Undoubtedly the Pamir Highway in Tajikistan is one of the most famous road trips in the world, but traveling the Pamir Highway is not without its challenges.
This Pamir Highway travel guide is designed to help you prepare for an unforgettable adventure across the roof of the world. It will assist you in avoiding illness, enhancing your comfort, and even saving money along the way.
Traveling the Pamir Highway
After our 9-day adventure traveling the Pamir Highway, we gained valuable insights into what improved our journey and what we wished we had known beforehand.
Now, we’re excited to share these Pamir highway tips with you.
#1 Pamir Highway Tips: Pamir Highway Permit
The top tip for traveling the Pamir Highway is to secure the essential GBAO permit (Gorno-Badakshan Autonomous Oblast)—without it, you won’t be able to travel the Pamir Highway at all!
Upon arrival in Tajikistan, we stayed in Panjakent where our amazing host guided us through the entire process of acquiring both our registration and GBAO permits at the local police station. This assistance was invaluable, as the process can be quite complex.
You’ll need a Tajikistan phone number to receive a verification code via SMS, which our host helped with since we didn’t have a local SIM card.
If your stay in Tajikistan exceeds 10 days, you’ll need to obtain registration.
We paid 32 Euros for both our registrations and GBAO permits in Panjakent. While you can also obtain these in the capital, Dushanbe, it is reportedly more expensive there.
Alternatively, if you’re traveling the Pamir Highway with a tour, the tour company can arrange your GBAO permit for you, though it will be at a higher cost. We were quoted $35 per person by our Pamir Highway tour operator for the permit.
#2 Pamir Highway Tips: ATMs
When traveling the Pamir Highway, another of our top tips is to withdraw cash from ATMs whenever you have the chance. Don’t assume that ATMs will always have money, as they often run dry in Tajikistan.
ATMs are available in larger cities like Panjakent, Dushanbe, and Khorog, but there are some important points to consider.
Don’t be surprised if you need to visit several ATMs before finding one with cash.
Also, ATMs typically dispense 10 somoni notes, which are worth less than one Euro, so don’t get too excited when seeing a stack of notes coming to you!
Some ATMs limit withdrawals to 1000 somoni, but ALIF Bank ATMs allow withdrawals of up to 2500 somoni. You can make two separate withdrawals of 2500 somoni each, so it’s wise to withdraw enough cash in advance, especially when traveling the Pamir Highway.
Since ATMs are scarce along the Pamir Highway, it’s essential to be well-prepared with cash. Be aware that accommodation and food payments along the route will only be accepted in cash.
The following points will concentrate on what to pack with you when traveling the Pamir Highway:
#3 Pamir Highway Tips: Headtorch
Tip number three for traveling the Pamir Highway is to pack a head torch. As you venture into the remote areas of Tajikistan, power outages are common, and if you’re staying with a local family, there may be no electricity at all.
Having a head torch will ensure you’re prepared for any situation.
#4 Pamir Highway Tips: Towel
Number four of our Pamir highway tips is to pack a towel because the accommodation may not always provide one.
In fact, just assume that they won’t!
#5 Pamir Highway Tips: Toilet Paper
Based on the earlier points, we hope that by now you are not expecting luxury accommodations while traveling the Pamir Highway.
On that note another important tip for the Pamir Highway is to pack toilet paper.
Firstly, for the shared bathrooms at your accommodation, as well as for the roadside toilet stops during your long road trip days.
#6 Pamir Highway Tips: Motilium or Equivalent
This Pamir Highway tip goes hand in hand with the last tip. We advise to pack Motilium or the equivalent. Motilium is used primarily to relieve symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting.
This will be discussed further in the “water” section.
#7 Pamir Highway Tips: Paracetamol or Equivalent
While traveling the Pamir Highway, you’ll be reaching altitudes of up to 5000 meters, which can lead to altitude-related symptoms such as headaches. It may take up to 5 days to acclimate to such heights.
To help manage this discomfort and ensure you can fully enjoy your journey through the Pamir mountains, we recommend packing paracetamol or Panadol.
#8 Pamir Highway Tips: Extra Treats
This Pamir Highway tip isn’t a necessity but a thoughtful gesture. As you travel through the remote villages of the Pamir Mountains, you’ll encounter many local children who would greatly appreciate small gifts, such as sweets, from their visitors.
These simple acts of kindness can truly brighten their day, as we witnessed first-hand with many children joyfully jumping and clapping when offered treats. Such exchanges, requiring minimal effort on your part, can become a memorable highlight of your journey traveling the Pamir Highway.
