From US$ 1,400 /person
Kalash Valley Tour
Eight days into the Kalash valleys of Chitral — Bumburet, Rumbur and Birir, and a culture found nowhere else on earth.
View trip & itineraryChitral lies in the Hindu Kush, in a different watershed from the Karakoram Highway, with its own passes, its own seasons and its own calendar. In three of its side valleys — Bumburet, Rumbur and Birir — live the Kalasha, the last people in Pakistan practising a polytheist religion that predates Islam in the region. UNESCO added their traditions to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2018.
Their year turns on festivals: Chilam Joshi in mid-May, Uchal in late August and Choimus in December, and we run departures timed to each. Chitral is reached by a flight over the Hindu Kush that depends on the weather, or by road through the Lowari Tunnel, and at about 1,500 metres it is one of the few trips in the north where altitude is not a concern.
