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Visiting Oymyakon, the coldest inhabited place on earth – My Experience

“Nothing in moderation” That’s my motto. So visiting Oymyakon was a dream come true for me. I’m obsessed with extremes. If you’re going to climb a mountain, make it the highest one. Run a marathon? Make it an ultramarathon across the Sahara. Do a spot of traveling? Let’s see every country! That, combined with the concept of the ‘Ultimate Explorer’s Grand Slam‘ (every country, 7 summits, both the North Pole and South Pole) meant I HAD HAD HAD to visit the Coldest Inhabited place on earth – Oymyakon. If you want to join my Oymyakon Group tour in February 2027, you can see that HERE. And read on to see about my first group tour in February 2026:

• If you’re curious about the HOTTEST place on earth. There are kind of 2 answers. Hottest average per year (Dallol, Danakil Depression, Ethiopia/Eritrea), and peak hottest recorded ( Death Valley, which hit 56.7°C in 1913. Although some scientists still debate whether that reading was fully accurate). I’ve been to Danakil, time to visit Death Valley!

What is the coldest place on earth? Oymyakon? Or Antarctica?

Recorded, that’s actually in Antarctica (Vostok Station, Antarctica: -89.2°C on 21 July 1983). By Satellites, High Antarctic Plateau, between Dome Argus and Dome Fuji: satellite readings around -93.2°C, later research suggesting pockets near -98°C. That’s surface temperature, not standard air temperature. I’ve been to Antarctica twice, and I can confirm. It’s pretty cold!

But, in travel terms, the coldest INHABITED place is in Siberia. In the region of Oymyakon. Where, depending on who you ask, they recorded  −71.2°C or −67.7°C. For me, that means a lot more. People actual LIVE here. They have a distinct culture. Siberia, in the midst of winter, learning about the Yakutians living there, that’s true adventure. So that’s what we did last year.

How to Visit Oymyakon?

It’s not easy! I spent about 12 months figuring out logistics, drivers, guides, translators, and then the Russian-Ukraine war, and sanctions on top of that. It was quite a lot! But we got there. Long story short?

You normally fly into Moscow, then fly onwards to the Capital of Yakulita, the city of Yakutsk. Also the coldest CITY in the world. From there it’s a 2 day drive along the ‘Road of Bones’ until you reach a town of Tomtor. You base yourself there, and then the following day, day-trip to nearby Oymyakon. You can meet the reindeers herders of the region. Stay in local homestays. Drink plenty of cheap vodka, and some not-so-delicious stodgy food in roadside ‘cafes’. It’s a wild ride.

Here you can see the famous sign with -71, and meet the fabled Keeper of the Cold! Then, you can either drive back to Yakutsk and you’re done. Or you can risk it on sketchy roads to go further, to Magadan on the coast.

What is the ‘Road of Bones’?

The road trip from Yakutsk to Oymyakon isn’t just ‘a drive’. It’s a fascinating, and morbid, journey. Gorgeous too. The “Road of Bones” is the nickname for the ‘Kolyma Highway’, one of the most infamous roads on earth. It stretches through eastern Siberia, linking Yakutsk with Magadan across thousands of kilometres of frozen wilderness.

The road was built during Stalin’s Soviet era using forced labour from Gulag prison camps. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of prisoners died from starvation, exhaustion, beatings and extreme cold while constructing it through the Arctic wilderness. The conditions were so brutal that legend says many bodies were buried directly beneath the road itself, giving rise to the name “Road of Bones”.

Today, travelling the route still feels like entering another world. Endless forests, frozen rivers, abandoned Soviet settlements, trucks crawling through blizzards and temperatures easilly dropping below -50°C in winter.

What’s life like in Oymyakon?

For a start, they don’t call themselves ‘Russians’, but ‘Yakutians’. And they refer to the white people, as ‘Russians’. And honestly, life in Oymyakon revolves almost entirely around surviving winter.

From arond October to April, temperatures regularly sit between -40°C and -60°C. Cars are left running all day because engines freeze solid if switched off. People wear multiple fur layers just to walk outside for a few minutes. Eyelashes freeze. Glasses stick to skin. Phones die almost instantly outdoors.

Daily life becomes slower and more practical. Shops are simple. Food arrives by truck over frozen roads. Most diets historically relied heavily on meat and fish because almost nothing grows there during winter.

Kids still go to school unless temperatures drop below around -52°C. That’s considered the “too cold” cutoff. Which tells you everything really.

But still, people there are incredibly normal. Families, schools, cafes, local gossip, birthdays, weddings. Just happening in conditions most humans could barely tolerate for an hour.

That’s the fascinating part of Oymyakon. It isn’t an expedition camp or research station. It’s a real village where people simply adapted to one of the harshest climates on Earth.

The summers though, completely different. +30 degrees. Hiking, horse riding, wrestling. The people here are at one with the outdoor world. Regardless of the weather!

Where Did We Sleep, and what did we eat?!

