Pakistan

Lahore — the cultural capital of Pakistan, the second city (13 million), the heart of Mughal architecture in South Asia — with the Badshahi Mosque (1673, the largest mosque in the world at time of construction, holding 100,000 worshippers, still the sixth-largest in the world), the Lahore Fort (UNESCO World Heritage Site, a complex of Mughal palaces, hammams and durbar halls spanning 1556–1707), and the Walled City’s Anarkali Bazaar.

💡 Lahore was the capital of the Mughal Empire during its most culturally productive period — under Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb (1556–1707), the city acquired its great mosques, gardens, forts and mausoleums. The Shalimar Gardens (1641, Shah Jahan’s pleasure garden with 410 fountains fed by the Hasli Canal — UNESCO WHS) and the Noor Jahan Mausoleum are the finest Mughal monuments remaining in Pakistan.

The Shalimar Gardens (UNESCO, the finest surviving Mughal garden outside India), Jahangir’s Tomb (the mausoleum of Emperor Jahangir, 1637, surrounded by the finest pietra dura inlay work in Pakistan — coloured stone flowers and geometric patterns inlaid in white marble using Indian semi-precious stones) and the Food Street of Gawalmandi (the most atmospheric night food market in Pakistan).

💡 Lahore’s Food Street is one of the great street food experiences in the world — a colonial-era street of grilled kebabs, nihari (slow-cooked beef shank), halwa puri, lassi and the smoky air of tandoor ovens, operating from dusk to 2am. The kulfi falooda (frozen milk dessert with rose syrup and vermicelli) is Lahore’s signature sweet.

10h drive from Lahore to Gilgit (or 1h30 flight). The Karakoram Highway (KKH) — 1,300km from Rawalpindi to the Chinese border at Khunjerab Pass (4,693m), built over 20 years (1959–1979) by 15,000 Pakistani and Chinese workers at the cost of 810 lives, through the most tectonically active and geologically spectacular mountain terrain on earth.

💡 The Karakoram Highway is the highest paved international road in the world — crossing the Khunjerab Pass at 4,693m, above the snowline for most of the year, through the confluence of three of the world’s greatest mountain ranges: the Himalaya, Karakoram and Hindu Kush. It was named one of the engineering wonders of the 20th century.

The Hunza Valley — a deep-cut valley surrounded by the Karakoram peaks (Rakaposhi, 7,788m, visible from the valley floor; Ultar Sar, 7,388m, directly above Karimabad town) — was isolated from the outside world until the KKH was completed in 1978. The spring blossom (March–April, when every apricot tree in the valley flowers simultaneously, turning the terraced hillsides white and pink) is one of the most extraordinary natural spectacles in Asia.

💡 The Hunza people have been the subject of multiple long-lived claims — including a 1977 book claiming they regularly lived to 120+, had zero cancer rates, and sustained vigorous health on a traditional diet. Subsequent research found no evidence of exceptional longevity; the reputation was partly based on uncertain birth records in an isolated population.

Baltit Fort (a 700-year-old royal residence above Karimabad, restored with Aga Khan Trust funding — the finest surviving timber and stone mountain fortress in the Karakoram) and Altit Fort (900 years old, the oldest building in the Hunza Valley, on a cliff edge above the Hunza River gorge). The walk through the apricot orchards of Karimabad at blossom season.

💡 The Aga Khan Trust for Culture has invested in the restoration of Baltit and Altit Forts and the Karimabad old bazaar since the 1990s — one of the most sensitive and successful heritage restoration programmes in South Asia. The Hunza people are predominantly Ismaili Muslim (followers of the Aga Khan), giving the valley a distinctly tolerant and progressive social culture compared to other parts of northern Pakistan.

4h from Hunza. Fairy Meadows (2,900m) — accessible by a 4WD track to Tato village (the steepest driveable track in the world, 14km of 45-degree unpaved switchbacks) and then a 3h hike through pine forest — a meadow directly below the southern face of Nanga Parbat (8,125m, “Killer Mountain” — the ninth-highest peak in the world, with the highest base camp-accessible view of an 8,000m peak from a meadow anywhere in the Karakoram).

💡 Nanga Parbat (“Naked Mountain” in Urdu) was the most deadly 8,000m peak per summit attempt until the 2010s — 70 climbers died attempting the summit before the first successful ascent (Hermann Buhl, solo, 1953, after a final push of 41 hours without supplementary oxygen). The 4,500m Rupal Face (the south face) is the largest mountain face on earth.

45-min flight from Gilgit to Skardu. Skardu — the gateway to the Karakoram’s 8,000m peaks (K2, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak and Masherbrum are all visible from the Baltoro Glacier, reached by a 3-day jeep + hike from Skardu) — with the Skardu Fort, Kachura Lakes and the highest polo ground in the world at Shandur Pass (3,700m, July festival). Fly from Islamabad (ISB).

💡 K2 (8,611m, the second-highest mountain in the world and the most technically demanding of the 14 eight-thousanders) was first climbed by an Italian expedition in 1954. It is considered significantly more dangerous than Everest — for every four successful summits, one climber dies. The Baltoro Glacier approach from Skardu is the most spectacular mountain walk accessible to non-technical hikers.