Remote Work from the Northern Areas: Internet and Stays

Remote work from the northern areas is possible, mainly in Hunza and Skardu, but it works around Pakistan's national grid rather than in spite of it: expect capable 4G but unreliable mains electricity, especially outside summer, and plan any longer stay around backup power rather than assuming the connection will be the weak link.

Internet: better than you'd expect

SCOM (Special Communications Organisation) has laid fibre through much of Gilgit-Baltistan and remains the most consistently available network in valleys such as Hunza and Skardu, where other carriers can be patchy. Karimabad in Hunza and Skardu city both have workable 4G, generally reported in the range needed for video calls and normal file transfer, though speeds vary with time of day, weather and how close you are to a tower. Take a SCOM SIM as your primary connection if your work depends on a stable call, and a second carrier as backup.

Coverage drops quickly once you're off the main road: side valleys, jeep tracks and anywhere above around 3,000 metres should be assumed to have little or no signal.

Electricity is the real constraint

Gilgit-Baltistan's power comes mostly from small hydropower schemes on streams that freeze or run low in winter, and load shedding follows the season. Reporting from 2025 put outages at roughly 6 to 8 hours a day in summer across the region, stretching to 18 to 20 hours a day in winter as river flow drops and demand for heating rises. That's the difference between a manageable inconvenience and a trip where you can't reliably keep a laptop charged.

For remote work specifically, this points to one clear conclusion: plan a workation for late spring through early autumn, when outages are shortest, rather than winter, when they can consume most of the day. Whatever the season, build backup power into your plan:

• A large power bank or two, charged whenever the grid is up
• A guesthouse or hotel that has its own generator or solar backup, confirmed before you book, not assumed
• A plan for where you'll work if your accommodation's power fails for an extended stretch

Where to base yourself

Karimabad, Hunza has the most established base for a working stay: a reasonable choice of guesthouses, several cafés, and KADO's Digital Hub Hunza, a co-working and incubation space run by the Karakoram Area Development Organisation, a Hunza-based development NGO founded in 1998. The hub is built around round-the-clock power and fast internet specifically because outages are common in the surrounding area, which makes it a sensible anchor point for anyone working there for more than a few days.

Skardu has a growing hotel scene and workable connectivity in the town itself, though it lacks anything equivalent to a dedicated co-working space.

Longer stays bring accommodation costs down substantially compared with a short tourist visit; guesthouses in Karimabad commonly offer better rates for stays of a month or more than their nightly tourist rate. Ask directly about a longer-stay rate rather than booking a run of nightly bookings, and confirm what's included (meals, wifi, laundry) since terms vary a lot between properties.

What still doesn't work well

Video-heavy work with no tolerance for a dropped call is risky here, even with a good setup; treat any live call as something that could need a backup plan (a phone hotspot, a rescheduled time). Large uploads and downloads take longer than in a major city, so plan around that rather than against a deadline. And because both power and connectivity depend partly on weather, a week that includes a storm or heavy snow can be genuinely disrupted, not just slower.

For a short visit rather than a working stay, our Gilgit & Hunza destination guide covers the wider area, and our Gilgit, Hunza and Khunjerab tour is a fixed-itinerary option if you decide the working-trip logistics aren't worth it and want a straightforward holiday instead.

Frequently asked questions