16 September 2026 · 5 minutes ·
by the curators
The honest answer is that Ladakh is not far; it is high. Leh sits at about 3,500 metres, and the passes on the way to Nubra and Pangong are higher than anything in the Alps. What decides the length of a Ladakh journey is not the map but how long a body needs to get used to the air.
So the first two days are spent doing very little: arrive, rest, drink water, walk slowly, sleep. Every itinerary we write starts that way, and every itinerary that does not is one to be careful of.
Eleven days: Leh, the Indus valley and Nubra
This is the shortest trip we will write and still call complete. Two nights to acclimatise, then Thiksey, Shey, Stok and the Shanti Stupa; down the Indus to Uleytokpo for Lamayuru and the eroded 'Moonland' hills; over Khardung La into Nubra for the dunes, the Bactrian camels and the great Buddha at Diskit.
It leaves out Pangong, which is the right decision at this length. Pangong is a long drive, and squeezing it into eleven days means two days in a car.
Twelve to fourteen days: add the lakes, and Hanle
With a fortnight the shape changes. Pangong comes in, and with it the drive by Chushul and Rezang La to Hanle, which is as remote as a traveller can comfortably get in Ladakh, and where the night sky is as dark as it gets in India.
Fourteen days also allows Turtuk — a Balti village of apricot orchards, closer to the Karakoram than to anything Indian, and part of India only since 1971.
When to go
The roads over the passes are open roughly from June to late September; July and August are the reliable months, with the caveat that they are also the busiest. Hemis Tsechu, the masked Cham dance festival at Hemis Monastery, falls by the Tibetan lunar calendar in late June or July, and a journey built around it is worth the extra planning.
Winter is another country: the Snow Leopard expedition runs in February in the Hemis high-altitude park, with the cold as the price of the sighting.
The unglamorous advice
Book the Leh flight in, not the road, unless you are coming from Manali with days to spare. Carry cash — machines run out. Leave the first day empty in your own head, not just on the itinerary. And take the altitude seriously: a headache on the first evening is normal, breathlessness at rest is not, and every one of our Ladakh journeys is planned so that going down is always an option.
Journeys that go there
