The best two-week route through Tibet
A two week Tibet itinerary is the length we would choose ourselves, and the reason is not that fourteen days fits more in. It is that fourteen days is the first length where the plateau stops being a sequence of driving days.
The eight day route works and the ten day route to Everest works, and both of them are efficient in a way that costs you something. At fourteen days you get the same ground with rest days inside it, two additions that are genuinely worth the time, and mornings where nobody has to be in a vehicle at seven.
Everything below assumes a private vehicle, a licensed Tibetan guide throughout and the permits held by our Lhasa partner, because there is no other way to do this. Land only, and we quote the flight or train into Lhasa separately.
The route in one table
| Days | Where | Nights at | Driving |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Lhasa, arrival and two acclimatisation days | 11,995 ft (3,656 m) | None |
| 4 | Lhasa, the Potala and the old town | 11,995 ft (3,656 m) | None |
| 5 | Lhasa to Gyantse over Yamdrok Lake | 12,990 ft (3,960 m) | 6 to 8 hours |
| 6 | Gyantse to Shigatse | 12,600 ft (3,840 m) | 2 hours |
| 7 | Shigatse to the Everest road | About 14,300 ft (4,360 m) | 7 to 9 hours |
| 8 | Everest north base camp area | About 16,500 ft (5,000 m) | 2 to 3 hours |
| 9 | Back to Shigatse | 12,600 ft (3,840 m) | 7 to 9 hours |
| 10 | Shigatse to Lhasa, the direct road | 11,995 ft (3,656 m) | 5 to 6 hours |
| 11 | Lhasa, rest day | 11,995 ft (3,656 m) | None |
| 12 | Lhasa to Namtso | About 15,500 ft (4,730 m) | 5 hours |
| 13 | Namtso to Lhasa | 11,995 ft (3,656 m) | 5 hours |
| 14 | The Yarlung valley, or fly out | 11,995 ft (3,656 m) | 4 hours return |
Read the elevation column rather than the driving column. It is the one the route is actually built around.
Days one to four: Lhasa, slowly
Lhasa is at about 11,995 feet (3,656 m) and almost nobody arrives adapted to it. The first two full days are for doing very little, and we do not remove them on request. They are the reason the rest of the route is safe.
Day one is an arrival day and nothing else. A little over two hours from Chengdu by air puts you at nearly 12,000 feet in a morning. You go to the hotel, you drink a great deal of water, you eat something plain, and you sleep badly, which is normal.
Days two and three are slow on purpose and they are not empty. The Barkhor, the pilgrimage circuit around the Jokhang, walked clockwise with everyone else at whatever pace suits you. Tea houses. The old town lanes. A monastery courtyard in the afternoon sun. Most travellers name these as their favourite days of the trip, which is not what they expect when they read the word acclimatisation.
Day four is the city properly: the Potala Palace, which is a climb and is scheduled for the day when a climb is reasonable, the Jokhang interior, and either Sera or Drepung on the edge of the city. Lhasa in three days sets out the detail.
By the end of day four you have four nights at nearly 12,000 feet behind you, which is the platform for everything after it.
Days five and six: the road west
Day five is the first real driving day and one of the best. The road climbs out of the Lhasa valley over the Kamba La pass at around 15,700 feet (4,790 m), and Yamdrok Lake appears below in a colour that photographs badly and looks unreasonable in person. Then over a second pass, past the Karola glacier close enough to the road to see the crevasses, and down into Gyantse.
Six to eight hours with stops. The roads are surfaced and in good condition. The length is distance, passes and checkpoints rather than difficulty.
Gyantse is the reason we put a night here rather than pushing on. It is the least modernised of the three towns, with a fort on a crag above it and the Kumbum, a tiered stupa of chapels stacked in a spiral that you climb through, floor by floor, past murals that have not been repainted. It is the single best building on this route and most short itineraries drive past it.
Day six is a short two hour run to Shigatse and an afternoon at Tashilhunpo, a vast working monastery, the seat of the Panchen Lamas, with a walled city of white buildings and gold roofs and monks going about their day around you. Two hours here is not too many.
Days seven to nine: Everest
This is the part of the trip that needs the most honesty, and we give it a full article in the overland road to Everest north base camp.
Day seven is seven to nine hours across the plateau, over the Gyatso La at above 17,000 feet (5,200 m), with the Himalaya appearing on the southern horizon as a wall.
