What we would skip in Tibet
Editing a Tibet itinerary is different from editing any other trip we sell, because the currency is not time or money. It is altitude. Every addition is paid for in nights spent high, hours in a vehicle and margin removed from the part of the plan that keeps you well.
So this list is shorter and blunter than the equivalent for anywhere else. Here is what we take out, written the way we would say it on the phone.
The big ones
The acclimatisation days
The most common request we refuse. Somebody has seven days rather than eight and asks whether one of the two slow days in Lhasa can go, since they are, in the phrase we hear most, not really doing anything.
The answer is no, permanently. Those days are what makes the passes safe, and removing one to fit the calendar is removing the only structural protection in the itinerary. If the holiday is seven days, we build a six-day Lhasa trip instead. The full reasoning is in how many days do you need in Tibet.
Everest in fewer than ten days
We will not build it. A route that reaches a sleeping altitude of around 16,500 feet (5,000 m) with fewer than six nights of adaptation behind it is not a tighter version of the same trip, it is a different and worse risk. If ten days will not fit, the answer is classic Tibet in 8 days at the same pace.
Everest at all, for a proportion of travellers
Not everyone should go, and the sales instinct is to leave that unsaid. Two long driving days each way, one night in a guesthouse or tented camp at around 16,500 feet with thin bedding, a dung stove, no reliable hot water and pit toilets, and no guarantee of seeing the mountain at the end of it.
In September and October the visibility odds are good. In July and August they are poor. If the accommodation described above is unacceptable, that is a reasonable position, and we would rather build the fourteen-day route with no night above 15,500 feet than have you discover it on the night. The full description is in what Everest north base camp is actually like.
Namtso in the first week
The lake sits at about 15,500 feet (4,730 m) and it is reached over a pass at roughly 16,500 feet. On a route that puts it on day five it is the piece most likely to make somebody genuinely unwell. On day twelve, after eleven days of adaptation, it is the most beautiful place many of our travellers see on the plateau.
Same lake, completely different proposition. If it does not fit late in the route, it comes out. See the best two-week route through Tibet.
Mount Kailash on a first trip
Genuinely one of the great pilgrimages on earth, and not a thing to bolt onto a first visit. The kora is a three-day walk over a pass at more than 18,000 feet, several days of driving from Lhasa each way, in a remote region with almost no infrastructure and no rapid evacuation.
It is a dedicated expedition of eighteen to twenty-one days for travellers who already know how their body handles very high ground. We do not build it for somebody whose first night above 10,000 feet will be in Lhasa.
Dates in and around March
The region is periodically closed to foreign visitors, permits stop being issued, and closures are announced at short notice. In most recent years this has included a stretch in and around March.
We are cautious about confirming departures in the windows historically affected, and we monitor the position through our Lhasa partner rather than waiting for a public announcement. If your dates are closed we move you or refund the land arrangements. This is the most common reason we say no to a Tibet enquiry.
Bolting the overland road to Kathmandu onto a short trip
The descent from the plateau to the Himalayan foothills by the Gyirong crossing is one of the great drives anywhere, and it needs about three weeks to work. Added to a ten-day trip it turns the whole itinerary into transport.
There is also an administrative trap that catches people out. Travellers entering from Kathmandu use a Chinese group visa issued there against the booked itinerary, and it takes precedence over any Chinese visa already in your passport. If Nepal is involved in either direction, tell us at the first email. See Tibet overland to Kathmandu in 21 days.
Two long driving days back to back
Six to nine hours on the plateau is normal here and it is the doubling that exhausts people. Where the geography forces it, as it does on the Everest return, we say so in the document and we put a rest day after it rather than another monastery.
The ones with conditions attached
The Qinghai-Tibet railway
A memorable journey across the plateau, twenty-one hours from Xining, crossing the Tanggula Pass at roughly 16,640 feet (5,072 m), with supplementary oxygen in the carriages. The gradual ascent helps a little.
It also costs you a day at each end and it does not replace the acclimatisation days. If you have the days, it is a genuine experience. If you are short of days, fly and spend them in Lhasa instead.
Ganden monastery
Superb, and an hour and a half out of the city over a high pass. On an eight-day trip it displaces something better. On fourteen days, with a rest day either side, we build it happily.
A large evening cultural performance
Well produced, and it is a late night at nearly 12,000 feet in a cold outdoor venue in the first days of a trip, when sleep is already poor. If you want it, we put it in the second half of the trip rather than the first.
Winter
Lhasa in December and January is sunny by day, quiet and cheap, and some travellers love it. Access to the Everest area and the northern lakes is unreliable, permits are more often restricted, and the cold becomes the main condition rather than a background one. It is a Lhasa trip in winter, not a plateau trip.
Yamdrok Lake as a day trip out of Lhasa
The lake is one of the best things on the road west, seen from the Kamba La at about 15,700 feet (4,790 m) on the way to Gyantse. Driven out and back from Lhasa in a day it becomes six hours in a vehicle for a viewpoint, and it takes a day from a trip that has few to spare.
Shopping in the Barkhor
Pleasant to walk through and a poor place to buy. Very little sold as antique is antique, and export rules on religious objects and genuinely old items are strict. Buy a prayer flag and a bag of tea and enjoy the walk.
The small ones
- Three monasteries in one day. Two is already a great deal, and the second is always the one you remember less.
- The Potala on your first or second day. Many flights of stairs at nearly 12,000 feet, scheduled at the worst possible moment. We decline to build it.
- Alcohol in the first two days. It is the one instruction guides repeat and the one most often ignored.
- A packed final morning. Lhasa airport is an hour from the city and the flight timings are not generous.
- Photographing checkpoints, military installations or personnel. Not a preference, and your guide will tell you where the lines are.
- Booking six weeks out for a peak month. The permit alone needs several weeks of lead time, and Lhasa hotels and Everest guesthouses are limited in supply.
What we would do with those days instead
A rest day in Lhasa after Everest. The single biggest difference between our ten-day and fourteen-day routes. One day with no vehicle repairs the second half of a trip. See Tibet in 14 days, Lhasa to Everest.
Proper time at Gyantse. 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, is the single best building on the classic route, and short itineraries drive past it.
Two hours at Tashilhunpo rather than forty minutes. It is a walled town of white buildings and gold roofs with monks going about their day around you, and it rewards being unhurried.
The Yarlung valley. Southeast of Lhasa, the older heart of Tibetan civilisation: 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.
Nothing at all. A slow morning in a tea house at 11,995 feet is not a wasted morning. It is the treatment.
What it costs
Land only, per person, two people sharing, excluding international flights and the flight or train into Lhasa.
| Style | Per day | 8 days | 10 days | 14 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comfortable: good Lhasa hotels, simple on the road | $210 | $1,680 | $2,100 | $2,940 |
| Boutique: the best rooms in Lhasa, best available elsewhere | $330 | $2,640 | $3,300 | $4,620 |
| Luxury: top-tier where it exists, private throughout | $560 | $4,480 | $5,600 | $7,840 |
There is no budget tier and its absence is the most honest thing on the page. The permit, the licensed guide and the private vehicle are mandatory and fixed from day one and they do not scale down. The full breakdown is in what a trip to Tibet costs.
Plan this trip
Send us the itinerary you have drafted and we will tell you honestly what we would take out, what we would refuse to build and what we would put in its place. Free, and with no obligation.
Related
- Tibet: the complete guide to planning your trip
- The best two-week route through Tibet
- How many days do you need in Tibet?
- What a trip to Tibet costs
- All our Tibet trips
Frequently asked questions
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Can we change the route once we are there?
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