In Yakutsk, we stayed in the best hotel in the city. Proper restaurants, lovely bars, and a decent 4* hotel. I knew it’d only get worse after we left, so I wanted my group to have the last remnants of comforty they could experience before venturing onto the road of bones!

After we hit the road, we stayed in a basic rented home 1 night en route. And then something similar, but a little closer to a ‘guest house’ for 2 nights on arrival. Basic, but not awful. I’ve stayed in much worse! And most importatnly, they were all WARM. Lovely and warm. The Government pipe free heat in every home, because without it, you could die.

The food? I’m vegetarian so it was pretty awful. Cheese and bread mostly. Stodge. And for the meat eaters, the same plus nondescript meat. Often reindeer I guess. But you don’t visit Siberia for the food!

What did we see and do on our tour?

We had a day in Yakutsk, which was lovely. Wooly mammoth museum was legitimately fascinating, complete with full wooly mammoth and wooly rhino skeletons! To see ‘normal’ life ticking over in the coldest city on earth, with temperatures colder than -40 was quite something.

Then our 2 day journey down the Road of Bones commenced. And we were excited! Each day we stopped at various viewpoints, including memorials to the lives lost creating the Kolyma Highway. When we reach high points, we’d stop for photos. A quick dart out of the heated vans for the most spectacular vistas of the frozen wilderness. Sometimes we wouldn’t get dressed properly if the stop was just a couple of minutes. BIG MISTAKE. It took about 30 seconds for your nose hair and eye lashes to freeze!

At the end of the second day, a couple of hours before we reach Oymyakon, we paid a visit to the mystical Reindeer Herders of Yakutia. The life these guys live is nothing short of insane.

Reindeer Herders

Many belong to indigenous groups like the Evenki, Even or Chukchi peoples. Traditionally, they move seasonally across huge frozen landscapes with their reindeer herds, living in portable camps deep in the Siberian wilderness.

We had organised to visit their camp and ride with them. A lot of the old traditions still remain too. Fur boots, wood stoves inside tents, frozen fish and meat diets, long migrations across the snow. Soviet times changed parts of their lifestyle, but in remote areas the culture is still remarkably intact.

Amazing. And on we went.

THE POLE OF COLD – OYMYAKON

We reached Tomtor, a bigger town near Oymyakon and settled in for the night in a homestay. The next day, we finally visited what we came for. OYMYAKON. And the mythical ‘Keeper of the Cold’

We managed to see a temperature on the digital scale of -51, and on the thermometer about -60. The coldest I’ve been in any form of civilization for sure, and comparable to my experiences on the summit of Everest and at both the North and South Pole!

The Keeper of the Cold

Just as we pulled into Oymyakon proper, it was time to meet The Keeper of the Cold ‘ Chyskhaan’. He’s basically the spirit or lord of extreme cold in Yakutia and especially associated with Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold.

He is often described as the figure who “brings” or “starts” winter for the world from Oymyakon, the Pole of Cold. The idea is that the freezing air then spreads across Russia and the wider world, so winter is actually born in Yakutia. And Chyskhaan is the guy releases the cold from Siberia. Pretty ‘cool’ (I’m sorry!).

We all, excitdely, had our photos taken with him. We got our certificates to confirm we’ve been to the ‘coldest inhabited place on earth’ and then we went for a…. swim.

Swimming at the coldest place on earth!

We drove back to Tomtor. Here they have a natural phenomenon where some rivers continue flowing even during the brutal Siberian winter. The water itself is still close to freezing, but underground springs and strong currents stop sections from freezing solid. Locals sometimes swim there in winter, surrounded by snow and temperatures below -50°C, SO WE DID IT TO! Thankfully my fixers set up a ‘sauna tent’ to instantly escape to after emerging from the water.

The long road back! After another night in Tomtor, it’s time to head back to Yakutsk. 2 days drive, with a travel bucket list item ticked off. Plenty of vodka flowed in the vehicles during those drives, and the stories shared were so much fun.

Luxury in Moscow

After getting back to Yakutsk, I offered my group the chance to recover in style. Some of them then joined me for 2 nights in Moscow. I had managed to secure tickets for the opera at the Bolshoi tickets, while my mate Scott secured us tables at the former best restaurant in the world, the White Rabbit.

That combined vodka and caviar tasting. Along with a hotel overlooking Red Square, and some guided tours of Lenin’s Body, the Kremlin and its armory, and the beautiful old Soviet metro stops meant a 48 hours I’ll never forget. On the back of the Oymyakon trip? One of the best weeks of my life!

Final thoughts on visiting Oymyakon?

I know, with the war, many people would ‘t been keen on Siberia. But as my Ukrainian mate said, we visited because it’s the coldest place. Had it been in Italy, or China, we’d go there instead. It’s not a political endorsement, far from it.

From a travel perspective, it simply doesn’t get much more epic than visiting the coldest inhabited place.In Siberia. In winter. It’s a trip I’ll never forget. And Im delighted to have been able to organise it, bring people along, and pull it all off (kinda) smoothly! So much so, I’m going back in February 2027, so if you want to join me, this is your last chance. You can see that HERE: