Tibet and Nepal sit next to each other on the map and ask completely different things of you. Nepal lets most nationalities arrive and organize themselves as they go; Tibet is closed to independent travel and only opens through an operator who files your paperwork in advance.
Altitude is the shared variable. Lhasa sits at 3,650 meters, the Tibetan Everest camp at about 5,150, and even Nepali tea-house routes climb past 4,000 within a week. Handle the permits and the acclimatization together, because the itinerary is shaped by both.
Tibet: the papers you actually need
Four documents control the trip, and three of them are filed by your operator rather than by you. Only the visa is yours to arrange directly, and getting the order right matters more than the volume of forms.
- Tibet Travel Permit: issued by the regional tourism bureau against your passport and China visa copies, normally 10 to 15 working days in the April to October peak and faster in the shoulder months.
- Alien's Travel Permit: added for anything outside Lhasa, including Everest Base Camp, and issued after you arrive.
- Permits for remote counties such as Ngari and Mount Kailash take longer and add a military approval to the queue.
- A China tourist visa, applied for in your home country, with entry dates that match the permit window exactly.
Solo travelers are matched to a licensed guide, and movement outside Lhasa runs on an itinerary that has been filed in advance. Packages that bundle the permits, transport and guide from Kathmandu run about $1,200 to $1,900 per person for a seven to nine day loop, and should be booked with refundable flights, because permits sometimes arrive late or not at all.
Nepal: permits and TIMS
Nepal's system is lighter, and almost all of it can be settled on arrival or by your trekking agency. Budget one afternoon in Kathmandu to collect cards and registrations before you leave the valley.
- An on-arrival visa costs $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30 days and $125 for 90 days, payable in cash at Kathmandu airport.
- Every trekker needs a TIMS card, roughly $8 to $15, which your agency normally arranges with the group registration.
- Restricted regions such as Upper Mustang, Manaslu and Dolpo carry separate permits: Upper Mustang is about $500 for the first ten days, and these can only be bought through a licensed operator.
- Conservation and national park entries add roughly $20 to $30 per person for the classic Annapurna and Everest areas.
The guide rules for trekking regions have been amended more than once since 2023, so the current policy should be confirmed for your exact route rather than assumed. None of the paperwork is difficult when your operator stacks it in the right order before you land.
Acclimatization, the part people skip
Altitude illness is the one problem on these trips that cannot be fixed by spending more money, and it is managed by a handful of rules. It responds to pacing and to nothing else.
- Flying Kathmandu to Lhasa is a jump of more than 2,000 meters in ninety minutes, so plan two slow days in Lhasa with nothing scheduled above a gentle walk.
- Above 3,000 meters, gain no more than 300 to 500 meters of sleeping altitude per day, with a rest day after every 1,000.
- A headache with nausea and a poor night of sleep is a signal to pause, not a signal to push on.
- Confusion, loss of coordination or a cough while resting mean descend immediately, and the group should move together.
- Many doctors suggest Diamox at 125 milligrams twice a day as a preventive; discuss it before you fly, since it reacts with a few common medicines.
If one number stays with you, make it this: no more than 500 meters of sleeping gain a day above 3,000, and a rest day for every 1,000 meters climbed. Every other guideline in this section exists to support that one figure.
When to go
Both destinations have a clear season, and they overlap enough to combine them in one trip. The trip therefore needs one window chosen carefully rather than two separate calendars.
- Tibet: mid-April to mid-June and September to October give clear skies and open roads; July and August bring monsoon cloud to the eastern valleys.
- Nepal: late October to November is the post-monsoon window with the sharpest mountain views, and March to April is the runner-up with rhododendron in bloom.
- The Gyirong border crossing between the two works through most of that window, which makes a Kathmandu to Lhasa line the natural order.
- March has historically carried short permit pauses in Tibet, so we avoid scheduling sensitive dates around it.
- Winter is cold and clear at altitude, and the lower Nepali routes stay walkable while the high passes close.
Ten to twelve days covers Kathmandu, the flight to Lhasa and the classic loop around Everest; add four or five more for Kailash or a longer Nepali circuit. Permit processing sets the minimum lead time for the Tibet half, so the dates start there.
How we build the trip
We file the Tibet permits against your visa, register the Nepali trek, and write the rest days into the itinerary as fixed items rather than optional ones. The acclimatization days look like nothing on paper and are the reason the trip works on the ground.
A typical shape reads as three nights in Kathmandu for permits and briefing, the crossing or the flight to Lhasa, four nights in Tibet, then two easy days back in Nepal before the flight home. Each transfer happens only once, which is what keeps the route from feeling like an airport tour.
Tell us your dates and your walking background and we will draft the route with the paperwork, the pacing and one spare day for a permit delay already built in. The first draft comes back within five business days of the consultation.