Karakoram Highway Complete

The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is the highest paved international road in the world and one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century. Stretching approximately 1,300 kilometres from Islamabad to the Khunjerab Pass (4,693m) on the Pakistan-China border, the highway traces the ancient Silk Road through some of the most dramatic mountain scenery on Earth. Built jointly by Pakistan and China between 1959 and 1979 at the cost of over 800 lives, the KKH cuts through three of the world's greatest mountain ranges — the Himalayas, the Karakoram, and the Hindu Kush — and passes alongside 7,000m and 8,000m peaks.

Our complete KKH tour covers the entire route, beginning in Islamabad and following the Indus River gorge northward through Besham, Chilas, and Gilgit before entering the spectacular Hunza Valley. From Karimabad, the highway continues through the turquoise Attabad Lake, past the iconic Passu Cones and Passu Suspension Bridge, through Sost, and finally up to the Khunjerab Pass — the highest paved border crossing on the planet. Along the way, you encounter everything from subtropical valleys to glaciated high desert, ancient rock carvings to medieval forts, and some of the warmest and most hospitable communities in Asia.

This is the ultimate Pakistan road trip — a journey through 4,000 vertical metres of terrain that compresses an entire continent's worth of landscapes into a single highway. Every turn reveals a new mountain vista, a different geological formation, or a welcoming village with fresh apricots and chai.