Itinerary
10 Days in Tibet: Three Routes Built Around How Your Body Adjusts
Ten days is the sweet spot: long enough to reach a real highlight beyond Lhasa, short enough to fit a holiday. This page gives three versions of the same ten days — a classic central route, one that extends to Everest base camp, and one that trades distance for depth — plus the rule that makes any of them work: two slow days at the start are not slack, they are the reason the rest of the trip is enjoyable.
If you only take one sentence from this page: put the demanding days after your body has adjusted, never before, and keep one unscheduled day you can spend wherever the trip needs it.
Most published ten-day routes are written as a list of famous places in an order that looks efficient on a map. They fail in the body rather than on paper. Ten days at altitude is a physiological schedule as much as a travel one, and the itinerary below sequences stops by how they feel, not only by how far apart they are.
Why the order matters more than the list
Lhasa sits around 3,650 metres. From there almost every direction goes up, and a couple of the headline viewpoints push above 5,000. Your body needs time producing more red blood cells and adjusting breathing before you ask it to sleep much higher than you arrived at.
What that means practically:
- Arrive and stop. The first day should contain walking, food and sleep, and nothing with a deadline.
- Sleep low, visit high. Spend your nights at the lower altitude and make the high viewpoints day trips where you can.
- Raise sleeping altitude gradually rather than in one jump, on the routes that involve overnight stops well above the city.
- Put the hardest driving day in the middle, never at the beginning or the very end.
The shape of your ten days
| Days | Phase | What happens | Why placed here |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Arrival and settling | Lhasa at walking pace, low effort, plenty of water | Acclimatisation before anything demanding |
| 3–4 | City and valley | The major sites, one moderate step outward | Confidence building before leaving town |
| 5–7 | The outward loop | Longer drives, higher passes, overnight away | Body is ready; this is the trip's core |
| 8 | The highlight | Whatever you came for — base camp, a lake, a monastery town | Best-adapted day, best conditions odds |
| 9 | Return and recovery | Long drive back, one unscheduled pocket | Absorbs delay without losing anything |
| 10 | Departure | Last hours in Lhasa, onward travel | No commitments before midday |
Route A: the classic central loop
Best first trip, best choice if you are unsure, and the least exposed to road conditions.
Days 1–2 — arrive, then do almost nothing
Land, transfer, sleep. Day two: walk the old quarter at your own pace, find a rooftop with a view, eat something simple, drink more water than feels necessary, and go to bed early. People who skip this to "start sightseeing properly" reliably lose more time later.
Days 3–4 — the city's big two
The Potala and the Jokhang are the two names everyone has, and both are better with a guide explaining what you are looking at. Do one per day, not both in one morning; the staircases are steeper than they photograph. Add a monastery on the city edge on the afternoon of day four if energy is good.
Days 5–6 — Gyantse and Shigatse
Leaving Lhasa by road changes the trip's texture. The drive out crosses a high pass, drops into farmland and river valleys, and reaches the town with the great stupa and its painted interiors. Continue to the second city, which has the monastery that anchors the whole western approach and a walkable centre.
Day 7 — the day trip you will talk about afterwards
Use Shigatse as your base for a high, wide day — a lake basin or a viewpoint — and return to sleep lower. This is the "sleep low, visit high" principle in action and it is also the best photograph you will take all trip.
Days 8–9 — the return loop with a variation
Come back by a different road if geography allows it, stopping somewhere you skipped on the way out. Keep the second afternoon genuinely free: laundry, sleep, repacking, or the thing everybody wanted to see twice.
Day 10 — leave without rushing
Build in generous time to the airport or station. There is nothing worse than a missed onward flight after ten good days.
Route B: adding Everest base camp
The same shape with the middle stretched. Everything above applies, with three changes worth planning around:
- Expect two of the ten days to be largely driving. The road is spectacular and long; treat those days as part of the experience rather than lost time.
- The overnight near the base area is the highest and coldest night of the trip. It arrives late enough in the itinerary for most people to handle, and it is the reason those gentle first days exist.
