Pakistan's Karakoram Highway

This escorted tour with Explore Worldwide follows the Karakoram Highway, reputedly the highest highway in the world, starting in Islamabad. The city’s leafy boulevards contrast with the narrow lanes and market stalls of Rawalpindi, where the trip briefly dips into urban life before the mountains take over. Along the route, the road snakes past colourful trucks and glaciers, through valleys framed by peaks like Rakaposhi, towering at over 7,700 metres.

In Hunza Valley, you explore old forts with Tibetan-style architecture, visit a women’s carpentry workshop, and walk up to glacier viewpoints and the precarious wooden Hussaini Suspension Bridge. Further on, a full day in Yasin Valley reaches remote villages and a glacier snout, while in the Astore Valley there’s a walk to the base camp on Nanga Parbat’s lower slopes. The trip includes stops at the high-altitude Deosai National Park and a desert of snow-covered dunes before returning to Islamabad by short flight.

The pace mixes long drives with short walks, local meals and a few quiet evenings. It’s a route for those who appreciate mountain landscapes alongside cultural history and the reality of travelling through one of Pakistan’s less-visited regions.

These are the places the trip visits, in order. Explore Worldwide publishes the day-by-day itinerary on its own site.