When to come, and what to come for
Come between Nauryz — the 21st of March — and the middle of May, or between September and the middle of October. If you can only pick one month, pick April.
Which of the two is yours depends on what you came for, because the thing about this city is how little of it agrees with the rest. You can ski in the morning and watch ballet in the evening. Drink tea with milk the way it is drunk here, or specialty coffee pulled to the same standard as anywhere in Europe. Eat a hearty plate of something local at lunch and sit down to fine dining at night.
You can spend the day at a canyon people compare to the Grand Canyon and be back under the city lights by evening, at a table with coffee and pastries. Paddle-board at Kapchagay, or swim in a pool in town. Book a tennis court at Gorky, or find your way into the padel scene, which has arrived here properly. And after a day in the mountains there is Arasan, the bathhouse this city is genuinely legendary for.
Which is why the question is not really when should I come. It is what do I want to experience — answer that first and the month answers itself.
Late March to mid-May: Nauryz, and the spring that follows
My favourite stretch of the year runs from Nauryz — the 21st and 22nd of March — to the middle of May. The city comes outdoors again, the mountains are still white above a green town, and everything that closed for winter opens.
April is the gem inside that window. If you can only pick one month, pick that one.
September and the first half of October
The other window, and the one that surprises people. Almaty has a great many trees, and when they turn, the whole city goes yellow. The terrenkur along Luganskogo — a path that follows the river under a roof of trees, and one locals actually use — is where that is most obvious.
The botanical garden is the same thing collected on purpose — a hundred hectares of trees, and October is when they do their best work. Stay into the second half of the month and the birches at Ak-Kayin go white on gold for a week or two.
Take the cable car up to Shymbulak in this window if you take it at all. The ride is stunning at any time of year; over autumn colour it is something else.
Once you have picked a month
The rest of this guide is built around the same question. What is worth doing, which museums to take in, and which walks are worth the morning if you came for the mountains. Where the coffee is and what to eat that is actually ours if you came to sit down. And the practical things to sort out before you land, whichever month you land in.
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