After all, it’s nice to be nice.
Now that you have your Pamir Highway permit and are all packed, let’s check out our top Pamir Highway tips while on the road:
#9 Pamir Highway Tips: Water
This is probably the most important of all our tips for traveling the Pamir Highway (after the Pamir permit!)
We have travelled all over the world, visiting many South East Asia countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, exploring East Asia such as China, Taiwan, and South Korea, and even embarking on an overland adventure from Cairo to Cape town. We have traveled through all these countries and we have never gotten sick.
Tajikistan was a different story. Not only for us, but EVERY single traveler we encountered traveling the Pamir Highway had fallen ill to what we now refer to as “Tajiki Belly”
We suspect that the water is the cause of this upset stomach, as it is used for cooking food and making tea.
To avoid such a fate we highly recommend drinking only bottled water while traveling the Pamir highway, and while visiting Tajikistan in general. Trust us, no one wants to be stuck in a car for 9 days and hiking for hours on end with an upset belly.
Refer back to the “Motilium” section.
Check out our top 13 things you need to know before visiting Tajikistan to ensure you have the best Tajikistan holiday possible.
#10 Pamir Highway Tips: Buying Water
Closely linked with the last Pamir Highway tip is to purchase water when you get the opportunity as there can be a shortage of water in shops along the Pamir Highway route.
Stock up on crates/drums of water when you get the chance so avoid this happening to you. Even stock up at your starting city to assure you will have enough water for the duration of your Pamir Highway journey.
#11 Pamir Highway Tips: Showers
Linking nicely to the shortage of water is next up on our Pamir Highway tips and that is to shower when you can.
All our accommodations provided a shower, however, this did not always mean that there will be water. Therefore, if there is water once you check in then use it because it might be another 24hours before you get another opportunity to shower.
Keep in mind that you’ll be using shared bathrooms, so be considerate of other travelers by being efficient and quick.
#12 Pamir Highway Tips: Accommodation
During your 9-day Pamir Highway tour, accommodation will typically cost between $10-15 (100-150 TJS) per person per night. At the beginning of the tour in places like Kalaikhum, Jizeu Village, and Khorog, we paid $10 per person per night. For the rest of the trip, the cost was $15 per person per night. Note that these prices do not include meals.
You can often negotiate room rates; for example, at one stay with no running water, we successfully requested a $5 discount.
#13 Pamir Highway Tips: Meals
While the Pamir Highway tour company might suggest that accommodation and meals are bundled, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, we recommend against this option and have found that you can save significantly traveling the Pamir Highway by handling meals yourself.
Including meals (breakfast and dinner) with your accommodation will cost around $36 (250 TJS) per person per day. Each dinner is priced at $10 and breakfast at $5. Over the 9 days, this can add up quickly, and the meals, often just oily pasta and potatoes, may not be worth the cost.
We chose to save money by buying food and water in Dushanbe, Kalaikhum, Khorog, and Murghob. Many homestays offer shared kitchen facilities, so we prepared our own meals, such as omelettes and noodles, and enjoyed sandwiches and snacks during our road trip/hike days.
By preparing our own food, we spent only $60 on meals over the 9 days, saving an impressive $280 compared to the recommended budget given by our tour company. This extra money went towards our Kyrgyzstan travels!
Additionally, with the amount of tourists falling ill with stomach problems while traveling the Pamir Highway, we feel preparing your own food can make a big difference. Win, win.
#14 Pamir Highway Tips: WIFI
Put simply, there will be no WIFI.
Advise your family or whoever needs to know, that you will be offline for the coming days while traveling the Pamir Highway.
In the meantime, enjoy the break and soak up some of the most beautiful landscapes you will ever witness.
#15 Pamir Highway Bonus Tip: Support
This is our bonus tip for traveling the Pamir Highway. The route through the Pamir mountains can get quite bumpy so for whoever needs to hear this – wear a supportive bra.
You are welcome!
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Enjoy Traveling the Pamir Highway!
There you have it, 13 of the best Pamir Highway tips, some which improved our Tajikistan travel and others we wish we knew before traveling the Pamir Highway.
We hope this Tajikistan travel guide has equipped you with everything you need to make the most of your Pamir Highway travel, so you can focus on enjoying your visit to this extraordinary hidden gem in Central Asia.
Exploring some of the world’s most stunning and remote areas is truly a memorable experience, and we’re confident you’ll absolutely love your Tajikistan travels as much as we did.
If there’s anything we’ve missed, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you!
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