What is the best way to travel to Skardu?
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What is the best way to travel to Skardu
If you are wondering where skardu is or how to get there. Let us help you get your bearings.
The next few paragraphs will make you sound like an expert on how to travel to Skardu and you can brag about it without giving us any credit.
We will not mind. It will be our little secret. Skardu is the capital of Baltistan which is part of the North most province of Pakistan called Gilgit Baltistan (GB). There are two modes of transportation through which you can reach Skardu. One is by road. One is by air.
Skardu has a massive airport with three runways one of which doesn’t work because some contractor did something substandard and now it’s not fit for landing but there are 2 runways big enough to land an Airbus A330 which are newly built and work just fine. Also fun fact that the skardu airport land holding or total land acquired is the largest in Asia.
More about by air travel to Skardu in a bit let get the by road option out of the way first.
BY ROAD
The by Road or by car mode of transportation has two routes. Both of which begin in Islamabad and your drive through KPK to Gilgit Baltistan and hence Skardu.
- Route 1: Islamabad – Besham – Chillas – Gilgit – Skardu
- Route 2: Islamabad – Balakot – Naran – Chillas – Gilgit – Skardu
Both journeys are usually a 16 to 18 Hour Drive Time and most tourists take a break at Besham or Naran or Chillas for an overnight stop.
A lot of tourists take the by road route to Skardu but how they survive the journey is beyond me.
The Naran route is open from start of June till the start of October and is about 1.5 hours shorter than Route 1 (Via Behsam). The Besham route or route 1 is open throughout the year.
Now let us get back to the by air mode of transportation which is far more exciting and luxurious.
There are flights between Skardu and Islamabad daily for the entire year. The airplane that goes to Skardu is usually a 170 seater jet which is an Airbus 320 or a Boeing 777-200.
So these jets fly above the weather at around 32000 Feet above sea level. So the flight is usually very smooth and the weather does not affect the flight schedule except in extreme circumstances.
92% of the flights from Islamabad are on time and do not get cancelled. This stat was given to me by an airline personnel in a conversation over coffee so feel free to fact check me.
A return ticket from Islamabad (ISB) to Skardu (KDU, I think the airport code for Skardu is so cool) will set you back around PKR 55000 and usually lasts about 50 mins.
There are Bi Weekly flights from Lahore and Karachi to Skardu which run from April to mid-September every year. There are two main operators currently operating flights to Skardu with other airlines eyeing to start this extremely lucrative route soon. The two airlines are PIA and Airblue.
A return ticket from Karachi to Skardu will set you back around PKR 75000 and from Lahore around PKR 65000. The flying time is 2 hours from KHI to KDU and 1 hour from LHE (Lahore’s airport code) is LHE, LHR is London Heathrow just a little information I thought I’d impart to KDU.
There are loads of non-custom paid (NCP) rent a cars available at super cheap rates which you can book online or through a tour operator which you can keep with you for the entirety of your stay. And no it’s not illegal to rent them.
Hope this helps.
