Romantic Tibet: 8 slow days, one very good room
This route is built on an unfashionable decision, so we will explain it before the day-by-day rather than after.
- Duration
- 8 days
- Pace
- Slow
- Best months
- May, Jun, Sep, Oct
- From
- $2,640 per person
Most Tibet itineraries move west from Lhasa and sleep in a different town every night. That works, and it is what our classic route does. It is also, for two people who want a slow and comfortable eight days, the wrong shape, because outside Lhasa the accommodation is plain and stays plain no matter what you pay. Three consecutive nights in unremarkable provincial hotels is not a romantic trip, and we would rather say that than sell it to you.
So this itinerary does the opposite. Seven nights in one restored courtyard house in the Lhasa old town, the best room in it, and everything else reached and returned from there. You unpack once. You sleep at the same altitude every night, which is also the safest way to spend a week at 12,000 feet (3,660 m). And you get a lake at nearly 14,600 feet (4,450 m), a ridge monastery with the best short walk in central Tibet, and a cave hermitage in a cliff, without ever packing a bag again.
Who it suits: couples, honeymoons and anniversaries, and anyone who would rather see less and feel it more.
Your specialist: Asaf Zamshtein, who runs our China desk, with your named Tibet specialist and our licensed Lhasa partner team.
A note on who is on the ground. Our own offices are in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Tibet is not one of them and could not be, because only a locally licensed operator can hold the permits. Your guide and driver are Tibetan, from a Lhasa partner we have used for years.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Lhasa. Met at the airport, an hour into the city, and into a courtyard house in the old town within a few minutes’ walk of the Jokhang. Nothing scheduled and nothing expected. Water, a light dinner in the hotel, an early night.
Day 2: The Barkhor, and nothing else. A late start. An hour on the pilgrimage circuit around the Jokhang, walked clockwise at everybody else’s pace, with a stop at a sweet tea house where you will be the only visitors in the room.
Back for lunch, and the afternoon is genuinely free. A rooftop, a book, thin bright air and the sound of the old town below. This is the day people are most surprised to enjoy.
Day 3: Jokhang early, then the afternoon. The Jokhang at opening, when it is full of pilgrims rather than visitors, which is when it makes sense. Around ninety minutes.
Afternoon free. Our document suggests the Norbulingka gardens, which are quiet and green and almost empty on a weekday, or a thangka painter’s studio where you can watch the mineral pigments being ground.
Day 4: The Potala, and the light. Timed entry to the Potala Palace, about an hour inside, on day four rather than day two because of the several hundred steps.
Late afternoon we take you across the river to the viewpoint on the southern side, where the palace turns gold for about twenty minutes before sunset and there is nobody there. It is the photograph of Lhasa and almost every visitor takes it from the wrong side at the wrong hour.
Day 5: Yamdrok Lake. A long day out and back, about eight hours in total with stops, over the Kamba La pass at around 15,700 feet (4,790 m). Yamdrok appears below the pass, a branching turquoise lake at about 14,600 feet (4,450 m), and we go down to the shore rather than stopping at the crowded viewpoint above.
A private picnic on the water’s edge, set up by our team, with the vehicle out of sight. Then back to Lhasa and your own bed, which is the point of this itinerary.
Day 6: Ganden and the ridge walk. Ganden monastery, an hour and a half east, built along a high ridge above the Kyichu valley. The kora, the walking circuit around the monastery, takes about an hour and a half at an easy pace and is the best short walk in central Tibet, with the whole valley on one side and prayer flags on the other.
Back for a late lunch. Afternoon free.
Day 7: Drak Yerpa, or nothing at all. Two versions and we ask which you are on the morning. Drak Yerpa, a hillside of meditation caves and small chapels about an hour from the city, quiet and strange and rarely busy. Or an entirely empty day in Lhasa: the market, a long lunch, a hot bath and the rooftop.
Dinner is the one we book, at the best table in the city, which is a short list and we hold it.
Day 8: Departure. Transfer to the airport, about an hour.
What is included
All permits obtained and delivered before travel, seven nights in a restored courtyard house in the Lhasa old town in the best available room, breakfast throughout, a licensed English-speaking Tibetan guide and a private vehicle with driver on every excursion day, all entries including the timed Potala ticket, the private lakeside picnic at Yamdrok, restaurant reservations, bottled oxygen in the vehicle, a written descent plan, a VPN and the Chinese payment apps set up and tested before you fly, a day-by-day document written around the light rather than the list, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Lhasa team, with WeChat alongside as a local fallback.
Upgrades worth considering
An oxygen-enriched room, which some of the better Lhasa hotels offer and which genuinely improves sleep in the first three nights. A private vehicle and guide for all eight days rather than excursion days only. A day added at Tsedang in the Yarlung valley, which sits slightly lower than Lhasa and is the one overnight outside the city we would actually recommend. A private thangka commission, which takes months and is sent on to you.
Honest notes
Tibet is not a soft destination and this is the softest version of it that is honest. There is no spa culture, no beach, no long lazy dinner scene. What there is instead is thin gold light, a city that has been a pilgrimage destination for thirteen centuries, and enormous quiet.
The altitude affects everything in the first two days, including sleep and appetite, and it is not romantic. Days one and two are built around that and we will not compress them.
Yamdrok is a long day in a vehicle for a lake, and it is worth it. If either of you dislikes long drives, say so and we will replace it with a second slow day in the city.
Alcohol at this altitude is a bad idea for the first three days, and a poor idea after that. A celebration dinner works better here without much of it, and we say so knowing it is not what anyone wants to hear.
Built by Asaf Zamshtein, who runs our China desk, and checked with our licensed Lhasa partner before it goes out.
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