Is it possible to visit tibet

It is better to eat more fruits, vegetables and other vitamin-rich foods. Taking a Tibet tour can be relatively expensive, but there are many ways to cut down your travel budget. Among wall the ways for getting to Tibet, the Tibet train can be the cheapest choice. In most cases, it is cost-effective to take a train to Tibet rather than a flight. Tibet is always a popular tourist destination despite its highland environment. But in winter, Tibet enters the off-season.

And during this time, flight and hotel prices drop significantly. Many attractions in Tibet also have discounted or even free admissions. Therefore, one can plan a winter trip in Tibet if conditions allowed, to save more cost.

As we all know, international tourists need to travel with a tour group when visiting Tibet. For budget travelers, you can join in a small group tour to share the cost with others. With a group more than 12 members, our Tibet small group tours promise the lowest Tibet tour price, with no detour and forced shopping.

For solo traveler, you can also meet and make friends with other like-minded travelers. Due to the low temperature and strong ultraviolet ray in Tibet, it is best not to wear shot-sleeved tops and shorts, even in summer. One should prepare sweaters, down jackets, warm underwear, scarfs, warm hats, gloves etc.

Especially in winter season, or when go to Mount Everest or Mount Kailash region, one should bring thick down jackets. For shoes, hiking shoes or sneakers are recommended. And if you plan to trek in Tibet, rush clothes, rainproof clothes and quick-dry pants are essential.

Travelling to Tibet in may be possible, with everything goes smoothly. In the moment you can take the time to rest up and prepare fully for your journey. Meanwhile, as the leading tour operator in Lhasa, we are well ready for your trip to Tibet.

You can pre-book your Tibet tour with us to plan your wonderful experience. Please fill in your contact information, we will send you the answer by email. Sign up to receive our newsletter for great articles, stunning photos, and special deals.

Travel Advice 86 inquiry tibettour. Last Update: March 12, Is Tibet Open to Tourists? Can I Visit Tibet in ? Tibet is temporarily closed to foreign tourists Currently, Tibet is still closed to foreign tourists due to the prevention situation of Covid Expats in China will be able to visit Tibet from March The good news is that, expats living in mainland China will have the opportunity to visit Tibet from March , according to the local policy.

Is It Safe to Visit Tibet in ? Tibet is safer than many places in the world Tibet is quite a safe place to visit, and is safer than many other places on the planet. Tibetan people are always kind and friendly to others. Taking the Tibet train enables one to enjoy the beautiful scenery along the way. The best time to visit Tibet is from April to October with nice weather. The best route is to tour Tibet first then to Nepal as you can adapt to the altitude gradually.

From Lhasa, at the altitude of , you will stay at least two days for sightseeing such as the world heritage Potala Palace, sacred Jokhang temple, most beautiful Tibetan Monastery - Sera, etc. Then you will move forward to higher altitude areas like Shigatse, till Everest Base Camp, at an altitude of meters. You will drive along the friendship highway to enjoy the stunning landscape along the way. After visiting Everest Base Camp, you will drive to Gyirong port and see the breathtaking vista of Mt.

Shishapangma and the Pekutso Lake. The best time to have Lhasa to Kathmandu tour is from November to next spring. Everest Kathmandu Overland Group Tour. Before your Tibet Tour, you should seek a reliable Tibet travel agency. Tibet travel agencies situated in Lhasa are good choices for you cos they can offer you the first-hand document directly instead of transmitting from the middleman. In case you meet any problems with getting your document or have some issues in Tibet, the Tibet local travel agency can handle it for you easier.

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Great Tibet Tour is a local tour company based in Lhasa, Tibet. It was founded in and recommended by Lonely Planet as one of the best reputed local Tibet travel agencies.

With the great responsibility, professional know-how and passion for innovation, Great Tibet Tour endeavors to provide you with enjoyable, thoughtful service, and authentic culture discovery. Travel Guide. Can Americans Travel to Tibet? Required Travel Documents As for the travel documents you need to prepare for your Tibet tour, it depends on where you choose to enter Tibet - mainland China or Kathmandu in Nepal? Spring March-April During the spring, the rural scenery in Nyingchi is the highlight in Tibet due to the peach blossom festival.

