Brendan Daly is a Galway-based freelance travel journalist, whose work appears in the Irish Times, Irish Examiner, and Sunday Business Post. His writing brings destinations and experiences vividly to life, whether it's through evocative travel pieces or creative radio documentaries.

We asked Brendan a few questions after he’d returned from our Mountains and Deserts trekking adventure in Kazakhstan.

"The country’s dizzying diversity. In a single holiday, we hiked on a lunar-like landscape near hanging glaciers and into a red sandstone canyon that resembled a smaller version of the Grand Canyon. We trekked to glistening mountain lakes and through mountains with bare, multicoloured rock that made me think of a giant sandwich cake."

"Shortly after hiking from our camp in the Zhenishke Valley, we got sweeping views of the snow topped Tien Shan mountains. In Chinese, the name translates as ‘Mountains of Heaven’. It’s an apt description."

"Navigating the temperature fluctuations was a bit tricky. During our first night camping, the temperature dropped to around freezing. A few days later in the Charyn Canyon, it was around 40 degrees."

"During our walking tour of Almaty, a local woman welcomed us to the city and stood in for a photo with our group. In the Zhenishke Valley, a family showed us their yurt."

"When we camped, our excellent crew set up a tent with a wood-burning sauna beside the river! We could heat up in the sauna and then cool down in the river immediately after – and repeat. The sauna tent had freshly-cut wood, a basin and sauna ladle, and even a sauna whisk made from small beech branches!"

"Tourism in Kazakhstan still feels fresh. In the two days we hiked in the Zhenishke Valley and saw no other visitors – it felt like we had the place to ourselves. And it’s a country where the most fascinating experiences are often spontaneous: in scrubland next to the endlessly straight roads we were driving on one afternoon, we saw a caravan of camels just ambling along."

Brendan Daly travelled as a guest of KE Adventure on our 13-day Mountains and Deserts of Kazakhstan adventure. The journey begins and ends in Almaty, with prices starting from £2,295 per person. His insightful feature about the experience has been published in the Irish Times. You can read the full article here.