Holiday Information

Confirm your place with a 30% deposit by bank transfer, JazzCash, Easypaisa or card. The balance is due any time before departure, and a written receipt is issued for every payment. Mountaineering expeditions state their own deposit on the trip page, because the climbing permit and royalty are paid months ahead. The full terms are on our booking terms page.

Free date changes up to 14 days before departure where the new dates are available. Cancel 14 or more days out and your deposit is refunded in full, less bank charges. Cancel within 14 days and the deposit is credited against any trip taken within a year.

Internal flights where the itinerary uses them, hotels, listed meals, transport, sightseeing, permits and an English-speaking guide throughout — in one printed price that does not move once you have arrived. International flights, visa fees, personal equipment, tips and travel insurance are not included, and anything excluded is listed on the trip page before you book.

Six to eight weeks before departure is a comfortable default for a standard tour, which leaves room for the visa. Allow eight to twelve weeks for anything needing a No Objection Certificate or a climbing permit, because those have their own lead times and cannot be rushed. We take late bookings when we can, but do not buy non-refundable international flights before your visa is issued.

Yes, and they are a large part of what we do. Tell us your dates, your group and roughly your budget and we will build a day-by-day itinerary around them, usually within 24 hours. A private trip costs more per person than a fixed departure in a small group and less in a large one.

Yes. For international travellers we provide the letter of invitation and the supporting documents the application asks for, and walk you through the checklist. The application itself is yours to make and visa fees are paid directly to the government portal. Our Pakistan visa guide sets out the whole process.

Most applications are decided well inside a month, and many far faster, but processing times vary by nationality and by how complete the application is. Requirements also differ by passport and have been liberalised repeatedly in recent years, so check the official portal for your own country rather than relying on what someone else experienced last season. Apply six to eight weeks out and the timing looks after itself.

A No Objection Certificate is permission to enter a restricted area, and it is applied for by a licensed operator rather than by you. Standard tours through Hunza, Skardu and the Karakoram Highway do not need one. Some border zones, certain valleys and most climbing objectives do. It has a real lead time, so if your route needs an NOC we need to know at the enquiry stage, not a fortnight before you fly.

Yes, exactly. Trekking and climbing permits name every member of a party, and a mismatch between the name on a permit and the name in a passport is the kind of problem that gets resolved at a checkpoint rather than in an office. Send us your passport details as they are printed, not as you normally write them.

The northern tourist circuit — Gilgit-Baltistan, Hunza, Skardu and the Karakoram — has a security profile with very little in common with the Pakistan that appears in international news, and tens of thousands of foreign visitors travel it every season without incident. That is a statement about a region rather than a country, and our honest answer on safety explains where the distinction matters.

The road, by a wide margin. Mountain roads with long drops, no barriers and an assertive driving culture are the real hazard on any Pakistan trip, well ahead of anything else people worry about. It is also the most controllable risk, which is why we use our own vehicles and drivers rather than sub-contracted ones, and why every drive is preceded by a road check.

Women travel the northern valleys alone every season and most describe it afterwards as easier than they expected. The realistic difficulty is constant attention and staring rather than danger, and dressing locally does more to reduce it than anything else. Our guide to solo female travel in Pakistan covers what to wear and where to take more care.

Yes, and it is routine. On the Karakoram Highway and throughout Gilgit-Baltistan there are police and army checkpoints where foreign passport details are recorded, sometimes several times in a day. Carry a printed copy of your passport and visa rather than relying on a phone with a flat battery. Your guide handles the paperwork; it costs a few minutes, not a delay.

It is a well-engineered road and it is also a mountain road subject to landslides, rockfall and weather. Our drivers on the northern circuit file a road report every morning — surface, roadworks, checkpoints and whatever the trucks coming south reported overnight — and we re-order an itinerary rather than push through a bad stretch.

April to October for the northern mountains, late June to September for Karakoram trekking and expeditions, and October to March for the cultural cities of the plains. Late September and October are our own favourite weeks in the north — autumn colour, settled weather and thinner crowds. The month-by-month guide goes through all twelve.

Hunza if it is your first visit and you want green valleys, forts, cafés and easy roads. Skardu if you want cold desert, glacial scale and access to the great treks. With ten days or more, do both — the Indus road between them is one of the great drives. We compare them properly in Hunza or Skardu.

Seven days is enough for one region done properly — Hunza or Skardu, not both. Ten to fourteen days covers both without spending your holiday in a vehicle. Under five days is not worth the flights unless you are already in the country.

Fit enough to walk six to eight hours a day for a fortnight, on glacial moraine, at altitude, carrying a daypack, with no rest day you have not earned. It does not require technical skill and it does require genuine hill fitness and a tolerance for discomfort. If you can walk a long hilly day back to back on consecutive weekends without dreading the second, you are in the right territory.

Yes, and it is not included. For trekking and expeditions your policy must cover the maximum altitude on your itinerary, and above 5,000 m it must include helicopter evacuation and repatriation. We may ask to see it before departure. This is the single most common gap we find, and a helicopter off the Baltoro is billed to the person it lifts.

Some of it. Hunza and Skardu are reachable through the winter and are beautiful under snow, with far fewer visitors, but many hotels close, side valleys ice in and the high passes including Khunjerab shut. Deosai is inaccessible. Winter trips are best treated as a different holiday rather than a cheaper version of the summer one.

In Islamabad, yes. In Gilgit-Baltistan only SCOM works properly — the mainstream networks stop being useful around Chilas — so buy a SCOM SIM once you are north. Hotel wifi in Karimabad and Skardu is usable, and on any trekking route there is no coverage at all. See SIM cards and staying connected.

Intermittent north of Gilgit. Hotels run generators or solar and generally have power in the evening and overnight, but daytime cuts are normal. Bring two power banks and a multi-socket extension. Sockets are type C and D at 230 V, so a European two-pin plug fits most of them.

Loose clothing covering shoulders and knees, for men and women both. Women should carry a scarf for shrines, mosques and conservative villages, though covering the hair as a matter of course is not expected of foreign visitors. A locally bought shalwar kameez is comfortable, inexpensive and makes you unremarkable, which is the point. Baltistan is more conservative than Hunza.

Alcohol is prohibited for Muslims and tightly restricted for everyone else. A few licensed hotels in the large cities serve foreign passport holders; in Gilgit-Baltistan it is effectively unavailable and bringing it in is not worth the trouble it creates. Plan for a dry trip and treat anything else as a surprise.

Bring cash. Cards work in Islamabad hotels and some in Skardu and Karimabad, and almost nowhere else. ATMs exist in Gilgit and Skardu and are not always stocked or working, so draw what you need before heading into the valleys. US dollars and euros exchange easily in the cities; change enough at the start rather than relying on finding a bureau in a side valley.

Landscapes freely, and people only after asking. Do not photograph checkpoints, bridges, military installations or airports — this is taken seriously and a camera pointed at the wrong thing turns a routine stop into a long one. Ask before photographing women, and accept the answer.

Food on our trips is prepared in hotels and by our own camp crews, and stomach trouble is uncommon among our travellers. Drink bottled or treated water and skip roadside salad. Vegetarian is straightforward everywhere and we cater for it as standard; vegan, gluten-free and allergies are all workable if you tell us at the booking stage rather than at the first dinner.

Yes. Solo travellers join our fixed departures every season and are often a large share of a trekking group. A single room is available on any trip, and a group departure removes the parts of independent travel that wear people down — transport, checkpoints, accommodation and altitude planning — while still leaving you a room of your own.