Anyone here ever travel to Kazakhstan? How did you like it? How did you fly there?

What were you there for and what did you do?

Just curious!

It's on my list of places I want to visit at some point. I'd like to do a Silk Route type of tour across Central Asia.

Lonely Planet's forums might be a good source of info.

Drove through on the way from Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan. Quite a few airlines fly to Almaty: it's probably the easiest of the 'stans to fly to on regular airlines.

Think the cheapest way of getting to Kazakhstan (from Europe) is with Air Baltic. Used them to fly to Uzbekistan last October (one way $ 150 from Amsterdam).

There are some cool things to do in Kazakhstan but the distances between sights are huge and I think it is mostly nature and tribes (not sure).

I went to Uzbekistan because there is lots to do (old silk route cities) and all the sights are rather close and mostly linked with a good railroads.

If you are looking for a more well-known airline, Lufthansa flies to both Almaty and Astana as does Turkish.

I went to Almaty for business, so didn't do any sightseeing to speak of. There are beautiful mountains just to the south of Almaty which you could probably hike in, and across the border in Kyrgyzstan is Issyk Kul, one of the highest lakes (and deepest) lakes in the world.

They had a feature on BBC World recently about Astana and it's crazy architecture. And how the people in Almaty thought the new capital is ridiculous.

It'll help to learn some Russian.

Travel Rule Number 1: Avoid the 'stans'!!

All 'stans are not created equal. The trick is to avoid the one(s) with the active conflict going on during the period you will be there.

They are quite nice without hordes of tourists

BMI has cheap flights occasionally from ORD to ALA which is a decent start to explore Kazakhstan and offers easy transport to nearby Kyrgyzstan.

My wife is from Astana, KZ. I have travelled there quite a few times from NY. First thing i will say is you have to know Russian if you really want to be able to get around (I am actually from former USSR myself, but lived in USA for last 22 years). Without knowing Russian, be prepared for authorites and other opportunists to take advantage of you (mostly for financial gain). If you do travel, I highly recommend you go with someone who is a native Russian speaker, preferably someone from KZ itself since there are a lot of central asia-specific peculiarities that they will know how to deal with .
Other than that, the standard of living in Astana and Almaty (places i have been to) is on par with Western Cities. Regular people are very nice and friendly, but again, you have to know Russian to communicate. Everything else that applies to any Ex-USSR republic applies to Kz. Almaty and Astana are very safe, as long as you dont stick your nose into the wrong people's business .

As for flying - both LH and KLM fly to Almaty. There is Air Astana, which is excellent compared to both KLM and LH, the only problem is if you fly from USA like I do, you can not easily book it via connection, so if your USA-EUROPE flight is late and you miss your Air Astana flight, you are on your own.
LH flies to Astana (its actually the same flight as Almaty flight, just stop over) but the actual price is almost $500 more because LH is the only western airline to fly there, so they abuse their monopoly position. You can always get off at Astana even if you ticket is to ALA, but you will have to board at ALA because if you dont, they will cancel your entire ticket.

Feel free to post here if you want any more KZ info, i will gladly share what i know from my experiences.

< shrug > you can get along decently with a smile and patience. Unlike more touristed destinations you won't pay 10x or 20x a reasonable price if you don't speak Russian or Kazakh. If you are spending time, learn the Cyrillic alphabet

I'll be in TAS this fall, and looking for a couple sidetrips. Was thinking of booking TAS-ALA-TAS on a sidetrip, and then doing Almaty to Bishkek as a roundtrip by land.

Any experience with somthing like this? Entirely doable? I do speak Russian, btw.

I was in Almaty in 2007, I think. We were basically doing a stan trip and that was the starting and departing point. (Flew NW to CDG and then Air France, I think). We did some hiking from Almaty. It's a backpacking spot for Europeans and it also has skiing.

Sarmakand is a don't miss if you are in Uzbekistan. Drop dead gorgeous.

Sickest I've ever been traveling, though.

It's 3-4 hrs from Bishkek to Almaty by road in a shared car (tons available at either end, it's a very popular route, was $10 so/per person with my bad negotiation skills) including the boarder crossing (now improved from when I was there in '09) so very doable - there's just not much to see or do in either city, really, the countryside is what's great. The crossing on the east end of the Issykul has less traffic but's possible as well if you'd like to loop around - the scenery/hiking are long the lake are nice, just west of the IssykKul Lake Song-Kul is gorgeous for horseriding and relaxing in a yurt.