Hunza & Skardu Tour 2026-27

Dates & availability

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At a glance

• 10 days across two valleysFour days in Skardu, four in Hunza, and the Karakoram Highway in between.
• Easy — light walking onlyShort hikes at Soq and Naltar. No trekking and no altitude to speak of.
• Small groups, 2 to 12Ages 10 and up, so it works for families as well as couples.
• Skardu, Hunza and NaltarShigar Fort, Shangrila, Attabad Lake, the Passu Cones and the Khunjerab Pass.
• Hotels and lakeside resortsComfortable rooms throughout, several of them on the water.
• Spring blossom or autumn colourApril and May for the orchards, September and October for the light.

Day by day

1. 1Day 1Arrival in Islamabad

   

   Met at Islamabad International Airport and transferred to the hotel. The rest of the day is yours — Islamabad is green, quiet and easy to walk, and the Margalla Hills are a short drive if you want a first look at mountains. We meet in the evening to go through the ten days ahead and check that anyone hoping to hike has brought shoes for it.

2. 2Day 2Fly to Skardu, and the Shigar valley

   

   The morning flight to Skardu is one of the great scheduled flights in the world, threading between eight-thousanders with K2 visible on a clear day. On landing we drive out to Shigar Fort, a seventeenth-century raja's residence built of stone and poplar wood and restored into a working hotel, then on to the Sarfaranga cold desert — genuine sand dunes at 2,200 metres with the Karakoram standing behind them, which is as strange as it sounds. Quad bikes are available if you want them. Overnight in Skardu.

3. 3Day 3Skardu — Manthoka Falls and the fort above the town

   

   A slower day exploring the Skardu basin. We drive out to Manthoka Waterfall in Kharmang, a hundred-odd feet of very cold water falling into a green side valley that makes an excellent place to sit for an hour. In the afternoon there is the option of walking up to Kharpocho Fort, which sits on the rock above Skardu with the whole braided course of the Indus laid out below it — the climb takes about an hour and is best timed for sunset.

4. 4Day 4Kachura — Shangrila, Upper Kachura and Soq Valley

   

   The lakes day. Shangrila is the famous one, a small green-blue lake with a red-roofed resort on its shore that has been on Pakistani postcards for fifty years. Upper Kachura, ten minutes further on, is quieter, deeper and better for a walk around. Then we head into Soq Valley, a farming side valley of poplars, water channels and stone-walled fields, for a gentle hike and an afternoon in villages that see far fewer visitors than the lakes do.

5. 5Day 5Skardu to Hunza on the Karakoram Highway

   

   A full day of driving and one of the best you will ever have. The road follows the Indus down out of Baltistan to the highway, then turns north into the Hunza gorge. We stop where the light asks us to — Ashtaq Nala, the junction where the Karakoram, Himalaya and Hindu Kush ranges meet within sight of one another, and the Rakaposhi viewpoint, where the mountain's 7,788-metre south face rises almost directly above the roadside. Into Karimabad by evening, with time to walk the tourist street before dinner.

6. 6Day 6Central Hunza — the forts, Hoper Glacier and Duikar

   

   The fullest day of the trip. Baltit Fort first, the 700-year-old seat of the Mirs of Hunza looking down the valley, then Altit Fort, older still at around 1,100 years and the oldest surviving monument in Gilgit-Baltistan, with its restored royal garden and the lanes of the old settlement around it. In the afternoon we cross to Hoper Valley, where a short walk brings you to the snout of a grey, groaning glacier. We finish at Duikar above Eagle's Nest for the sunset over Rakaposhi, Ultar Sar, Diran and Golden Peak.

7. 7Day 7The Khunjerab Pass and the Chinese border

   

   North again, and up. The road climbs through Gulmit and Passu — where the Passu Cones stand in a row of serrated spires that look invented — past Attabad Lake, and on to the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 metres, the highest paved border crossing on earth. The plateau is wide, cold and thin-aired, grazed by ibex and marmots and, extremely rarely, crossed by a snow leopard. We stop for tea on the way down and are back in the valley by evening.

8. 8Day 8Upper Hunza — Attabad, Hussaini and Borith

   

   A lighter day among the water and the villages. Attabad Lake is the impossible turquoise created in 2010 when a landslide dammed the Hunza River; boats, paddle boats, jet skis and a zipline are all available and all optional. The Hussaini suspension bridge is the slatted rope crossing everyone has seen a photograph of, and is entirely up to you. We finish at Borith, a high salt lake that draws migrating birds in spring and autumn, with the Ghulkin Glacier behind it, and take tea with a family in Ghulkin or Passu.

9. 9Day 9Hunza to Gilgit by way of Naltar Valley

   

   We leave Hunza and turn up a rough side road into Naltar, a forested valley of pine and pasture that feels like a different country from the bare gorges below it. The Naltar lakes sit at the head of it in colours that look filtered and are not. In winter there is skiing here on a chairlift run by the air force; in summer it is walking, horses and a picnic by the water. Down to Gilgit in the late afternoon, with time for the bazaar — dried apricots, mulberries, walnuts and gemstones.

10. 10Day 10Fly to Islamabad, and departure

    

    The morning flight south over the mountains, or the road if the weather says otherwise. Depending on your onward flight there is time for a guided run around the capital — Faisal Mosque, the Pakistan Monument, Lok Virsa and the restored village at Saidpur — before your transfer to the airport. We usually manage one last meal together on the ridge at Monal, with Islamabad spread out below and everyone comparing photographs.

Good to know

Both mountain flights are weather-dependent. Skardu and Gilgit are among the most spectacular approaches anywhere and also among the most frequently cancelled. We hold road transport in reserve for both, which adds a long day but never cancels the trip.

This is an easy trip physically. The walks at Soq Valley and Naltar are optional and gentle, and the highest point is the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693 metres, which you reach by road and leave the same day.

Skardu sits at about 2,200 metres and Hunza at 2,500. Most people notice nothing beyond sleeping unusually well.

Seasons matter. April and May bring blossom across both valleys; late September and October bring the autumn colour and the clearest mountain views of the year. Naltar's snow and skiing belong to winter and early spring.

Questions about this trip

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