Summer May-August There's blue sky, white clouds, and intensive sunshine during summer. Autumn September-October In autumn, you can see the blue and boundless sky in Tibet, also the visibility is excellent. Your visit is then about using your freedom to return home to tell the world all about it.

Today, seeing Tibet is about getting lost in an ancient culture that dates back to nearly 1, years, set within lake-filled valleys and rocky plateaus. Patches of a far-reaching space we should not take for granted as visitors here when so much has already been lost. Tibet is best experienced via an overland tour and one covering a lot of ground. An overnight stay in the border town of Kyirong was the last stop before the long and scenic drive back to Kathmandu.

Choosing exactly how to travel in Tibet and embarking on this particular trip goes hand in hand with travelling responsibly and supporting Tibetans in keeping their culture and traditions alive. The question of whether it is ethical to visit Tibet is a justified one, but without an easy answer and one that you should make from a personal but informed choice.

On the one hand, the Dalai Lama encourages travel there to see the country first-hand and bring those stories home. Your presence is a chance for Tibetans to know of the outside world and know that people can witness their beliefs and then return home and tell people about their incredible culture.

I struggled with that. Since Tibet is now under Chinese rule, the rights to travel in Tibet and who can enter the country is determined by China. You will hear from your guides as you make your way through the region that thousands of Tibetan sites were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution after the Tibet Autonomous Region of China was formed 60 years ago.

It is patchy information since the history of the country or mention of the Dalai Lama cannot be spoken of in detail or publicly, even if it is evident to you as a visitor.

It would be best if you did your background research at home before visiting. What remains are the Tibet sites considered most important and sacred, which you enjoy throughout your journey across the country.

Chinese surveillance and military presence is something you too may notice, including CCTV cameras and plain-clothed guards that often appear close to tourism groups when visiting significant sites. These monitoring systems are not something to be afraid of, and you quickly get used to them as a part of travelling here. For example, when some excited Tibetan ladies wanted their photo with me, it was a form of interaction that created some level of paranoia.

So I kindly shut down the situation more quickly than I would generally. The organisation of tourism in Tibet also means that your itinerary is pre-approved and cannot be altered. This means that speed restrictions and police checkpoints along the journey according to your trip schedule are a requirement for your group.

However, the simple reality is that often your Tibetan guide shows the relevant documents and all passports, which makes the process quicker and easier. It also means adhering to specific rules and regulations at particular sites of enormous significance. The only time you will encounter inner-city police checkpoints is in Lhasa at the Jokhang temple. Walking the circular, sacred Kora path in Lhasa.

If exploring alone in your free time, you simply show your passport and state where you are staying and your Nationality the standard questions. We never encountered any issues going through, and we visited more than once to enjoy the incredible atmosphere of the Kora.

You can also only enter Potala Palace in your group and with your local guide, and you need to bring your passport for the restricted minute viewing slot. Why such tight measures? The Dalai Lama is a strong point of contention, which you will realise on many levels throughout your trip. The queue at the entrance to Potata Palace, where visits are restricted to a minute viewing slot.

You cannot travel independently in Tibet and can only do so with a private guide as part of a small group. Therefore a third-party organiser must obtain a group visa for Tibet before entry. Three days before our scheduled flight to Tibet, our group met in Kathmandu to submit details for the group visa processing. Each of us had a four-page form to fill out, which is very much like any visa form.

It asks for passport details, where else you have travelled on your particular passport in the last few months, points of contact and for a detailed breakdown of your day to day itinerary. The images needed for the Tibet visa was tricky since nearly every person in our group had to get their passport photos redone that same evening.

We were all briefed via trip notes beforehand regarding not having ears covered, needing a white background, no obvious make-up or any piercings. Even if there was a little hair covering a part of an ear, the photo had to be retaken.

So much so that the women in the group were clipping every strand of their hair back. Again, we did this as a group, ensuring we had a photographer at the passport store in Kathmandu who was briefed about our specific image request.

Our Nepali CEO took our forms, photos and passports to the relevant agency and embassy for processing. You can often visit in late fall and winter, with clear skies, but the temps are brutal.

Tours to the Mt. Kailash area usually run only from May to September. Outside those months, the Dolma Pass can be snowed in. May and September generally have best chance of views, though we have trekked Mt. Kailash in mid-September and found the mountain obscured by rain clouds except briefly for one day as we approached.