Day eight puts you at the north base camp area, at around 16,500 feet (5,000 m), with an afternoon and an evening to look at the mountain. The night is in a guesthouse or a tented camp: basic or shared rooms, thin bedding, a stove, no reliable hot water and pit toilets. It is the least comfortable night most travellers will ever spend. It is also the one they talk about years later, provided the sky is clear.
If it is not clear, you have driven two long days and slept badly at 16,500 feet for a view of cloud. September and October give the best odds and we tell you what they are for your dates before you commit. Tibet month by month has the seasonal detail.
Day nine returns to Shigatse, which is a long drive and a genuine relief: thicker air, a hot shower and a bed.
Days ten and eleven: back and a rest day
Day ten takes the direct road to Lhasa along the Yarlung Tsangpo, five to six hours, a different valley from the way out.
Day eleven is a rest day in Lhasa and it is the single biggest difference between this route and the ten day version. After Everest, most people need a day of no vehicle at all. Use it for the parts of the old town you missed, a long lunch, the market, and a monastery you have not seen. It costs one day and it repairs the second half of the trip.
Days twelve and thirteen: Namtso
Namtso is a lake at around 15,500 feet (4,730 m) north of Lhasa, reached over the Largen La at about 16,500 feet (5,000 m), and it is the most beautiful place many of our travellers see on the plateau: a sheet of deep blue water under a snow range, with pilgrims walking the shore.
The reason it comes at day twelve rather than day five is straightforward. You sleep at 15,500 feet here, and doing that after eleven days of adaptation is a completely different proposition from doing it in the first week. Accommodation at the lake is simple, cold and worth one night for the light at either end of the day.
If your body has found the trip hard so far, this is the piece we cut. It is beautiful and it is not worth pushing a tired traveller back up to 15,500 feet.
Day fourteen: the Yarlung valley, or home
If your flight is late, the Yarlung valley southeast of Lhasa is the best last day available: the Yumbulagang palace on its ridge, the burial mounds of the early kings, and Samye, the first monastery built in Tibet, laid out as a mandala. Four hours of driving in total.
If your flight is early, day fourteen is a slow morning and an airport.
The alternatives, named
Eight days. Lhasa, Yamdrok, Gyantse, Shigatse and back. Our standard first trip and a very good one. No Everest. See classic Tibet in 8 days.
Ten days. The eight day route plus Everest, with no rest day and no Namtso. Efficient, and it asks more of you.
Six days. Lhasa only, and it is the minimum we will build. Two acclimatisation days and two of sightseeing. It works and it does not leave the valley. How many days you need covers the whole ladder.
Twenty-one days. This route plus the overland descent to Kathmandu on the Friendship Highway, or Tibet combined with Nepal. If Nepal is involved in either direction, tell us at the first email, because the Chinese group visa issued in Kathmandu takes precedence over any Chinese visa already in your passport.
Fourteen days without Everest. A version we build more often than people expect: Lhasa, Yamdrok, Gyantse, Shigatse, Namtso and the Yarlung valley, at a slow pace, with no night above 15,500 feet and no basic guesthouse. If comfort matters more than the mountain, this is the better trip.
Why this order
Three principles decide the sequence.
Altitude climbs late. Four nights at 11,995 feet before the first pass, seven nights before the highest sleep, eleven before Namtso. Nobody sleeps higher than they have earned.
The hardest section is in the middle. Everest sits at days seven to nine, with a rest day after it, so the trip does not end on the traveller’s worst night.
Driving days alternate with days that stay put. Six to nine hours in a vehicle is normal on this plateau and two of those days back to back is the thing that exhausts people. Where we cannot avoid it, we say so in the document.
Plan this trip
Tell us your dates and Asaf and your named Tibet specialist will turn this into a document with real hotels, real driving times and the elevation of every night you sleep. Free, and with no obligation.
Keep reading
- Tibet: the complete guide to planning your trip
- The overland road to Everest north base camp
- Lhasa in three days
- How many days do you need in Tibet?
- Tibet in 14 days, Lhasa to Everest
- All our Tibet trips
Frequently asked questions
Is fourteen days too long for Tibet?
Can we do this route in ten days?
Do we need to be fit?
What if someone becomes unwell?
Can we sleep somewhere better near Everest?
When should we go?
Plan a trip to Tibet cannot be travelled independently, and the altitude sets the schedule All Tibet cannot be travelled independently, and the altitude sets the schedule trips
