Road Trip Guide to the Karakoram Highway

There are two ways up from Islamabad, and the choice is usually made for you by the calendar. The main Karakoram Highway route runs through Abbottabad, Mansehra, Besham, and Dasu before following the Indus gorge to Chilas and on to Gilgit. It is open year-round in normal conditions, it is the route freight uses, and the stretch through the gorge between Dasu and Chilas is the slowest and most demanding part of the whole drive.

The alternative is the Naran and Babusar Pass route, which leaves the KKH at Mansehra, climbs the Kaghan Valley past Naran, and crosses Babusar Top at around 4,173m before rejoining the highway near Chilas. It is shorter, far more scenic, and open only in the warm months — typically from around July until the first serious snowfall, with the exact window varying year to year. Outside that window the pass is closed and the Besham route is the only option, so it is worth confirming Babusar's status before building an itinerary around it.

Plan the drive in stages rather than as a single number. Islamabad to Chilas is a full day on the road — most travellers leave early and arrive in the evening, and pushing beyond Chilas on the same day is a poor trade. From Chilas, Gilgit is roughly four hours; from Gilgit, Karimabad in central Hunza is another two and a half to three. If Skardu is the destination, the turn-off is at Jaglot, south of Gilgit, and the Skardu road along the Indus takes most of a further half day.

These are fair-weather estimates with normal traffic and no closures. Landslide clearance, road works, a convoy of trucks on a single-lane section, or simply stopping for the views that are the reason you came will all add to them. Build slack into every driving day, and avoid itineraries that depend on arriving somewhere by a fixed hour.

Self-driving the KKH is possible and rewarding if you are an experienced mountain driver and your vehicle is genuinely up to it. What you take on is narrow shoulders, blind corners, unprotected drops, oncoming trucks that will not give way, and long stretches where a mechanical problem becomes a serious logistical event rather than a phone call.

A private driver who works the route regularly changes the trip in ways that are easy to underestimate. They know which sections are currently damaged, where a detour is running, which fuel stops are reliable, and how to read a slope that has been shedding rock. They also let you actually look at the landscape instead of the road. For most first-time visitors, and for anyone travelling with family or on a tight schedule, a chauffeured vehicle is the better call — and it is the arrangement we plan for most of our travellers.

The main highway to Gilgit, Hunza, and Skardu is paved, and a sedan or SUV will handle it comfortably. The moment you leave the highway, the picture changes: Deosai, the Fairy Meadows approach road, Basho, Naltar, and most side valleys are rough, unsurfaced tracks where a high-clearance 4x4 is not a luxury but the minimum requirement. Match the vehicle to the itinerary you actually intend to drive, not the one on the main road.

Fuel is the other thing to plan rather than improvise. Stations thin out markedly north of Chilas and again beyond Gilgit, and the far north towards Sost has few reliable options. The working rule is to fill up in the larger towns whenever you are below half a tank rather than waiting until you need to. Carry a functioning spare, a jack you have actually tested, and basic recovery gear, and have the brakes and tyres checked before you leave the plains — long descents are hard on both.

The road calendar matters more here than almost anywhere else in the trip. Babusar Pass and the Deosai crossing are summer roads, generally usable from around July into September, and Khunjerab Pass follows a similar seasonal pattern with the border crossing itself subject to its own schedule. Spring snowmelt and heavy rain both increase landslide and rockfall activity on the gorge sections, and winter brings snow and ice to the higher stretches.

Closures are usually temporary — a slide is cleared in hours, occasionally a day — but they are frequent enough that a rigid itinerary is a liability. Ask locally each morning rather than relying on a forecast alone, and keep at least one flexible day in a longer trip so that a closed road costs you a change of plan rather than a missed flight.

Two rules carry most of the safety weight on this road. The first is not to drive after dark: there is no lighting, no edge protection on many sections, livestock and unlit vehicles on the carriageway, and rockfall you will not see coming. Plan every leg to finish in daylight, and if you are running late, stop short rather than pressing on. The second is to treat blind corners as occupied — use the horn on approach, as local drivers do, hold your line, and give trucks the room they will take anyway.

Altitude deserves respect on the higher sections. Khunjerab Pass and the Deosai plains both sit high enough that visitors arriving quickly from low elevation can feel it, particularly after driving up in a single day. Ascend gradually where the itinerary allows, keep time at the highest points short on the first day, and treat headache, nausea, or breathlessness as a signal to descend rather than push on.

Mobile coverage in Gilgit-Baltistan is patchy and network-dependent, with long dead stretches through the gorges and in the side valleys. Download offline maps before you leave the plains, agree check-in points with whoever is tracking your trip, and do not build a plan that assumes you can call ahead from the road.

Cash matters more than it does further south. ATMs exist in Gilgit, Skardu, and a handful of larger towns, but they can be out of service or out of cash, and card acceptance drops away quickly outside hotels. Draw what you need in the larger towns, keep small notes for fuel, roadside tea, and park entry fees, and carry a paper note of key addresses and numbers in case your phone is dead when you need them.