You have already learned that you must have both a Chinese visa and a separate Tibet travel permit to enter Tibet. The best place to apply is in your home country, unless you will be traveling Tibet from Nepal.

In that case you will apply from Kathmandu. See the Nepal section on this post for more info. Contact the nearest Chinese embassy or consulate to apply. Or, better, apply through a visa service like Travel Visa Pro , which can be less stressful than going through a consulate.

Whether you apply through a consulate or a visa service, you should not mention Tibet or any Tibetan cities when you apply for your Chinese visa. Applying from Nepal is the exception to this. Getting your Tibet entry permit is a whole different process than getting your Chinese visa. When you book a tour, as you must, the agency you book with will handle getting the permits you need for entering Tibet.

Many travelers worry if their permits will go through. Generally there is no problem, though you do need to allow enough time for the permit to be processed normally at least 20 days. Also there are a few restrictions that apply infrequently. Every Tibet traveler wants to know if Tibet is a safe place to travel and how to avoid altitude sickness. Every mountain medicine expert will tell you that the time-tested rule for avoiding altitude sickness is to ascend slowly. The problem is that the current most popular ways to enter Tibet are all not good in terms of ascending slowly:.

But, after years of traveling to Tibet and doing massive research into this topic, we have developed a route that works really well for us. Disclaimer: The information provided in this post is for educational purposes only, not to provide specific advice.

By reading this post you understand that there is no professional relationship between you and the authors. Altitude sickness prevention is, to us, the top factor you need to pay attention to to stay healthy and safe when you visit Tibet. As we mentioned in Chapter One, Tibet travel is generally safe.

In fact, as a woman, Yolanda a co-author of this post feels more safe in Tibet than she does at home in the San Francisco Bay Area. And that includes when she travels to Tibet alone, on a private tour. Remember that you must be on an official tour in Tibet, but that the official tour can be a private one.

Because you must be on an official tour, you depend a lot on your guide and usually driver to help keep you safe. For this reason, it is critical to get a reliable, trustworthy Tibet travel agent with an excellent track record of caring for travelers.

If you would like us to connect you to a trustworthy agent, contact us here. The road conditions in Tibet have improved enormously over the years, and the great majority of drivers are awesomely professional and skillful.

Car accidents in Tibet and China, like most places in the world, are among the biggest causes of problems for travelers. That means that you want to eat food that has been cooked while you wait and is still hot when served. The only thing we generally break this rule for is bread, which seems to be okay to eat any time. The sickest we have seen a fellow traveler was after he ate some cold salad sitting in a display case, on the way out of Tibet, in China. Not good. For water, you want to drink bottled or boiled or filtered water.

You will probably want to supplement it by buying more every day or bringing your own filter. Virtually every hotel room has an electric kettle that you can boil water in. The combination of the high UV radiation at high altitude, plus abundant sunshine and sometimes strong wind in Tibet can wreak havoc on your skin. To avoid damaging your skin, we highly recommend using:. Learn more: Should I get Travel Insurance? Tibetan food is a fantastic mix of hot, beloved comfort food and weird concepts that really confuse most non-Tibetans.

Tibetan dumplings — momos — inspire fervent devotion in food lovers around the world. You can eat them stuffed with meat, or veggies, and they come steamed, fried and in soup. These are savory, juicy, fried meat pies.

In the image here you see such a shapaley, with an omelette. There are endless varieties of noodle soups in Tibet. Try Thukpa Gyathuk Chinese noodles. You can also readily find fried noodle dishes with meat and veg. You can find these fried or in soup.

There are endless varieties of bread in Tibet. One of the most popular is balep korkun, basically round bread. You may find it often at little hole in the wall restaurants outside of Lhasa for a simple breakfast. The most common dishes reflect what plants and animals are able to survive at an average altitude of 16, feet…. The traditional staple food of Tibet is tsampa, a flour made of roasted highland barley.

Tibetans eat a lot of yak-related meat and dairy products. A common word for the female is dri. Yak meat is quite lean and mild and beef-like — not nearly as weird as it sounds! Meat in general is popular in Tibet: yak, beef, mutton, and goat.

Even though people often mistakenly think Tibetans are vegetarians. Fish is not popular or common in Tibet. Tibetans typically believe that it is better to kill and eat a large animal than many small ones, since less life is lost. Traditional food crops include highland barley, wheat, cabbage, and root vegetables.