Solo Trip to the Northern Areas: How to Plan It

A solo trip to the northern areas is easier than most first-timers expect, especially in Hunza, where a growing scene of hostels and backpacker inns means you will rarely be the only traveller in the room. Getting there by bus or flight is straightforward, a car and driver hired locally covers the roads a solo traveller shouldn't drive alone, and Karimabad's guesthouses are as much a place to meet people as they are to sleep.

This guide is for anyone planning to travel alone in the north, of any gender, focused on public transport, budget stays, meeting other travellers and the everyday habits that keep a solo trip simple. For advice specific to women travelling alone, see our guide to solo female travel in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Getting there by public transport

NATCO, the Gilgit-Baltistan government's own transport company, and several private operators run coaches from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, Hunza and Skardu, generally taking most of a day or a night. Our guides to the NATCO bus to Gilgit and the Daewoo bus to the northern areas cover routes, stops and how to book in more detail.

A few things make the coach easier as a solo traveller:

• Book a seat in advance rather than turning up at the terminal, especially in July, August and around Eid.
• Choose a service that arrives in daylight if you can, or arrange for your first night's hostel or hotel to know roughly when to expect you.
• Keep your phone charged, cash and CNIC on you rather than in checked luggage, and a warm layer to hand for the night-time stretches.

Flying to Gilgit or Skardu cuts a two-day road trip to about an hour, but flights are cancelled often when the weather closes in over the mountains. Keep a spare day at each end rather than a tight connection either way. Our flights to Gilgit and Skardu guide covers the routes and how they run.

Getting around once you're there

Once you arrive, public transport inside the region is mostly shared vans (Suzuki pickups and minibuses) running between towns on no fixed timetable, cheap and functional but not always comfortable with luggage. For day trips to Fairy Meadows, Khunjerab, Deosai or the high lakes, hire a car and driver, ideally through your hostel or guesthouse, which knows the driver and can vouch for them. Settle the price for the whole day before you set off. On jeep tracks such as the one to Fairy Meadows, you will often share a jeep with other travellers heading the same way, which is normal and usually sociable rather than awkward.

We would not recommend hitchhiking on these roads. Distances are long, mobile signal drops for hours at a time, and knowing exactly where you are and who you are with is one of the things that keeps a solo trip simple.

Where solo travellers stay

Hostels and backpacker inns are now well established in parts of the north, and they are the natural first stop for anyone travelling alone on a budget.

• Karimabad, Hunza, has the widest choice: dorm beds and private rooms at places aimed specifically at backpackers, alongside the valley's guesthouses and hotels. A dorm bed typically costs a small fraction of a private room, useful if you are travelling for weeks rather than days.
• Passu, further up the valley, has long served backpackers heading toward Khunjerab or the glacier walks nearby, with simple inns geared toward independent travellers.
• Gilgit and Skardu have fewer dedicated hostels than Hunza but a good spread of budget guesthouses, useful for a night in transit.

Wherever you stay, ask directly what is included (breakfast, hot water, a shared kitchen) and whether the place is quiet or geared toward a social common room, since both exist and suit different trips. Our guides to homestays in northern Pakistan and how to book hotels in the northern areas cover the wider range of places to stay.

Meeting other travellers

Hunza in particular has a real culture of solo and independent travellers passing through in summer, and guesthouse common rooms, rooftop cafés in Karimabad and the shared jeeps up to Fairy Meadows or Passu's glacier walks are where people naturally end up talking. If you would rather not do the whole trip alone, it is easy to fall in with other travellers for a day trip or a shared jeep, split a car for Khunjerab or Deosai, or simply share a table over dinner. Don't feel obliged to commit to plans beyond a day at a time; it is normal here to travel loosely and adjust as you meet people.

Staying safe travelling alone

Most of what keeps a solo trip in the north safe is ordinary good sense rather than anything specific to the region:

• Arrive somewhere new before dark, whether that is a hostel, a bus stop or a shared jeep drop-off.
• Tell someone your rough plan each day: where you are sleeping and roughly where you are headed next.
• Expect to lose signal in the valleys, on Deosai and at Fairy Meadows, and agree a time to check in before you go somewhere remote.
• Carry cash. Cards work in few places outside the larger hotels, and ATMs are unreliable once you are away from Gilgit or Skardu.
• Note the tourist police number, 1422, inside Gilgit-Baltistan, and the general police number, 15, for anywhere else.
• Be honest about altitude. Deosai and Khunjerab Pass are both above 4,000 metres; if you feel unwell somewhere high on your own, go down rather than wait it out.

Our guide to whether it is safe to travel to the northern areas goes through the security picture region by region, and our travel guide covers money, signal and packing for the trip.

A loose route for a first solo trip

There is no need to plan every day in advance, but a rough shape helps:

1. Two or three nights in Hunza first. Karimabad or Gulmit, to acclimatise gently and meet other travellers before anything more demanding.
2. A day trip to Attabad Lake and Passu, by shared van or a shared car with people you've met at your guesthouse.
3. Khunjerab Pass or a short trek, such as Rakaposhi base camp from Minapin, once you've settled in.
4. On to Gilgit and, if you have the time, Skardu, either by shared transport or a hired car for the day.

Build in slack. Roads close for a day after heavy rain, buses run late, and the best days on a solo trip are often the ones you didn't plan.

Is a solo trip worth it?

For independent, reasonably confident travellers, yes, and Hunza especially makes it easy: a real backpacker scene, short distances between things worth seeing, and people around if you want company. It suits travellers happy to negotiate their own transport and rooms, and to travel at a loose pace rather than a fixed itinerary.

It suits you less if you would rather have every day planned, if you are nervous about long shared-van journeys with no fixed schedule, or if your route needs to include areas with current security advisories, where a guide and a fixed plan matter more. For that kind of trip, our Gilgit, Hunza and Khunjerab tour and Skardu and Deosai tour both include a driver and guide for the whole route, useful if you want the flexibility of travelling on your own but the backup of a fixed plan and someone who knows the roads.

Frequently asked questions