Nubra valley itinerary

Hey, guys welcome back to a new day and a new blog, I hope that you are still nourishing the traveler in you.

Now some of you have been asking me on Instagram to make a blog post about travel itinerary of
Nubra valley, but unfortunately, I have never been to Nubra valley by myself so I asked a very dear friend of mine to help me on this post.

Nubra Valley is one of the MUST VISIT places in Ladakh especially if you are visiting for the first time. It is among the sub-districts in Ladakh, located in the North East side having Diskit Village as its main headquarters.

Diskit is situated about 120 odd KMs from Leh town which is the main capital of Ladakh district. The Shyok river, a tributary of the Indus river, meets the Nubra or Siachen river to form a large valley that separates the Ladakh and Karakorum Ranges.

So given its location, it is a must visit place for everyone who goes on leh trips, but they end up staying a day or two in the Nubra valley and then return back by just seeing the tourist spots, well, in my opinion, you should at least stay 5 to 6 days to properly explore Nubra valley. 

Since it is near to the Line of Actual Control, you need to get Inner Line Permit to visit Nubra Valley, both as an Indian and foreigner.

The major attraction of a trip to Nubra is traveling over the so-called or hyped, falsely claimed highest motorable road, Khardung La Pass. Nubra Valley is an ideal place to fit into the acclimatization schedule of your Ladakh trip once you reach Leh because it is at a lower altitude than Leh, at an average altitude of 10000 Feet or 3048 Mtrs

(*Please note that climbing to a very high altitude of Khardung La from Leh and then sleeping at a low altitude of Nubra Valley DOES HELP tremendously in acclimatization.)

Best Time to Travel : 

Similar to what we learned about the best time to travel to Leh Ladakh, in the months of January to March, Nubra Valley remains shut down in cold snow conditions. Only a few options are available to stay and open to welcome guests.

In April, some guest houses start to open up but the food does remain an issue in most places. You have to mostly rely on homestays or guest houses and home cooked food only. You can see apricot flowers blooming all over Nubra Valley in April.

Then comes the months of May, June, July, and August which is the peak tourist season in Ladakh. You can find all accommodation options open with full staff and support even in Nubra Valley during these months of the year.

Come September and early October, the tourists start to reside as the cold starts to set in and accommodation starts to pack up too. According to me, this is by far the best time to visit Nubra Valley to see the full glory of the burning colors of Ladakh with clouds hovering like candies in the blue sky

After the third week of October up to December, mostly all the accommodation options packs up except the small guest houses or home stays and very few hotels. However, the situation of accommodation options in Nubra Valley in winters as well is not that bad as compared to Pangong Tso and Tso Moriri lakes, where only a few homestays run with very basic facilities.

Day 1 | Leh – Khardung La – Diskit – Hunder

• Head for Nubra Valley and stay overnight at Hunder / Diskit
• On the way enjoy a cup of soup at Highest Motorable Pass (as claimed) Khardung La
• Diskit has monasteries with tallest lord Buddha statue and Hunder has sand dunes and bacterian camel safari

Day 2 | Hunder / Diskit – Sumur – Panamik – Sumur – Khardung La – Leh

• Sumur has a Samstanling monastery to check out nearby
•  Panamik has hot water springs and a sacred Yarab Tso lake
•  Overnight at Leh

Day 3 | day of the trek 

  Go on any 2 or 3 days trek, by the way, there are a lot of local people who offer proper trek deep into the Nubra valley. Who else better than a local who can show you every nook and crook of the beautiful land?.

Day 6 

You MUST add a day to your schedule and go ahead to visit Turtuk, about 95 KMs from Diskit. Turtuk was opened in 2010 for domestic tourists and in 2013 for foreign tourists. It is an amazing place, quite different from the rest of the landscape in Nubra Valley and houses a different affinity for culture too.

Places to Visit in Nubra Valley

You can visit the following places in Nubra Valley for your 2-3 day trip from Leh.  I will try to explain these places in detail in some other article just to maintain the brevity of this blog post.

* Diskit: Diskit has a monastery which is largest and oldest Buddhist monastery in Nubra Valley and houses a 106 feet tall Maitreya Buddha statue. There is Lachung Temple as well which is quite close to the monastery.

* Hunder: Hunder is famous for its sand dunes and double-humped bacterian camel safari.

* Sumur: Somewhere between Sumur and Kyagar, you can visit Samstanling monastery.

* Panamik: It has hot water springs and a sacred Yarab Tso lake nearby the entrance of the village.

* Turtuk: Opened for tourists in 2010, Turtuk offers a much different landscape and cultural orientation than the rest of the Nubra Valley. You can see apricot trees loaded around the entire village with views closer to Karakorum range. If you have time, a MUST VISIT place in Nubra Valley.