lucky, you'll swim in the cool waters of Lake Baikal.

Holidays on Lake Baikal in summer or winter?

You can relax on Lake Baikal all year round. In winter, spring, summer and autumn. Depending on why you are going to the lake. Museums, places of recreation, hotels (except summer ones) are open all year round. Until mid-July (and sometimes until August), the water in Baikal is 1 - 2 C° and only “walruses” will be able to swim. At the end of July - beginning of August, the water temperature is optimal. In the fall and until mid-February, until the ice on Baikal became icy, the temperature near the lake was comfortable. Sometimes the snow melts. Beyond the nearest hills the temperature is already -30, and on Lake Baikal – 10. Since February, the temperature has been optimal for traveling on the ice of Lake Baikal. In spring to mid-summer near Lake Baikal it is noticeably cooler due to ice and cold water.

I really love active holidays on Lake Baikal in December. Few people, quite warm, fresh wind and sun. Go skiing. What else is needed for happiness?

If you are vacationing with children, it is preferable to do it in the summer. Summer holidays with children on Lake Baikal include: swimming, boating, catamarans or ships, beach holidays. If the children are older, it is worth traveling in winter. Walking on the purest Baikal ice, what could be more exciting?

Listvyanka

The village is called Baikal Anapa, probably because of its popularity among tourists. In addition to guest houses, there are paid tent cities. Rest in the paid zone will not be cheap - fifty rubles per hour. Free clearings can be found to the north. There are free places for lunch here. But there are no toilets here. You will have to dig the toilet yourself.

What to take with you to Baikal.

I will devote a separate article to training. I will mention the main thing.

Be sure to take warm clothes with you. The ice on Lake Baikal melts in May, sometimes in June. The June sun will be mercilessly baking with a temperature of +35 °C. You can stand near Lake Baikal for a couple of minutes. After which you will become numb. Until the end of June, I advise you to take a warm down jacket or winter jacket to the shore. Fishing on Lake Baikal is prohibited. Nobody bothers you to do this on rivers and lakes on the way to the Lake outside the reserves.
When traveling, you should take mosquito repellent and, especially, spider repellent with you.
Bring sunscreen and burn remedies. An umbrella and a wide-brimmed hat will not be superfluous; you will quickly burn in the sun. The water reflects light, so you will burn even faster when swimming.
Pack a first aid kit according to the recommendations of the Ministry of Health. A bear in the taiga will not cure.
Take a medical insurance card with you; medical assistance may be needed suddenly.
If you are traveling by car, it is better to take a portable toilet with you. Many places along the coast are steppe; you can be seen from several kilometers away.

The only thing you don't need to take with you is water. On Lake Baikal, crystal clear water is drunk directly from the lake (outside populated areas). This is also due to the fact that the number of ships on Lake Baikal is small, and some of the tourist centers are closed.

Medical insurance.

Baikal is a harsh place. Lots of rocks, cold water, taiga. Life and health insurance will not be superfluous. I suggest spending a couple of hundred rubles. Insurance is needed.

So-called “tick insurance” is required. If you are bitten by a tick, you can get tested and receive treatment and medicine for free. Insurance costs 200-300 rubles, and treatment costs several tens of thousands of rubles. Insurance should include medical facilities closest to the vacation spot. Check it.

Mobile connection. Is it worth taking walkie-talkies to Lake Baikal?

All settlements along Lake Baikal have mobile communications and mobile Internet. Check the availability of Wi-Fi at the hotels where you will be staying. A smart decision would be to take SIM cards from several telecom operators. One of the SIM cards will work. On the part of the route where there are no settlements, there will be no communication.

For communication on the water and in the forest, it is worth taking a walkie-talkie with you. Option: Baofeng walkie-talkies - they are inexpensive. Or make a SI-B antenna and a walkie-talkie on your car. Then you can listen to interesting events on the road and the obscene language of truck drivers. The communication range on water is several kilometers.

What should you do first if you live in tents on the shore of Lake Baikal as savages?

It's worth strengthening the tents well. There are 4 main strong winds on Baikal: Sarma (from the west), Kultuk (from the south), Barguzin (from the east), Verkhovik (from the north). Strong winds blow from the ridges in the north, south and east of Lake Baikal. You will search for several kilometers for poorly fortified tents and other things. Or they will be carried away to Baikal. Don't forget to tie your boats down, even if you take them ashore.

Precautionary measures.

Check yourself every 4 hours . There are a lot of ticks on Lake Baikal, some of them can infect you with encephalitis or borrelosis. It is advisable to get vaccinated before traveling. If you pull out a tick, do not throw it away or burn it. Place it in a glass jar and immediately go to Irkutsk or Ulan-Ude (whichever is closer). Submit the tick for analysis.
Don't swim too far in cold water . It can cause muscle cramps and even cardiac arrest.
Baikal is a wild nature area. You can easily meet bears, wolves or lynx . Try not to walk alone in the taiga. Animals usually don’t attack, but it’s better not to tempt fate.
Never climb rocks without preparation.
Do not walk through the taiga or forest at night . This is a very traumatic activity. Damage can occur from falling on rocks or tree branches.
If you need medical help, try to get it in large populated areas x . If time permits. As a rule, in small villages there are no normal conditions for treatment. The best medical institutions near Lake Baikal are located in the city of Irkutsk. It’s already worse in Ulan-Ude.

What you can't do on Lake Baikal.

Until September 1, it is strictly forbidden to light fires or barbecue. Alternatively, you can use a portable stove or make a burner in a tent. In specially equipped places, after paying, you can light fires. They will even give you firewood.
fish and appear with fishing gear closer than 500 meters from Lake Baikal.
put up tents where it is prohibited.
litter.
cut and saw trees and bushes.

Where to buy excursions around Lake Baikal if you travel on your own?

You can buy excursions around Lake Baikal on the Russian Railways website (this is the Circum-Baikal Railway) (expensive). You can travel along the same route by regular transport, by jeep or by water.

You can buy excursions along the water surface of the Lake on the website of the East Siberian Shipping Company. This is more reliable than that of private owners at the pier.

In Listvyanka, buy a place on boats or ships. You can buy tours directly at the pier.

As I already said, you can buy (or negotiate) jeep tours through the taiga to the shores of Lake Baikal.

It would be wise to buy a tour to the Barguzin Peninsula and Ushkany Islands. It is difficult to get there without a car or ship.

Places worth visiting besides Baikal.

In addition to Baikal, the cities of Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude, I advise you to visit the Tunka Valley. In the valley you can relax either in the village of Arshan or in the Nile Desert. If you have time, be sure to visit Mongolia.

You can relax on Lake Baikal inexpensively if you organize your vacation yourself. A big plus is that we speak our native language. You can easily find out where and how to get there and ask for help.

If you want to ask in more detail about routes, places, write in the comments, I will try to answer.

I’ll tell you more about holidays on Lake Baikal in tourist places in the following articles.

Photo gallery of Baikal Island

Service stations and gas stations

Traveling around Siberia and the Lake Baikal region, you can be convinced of the comfort of automobile tourism. In every locality there is a service station where your car’s oil will be changed, breakdowns will be repaired, etc.

If you drive along the highway, you will not have problems with fuel - there are gas stations literally at every step. But as soon as you drive away from the highway, the frequency of gas stations decreases critically - calculate the amount of fuel in advance so as not to stop due to an empty gas tank.