Skardu: the valley the Karakoram opens onto
A lowland between two high places — which is what the name means, and a fair description of a town with 8,000-metre peaks on its doorstep.
Read itThe journal
Notes from the north
Two pieces on each of the places we travel — where they came from, what is worth your time when you get there, and the one thing each does better than anywhere else.
Gilgit-Baltistan
Skardu
Deosai: a summer country above the treeline
The second-highest plateau on earth is open for about four months a year, and for one of them it is covered in flowers.
Read itGilgit-Baltistan
Gilgit & Hunza
Hunza: eight hundred years above the apricot terraces
A valley that ran its own affairs until 1974, with two forts, a language related to nothing, and a literacy rate above 95 per cent.
Read itGilgit: the crossroads the Silk Road left behind
Three rivers meet here, and so did most of the traffic between China, Central Asia and the subcontinent. There is a seventh-century Buddha on a cliff to prove it.
Read itAzad Kashmir
Kashmir
Neelum: one river, ninety miles
A valley road that climbs slowly through pine and wooden villages, at altitudes gentle enough to enjoy from the first afternoon.
Read itSharda: a university in the mountains
For six hundred years this was one of South Asia's great centres of learning, and it gave an entire script its name.
Read itKhyber Pakhtunkhwa
Swat Valley
Swat: the valley that was Uddiyana
Five hundred monasteries stood here in 403 CE. A surprising amount of it is still standing, and almost none of it is behind glass.
Read itMalam Jabba: snow above the orchards
Pakistan's best-known ski slope sits at 2,804 metres, an hour above a valley full of apple trees — and it came back from being burned down.
Read itGilgit-Baltistan
Fairy Meadows
Fairy Meadows: the walk to the Märchenwiese
German climbers named it the fairy-tale meadow. There is no road to it, which is most of the reason it is still worth going.
Read itNanga Parbat: the naked mountain
The ninth-highest peak on earth, the biggest mountain face in the world, and one of the most extraordinary solo climbs ever recorded.
Read itTimeless beauty · Serene waters · Living culture
Read something you want to see?
Tell us which of these you would travel for and we will build the week around it.