Our Company History
The constant factor in our company history has always been our love for Mongolia and our dedication to our customers.
TSEREN TOURS was founded and is currently run by Tseren Enebish with her husband Rik Idema. Tseren is a proud Mongolian national, she comes from the Mongolian country side, in 1992, she graduated with a degree from the Mongolian Arts Academy. Her nomadic blood still flows strongly within her and has always pushed her to seek the knowledge of what lies beyond the horizon.
Rik first came to Mongolia from The Netherlands in the spring of 1992 while on his two year world cycling tour. He found Mongolia to be one of the most untouched countries he had ever visited. Rik the traveler, soon fell in love with the nomadic spirit of Mongolia and its people.
Rik and Tseren met in Ulaanbaatar while Rik was waiting for his visa to allow him to carry on the next leg of his bike tour. Driven by their common passion and desire to travel and discover the world, they journeyed together throughout Mongolia and other Asian and European countries. They love to travel in an individual flexible way, thus being more open and allowing them to devote more attention to the local people and the various cultures they encountered.
In 1994 they started together the TSEREN TOURS Company and slowly began to organize tour parties to Mongolia. Their tours are based on their own philosophy of travel not as tourists but as sensitive adventurous explorers. Their first organised tour during that year was a bike tour around the most scenic parts of the country. Later they organized all other kinds of tours for small groups and for individuals. Sometimes tours are arranged in cooperation with European tour operators.
Because they have both lived in Mongolia and the Netherlands Rik and Tseren are an outstanding couple promoting positive experiences for visitors and hosts where Mongolian and Western cultures meet each other. Rik and Tseren want to share their awareness and respect for Mongolia – its peoples and places – with you.
1988
Tseren (born 1970) moves from the small provincial capital of Bayanhongor to the capital Ulaan-Bataar to study at the Fine Arts Academy. She completes her degree there.
1991
This spring Rik (born 1959) quits his job in the Netherlands and starts to fulfill his dream: he leaves for a 2-year bicycle tour through Europe and Asia.
1992
Tseren and Rik meet each other when Rik visits Mongolia coming from China and is stuck in Ulaanbaatar with difficulties getting his Russian visa, Tseren is just finishing her studies.
1993
Rik and Tseren start to travel through Mongolia themselves with Tseren’s 3 year old son Nyamka and enjoy the beauty of the Gobi. That summer other travelers join them for their next trip, this helps them to take their first steps in organizing tours for others.
1994
They organize their first official group tour for a Dutch tour operator: a 3-week mountain bike tour through central Mongolia. In these first years, they work in co-operation with another agency, as it is often difficult to get all the licenses and permits required. Later on they finally register their own company under the name of “Tseren Tours”. In autumn and winter of the following years they travel themselves as backpackers in China and southeast Asia as well as through Europe.
1995
They start to bring other groups of adventure seekers from Europe. The demand increases exponentially and they are starting to add tours to their portofolio.
1996
They go to the far western provinces of Mongolia to research hiking possibilities in the high Altai mountains so that they may offer original and spectacular itineraries.
1997
They organize their first hiking tour in west Mongolia by request of ex-mountain climbers.
1998
Until 1998 Rik spent the winters alone in The Netherlands, but this year Tseren and Nyamka join him and from this time the family starts to live in the two countries but their hearts are always in Mongolia.
1999
As always Rik and Tseren are guiding the group tours themselves, but off-season they still keep themselves busy by discovering new areas to show to their ever expanding client base. In October Tseren makes her long wished for horse tour to the Reindeer people in the taiga near the Russian border.
2000
In November Tseren travels overland to Holland via Siberia and stays a few weeks with the nomadic Sami in Norway.
2001
They organize their first Horse treks for groups in the Hanggai mountains and the Khentii mountains. Later other areas will follow.
2002
Tseren Tours organizes for the first time a fishing tour. In the next years, other specialized tours with such activities as canoeing and camel treks quickly follow. Also special interest tours like bird watching tours are slowly being organized.
2003
When Tseren is 5 months pregnant they make a 3-week tour including a 4-day hiking trek around the sacred and snowcapped Otgon Tenger mountain in the Hanggai mountains. Two months later in October, Tseren guides a group of Biologists from The Netherlands and still camps in the snow!
2004
Until this year Rik and Tseren have other activities besides tourism and live more than half the year in Holland, but from now on they decide to concentrate on the thing they love most: organizing tours and letting others enjoy the beauty of Mongolia. They open their own Tseren Tours office (before they had their office at home) in City center on the main road, very close to the biggest shop of the city, the State Department Store. In October Tseren travels with her now 9 months old son Dalaikhuu to the Kazakh area in western Mongolia to see the Eagle Festival, a tour of 18 days and 3800 km.
2005
In June they move their offices to the present and bigger location just east of the State Department Store. Later that month Tseren Tours organizes two concerts of the famous Inner Mongolian singer Urna in the Opera and Ballet Theatre on her first visit to Mongolia.
2006
Tseren Tours works with a foreign publisher on the free ‘Mongolia Expat’ magazine. In October and November Tseren travels with her newborn, 2 months old son ,Altaikhuu to the east and southwest Mongolia covering about 3600km.
In Mongolian, we say “Ayan Zamdaa Sain Yavaarai !” – Happy Traveling !
We Hope To Hear From You Soon !
