Money, SIM cards and staying online in Kyrgyzstan

Two facts shape the practical side of a trip. The currency is the som, and almost everything outside the larger towns is settled in som notes, in cash. And mobile coverage is good where people live and absent where you are going. Both are easy to deal with on a first morning in Bishkek and awkward at 3,000 m at the end of a long drive.

Cash is the default

Cards work in the capital: hotels, supermarkets, restaurants and most cafes take them, and the same is broadly true in Osh and Karakol. Almost everything else is cash. Yurt camps at Song-Kul, Tash-Rabat and Kel-Suu are paid in notes, and so are entry fees at the gate at Ala-Archa, Burana, Skazka canyon, Grigorievka, Manas Ordo, Besh-Tash, Sary-Chelek and Saimaluu-Tash, with a separate vehicle charge at Sary-Chelek and a tent charge at Saimaluu-Tash. Drivers, horsemen, guides and village guesthouses are the same. Keep small notes: a guesthouse will not have change for a large one.

Where to draw it

Cash machines and exchange offices sit in the cities and district centres: Bishkek, Osh, Karakol, Naryn, Jalal-Abad, Talas, Cholpon-Ata. The rule from there is simple — top up in the last town, because there is nothing after it.

• No bank in Jyrgalan, Kyzyl-Oi or the Altyn-Arashan valley, and no cash machine at Song-Kul, Tash-Rabat or Kel-Suu.
• At-Bashy is the last place with shops before Tash-Rabat and Kel-Suu.
• Sary-Mogol is supplied from Osh, and Talas is the last stop before Besh-Tash.

A local SIM card

A local prepaid SIM is the most useful thing you will buy in the first hour. Take your passport, since numbers are registered against a document. Several networks compete and their coverage differs: the one that is strongest on the north shore of Issyk-Kul is not always the one that works in the Alay valley, so ask your driver which network they use on your route. If your phone supports an eSIM, one bought before you fly is a fair fallback for the first hours, but a physical local SIM is what keeps working in the mountains.

Where the signal stops

There is no usable signal for most of the Ala-Kul trek and none on the pass, and the same goes for Altyn-Arashan, Besh-Tash park and Chatyr-Kul.

• Patchy at Song-Kul, unreliable at Kel-Suu and off the highway at Tash-Rabat.
• Thin off the highway at Suusamyr, in the Kyzyl-Oi canyon, above the cliffs at Jeti-Oguz and in the forest at Grigorievka.

Two things follow. Agree pickup times and meeting points before you drive up a valley, because you will not renegotiate them from the top. And download offline maps and booking details while the tarmac lasts.

Wi-Fi, power and charging

Wi-Fi is normal in city hotels and common in village guesthouses, where it is usually the family's home connection rather than a business line: fine for messages, less so for a video call in the evening. Yurt camps are another matter. There is no mains power at Song-Kul, Tash-Rabat or Kel-Suu, and camps in gorges like Grigorievka run without dependable electricity. Some have a generator or solar panel for a few hours after dinner, but treat that as a bonus rather than a plan.

Bring a power bank sized for two or three days off grid, and a second for a trek. Cold drains a battery faster than you expect up here, so keep the phone in a jacket pocket overnight. Satellite internet kits can be rented in Bishkek with a vehicle: unnecessary for most trips, useful on a long self-drive.

The first morning, in order

Draw a stock of som, buy and test a SIM, split the cash between two places, and check your offline maps are downloaded, not merely opened once. Then top up at every district centre on the way out. What a trip costs covers what those cash days go on, and getting around explains the roads that put you out of reach of a cash machine and a signal at once.