Nine days over the high passes to Nubra and Pangong, at a pace that lets everyone sleep well at altitude, oxygen in every vehicle, doctors’ numbers in every driver’s phone.
Most Ladakh itineraries land you in Leh and start climbing the same afternoon. We do not. The first two days are spent at 3,500 metres doing very little, on purpose, altitude is not a race, and the difference between a trip your family remembers and one it endures is usually those first 48 hours.
After that, the road does the talking: Khardung La before the trucks, two nights in Nubra among the dunes and double-humped camels, and Pangong the long way, through Shyok, because the long way is the better road and nobody tells you that.
Every vehicle carries oxygen. Every driver has done this route for years. Someone from Zubilant is with you from airport to airport.
Ten days, start to finish. The route, then the rhythm of it.
Arrive Leh. Nothing scheduled. Tea at the guesthouse, an early night.
A slow morning walk in the old town, Leh Palace at your own speed. Acclimatisation, disguised as sightseeing.
Shanti Stupa at sunrise, Thiksey and Hemis after breakfast. Early night before the pass.
Over Khardung La to Nubra. We leave at six to beat the convoy traffic.
Nubra, Diskit monastery, the dunes at Hunder, camels if the children insist. They will.
Nubra to Pangong through the Shyok valley. Lake by mid-afternoon, when the colour turns.
Sunrise at Pangong, then back to Leh via Chang La.
Alchi and Likir, or a rest day, you decide.
Local market morning, farewell dinner.
Depart Leh.
The facts most itineraries leave out. We print them because they are what decides whether this trip suits your family.
Three nights at a family-run guesthouse in Changspa with a garden and proper heating, two nights in a fixed camp at Nubra, one night lakeside at Pangong in the best of the fixed camps, and the remainder back in Leh.
Families with children over eight, and adults comfortable with two long driving days. Not for anyone advised against altitude, and not for travellers who need a lift at every hotel, Ladakh does not have them.
Journeys that suit the same travellers.
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Seven unhurried nights from Kochi through Alleppey to Kumarakom and the hills, a houseboat, a spice garden, and afternoons with nothing in them, on purpose.
Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Udaipur in eight nights, the right four cities in the right order, with the forts before lunch and the markets after tea.