Where to go
Lahore
The cultural capital: the Badshahi mosque, the Lahore Fort and Shalimar Gardens — both World Heritage — the walled city, and a food culture that Pakistanis themselves travel for. The Wagah border ceremony each evening is theatre of a peculiar kind. Three days.
Islamabad and the Margalla Hills
A planned capital, green and orderly, at the foot of forested hills with walking trails. Taxila, one of the great Buddhist archaeological sites of South Asia and a World Heritage site, is forty minutes away. Two days.
Hunza and the Karakoram
The valley beneath Rakaposhi, with Baltit and Altit forts, apricot orchards in spring and extraordinary autumn colour in October. The Karakoram Highway reaches the Khunjerab Pass at nearly five thousand metres on the Chinese border. May to October. A week.
Skardu and Baltistan
The approach to K2 and the Baltoro glacier, Shangrila lake and Deosai — the second-highest plateau in the world, a summer-only wilderness of wildflowers and brown bears. Serious trekking country and a genuine expedition, not a side trip.
Mohenjo-daro and Sindh
One of the principal cities of the Indus Valley civilisation, five thousand years old and a World Heritage site, with Sufi shrines at Sehwan and the old quarter of Thatta nearby. The heat outside winter is severe.
Peshawar and the north-west
An ancient trading city with a storytellers' bazaar and Gandharan archaeology in the museum. Travel advice for the province must be checked carefully and currently before considering it.
Building the itinerary
- Three stops a week, no more. Every move costs half a day at minimum, often a whole one, and you see nothing of a place where you sleep one night.
- Alternate the pace. A dense city, then two quiet days: that is what makes travelling as a couple sustainable, especially if one of you lives there and works.
- Keep a buffer day before the flight home, in the departure city. Domestic transport delays are the leading cause of missed flights.
- Ask the person who lives there what they want to show you. Guidebook itineraries and the places that matter to them rarely overlap — and the second list is the better one.
Two reflexes that change a trip
Distances deceive. On a map two points look close; on the ground, road conditions, checkpoints and terrain double or triple the time. Plan fewer stops and more time at each.
Ask before photographing anyone, and never insist. Official buildings, soldiers, airports and bridges are best avoided almost everywhere — the most banal and most avoidable source of trouble.