- Border-county paperwork applies. It is arranged for you and must be arranged in advance — see the permit requirements guide before you commit to this route.
Honest advice: if your trip is eight days rather than ten, take Route A properly rather than Route B in a hurry. A rushed Everest leg means four long drives and one very cold night squeezed into days you could have spent actually seeing the central region.
Route C: depth instead of distance
The least popular and arguably the best trip. Stay inside the central corridor for all ten days and go deeper rather than further.
- Two extra nights in Lhasa for neighbourhoods, markets and monasteries the standard route drives past
- The Yarlung valley, the cradle of the region's early history, which most itineraries skip entirely
- One lake done slowly, with an hour sitting rather than twenty minutes photographing
- A second visit to the Potala in different light — genuinely worth it
Suits photographers, people travelling with someone less mobile, and anyone who has done the "drive somewhere new every single day" trip before and remembers being tired.
Choosing between them
| If you care most about | Take | Accept |
|---|---|---|
| A first, complete-feeling overview | A | Several hours of driving on a few days |
| The single biggest bragging-rights moment | B | Less time in the central sites |
| Photographs, calm, actually remembering it | C | No dramatic headline photo |
| Travelling with children or older relatives | A or C | Slower pace, more returns to base |
The buffer day, and why it earns its place
Day 9 in the structure above is deliberately loose. Use it for whatever the trip needs: a road delay earlier in the week, a morning where somebody felt unwell, a site you wanted another look at, or nothing at all. Travellers who fill all ten days with commitments almost always end up choosing between two things they wanted.
Ten mistakes that shrink a ten-day trip
- Sightseeing hard on arrival day
- Sleeping high immediately instead of gradually
- Two headline sites in one morning, then losing the afternoon to a headache
- Booking the onward flight before the permit is in motion
- Skipping nothing — the itinerary that includes everything includes no slack
- Not asking what happens if weather closes your one highlight
- Assuming every road day has comfortable facilities along it
- Packing the daypack with everything, leaving nothing for the vehicle separation scenario
- Treating meal times as fixed rather than opportunistic on driving days
- Underestimating how much better day eight feels if day one was lazy
Adapting this to eight or twelve days
- Eight days: Route A minus the second extension. Do not attempt Route B.
- Twelve days: Route B with two genuinely idle nights added, or Route A plus a western extension you would otherwise have raced.
- Fewer than eight: consider whether the right answer is a central-only trip rather than a compressed version of something bigger.
How to actually use this itinerary
Treat this as a conversation starter with your agency rather than a template to be defended.
Send them your chosen route, ask three questions — whether the order still matches current road conditions, whether any night lands higher than it needs to, and what happens to day nine if day six runs long — and adjust once, early. Itineraries change easily on a screen in the planning stage and expensively on a road.How to actually use this itinerary
Put the practical details somewhere you can reach them without a signal. Screenshot the day-by-day segment of this page, write your agency's contact details and your guide's name on paper, and keep both in the daypack rather than the hold bag. Most itinerary problems are communication problems at their root, and being able to show someone exactly what you expected is the fastest way to resolve one.
Common questions
Is ten days enough for Lhasa plus something else?
Yes, comfortably, and it is the most common length for a reason. It is also about the shortest trip that reaches a second region without feeling rushed.
How tired will I be on the driving days?
More than the distances suggest, partly from altitude and partly from unpaved sections. Plan something gentle for the evening that follows any long leg.
Can I combine this with Chengdu or Nepal?
Often done, and worth thinking through carefully — each border or altitude transition adds both logistics and recovery time. Keep at least one clear day either side of a crossing.
What if the weather closes my one highlight?
This is exactly why the loose day exists, and why the highlight sits at day eight rather than day ten. Ask your agency what happens to the schedule in that case, before you book.
Should I do the train in and fly out, or the reverse?
Arriving by rail gives a gentler altitude introduction. Flying out at the end is easier logistics. If your dates allow, that combination is the best of both.
Last updated: 8 October 2026. Roads, opening hours and permit routes change seasonally; confirm the current version of any route with your agency before committing.