Asia > Pakistan: Weather, Map, Costs and Travel Guide

Karachi is the biggest city in Pakistan: very large and full of contrasts, it houses bazaars and modern shops, as well as various monuments and sites to visit, such as the Quaid-l-Azam mausoleum, the Masjid-i-Tuba mosque and Its magnificent dome, the Holy Trinity Cathedral, St Andrew's Church, the Zoo, the Zoroastrian Silence Towers, Clifton Beach and Manora Island beaches, the Saddar neighborhood and its markets.

Another important city, Lahore, which turns out to be the cultural center of Pakistan, and also the most frequented by travelers. Very pleasant thanks to its gardens, one admires also its constructions which offer a mixture of colonial and Mughal architecture, its animated streets and its bazaars. You will love the neighborhood of the Mall and its very English atmosphere, the city museum, exciting with its Hindu and Buddhist statues, the beautiful Altchison College, the Fort, its gardens and palaces, and you will love to stroll in rickshaw in the old City enamelled with mausoleums and mosques.

Punjab is a peaceful and fertile region where you will visit Bahawalpur, a rich and welcoming city, then the Lal Suhanra National Park and its natural reserve, as well as Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

The Karakorum Mountains are a popular destination for travelers who enjoy sports challenges, with its K2 summit, the second highest peak on the planet.

Kashmir has magnificent landscapes, which are unfortunately outside the security zone of this country, but you can however discover the Neelum valley, for walking and fishing, the Jhelum, as well as the mountains covered with forests more to the south.

Peshawar will seduce you with its old town, and from there you can reach the nearby Swat valley, with its beautiful landscapes, as well as the Chitral region, full of green valleys from which spring hot springs, then the Indus Koshitan , Its vertiginous summits and its abyssal canyons.

A visa is required to enter Pakistan.

The current currency is the Pakistan Rupee (PKR).

You will land at Karachi Airport most of the time. One can also arrive by bus to Lahore from Delhi, or by boat to Karachi from Bombay.

To travel in the country, the airway is very convenient and inexpensive. There are also buses, trucks and jeeps that make the journeys by road, despite the bad state of it, especially in the mountains. In the cities there are buses, taxis, rickshaws and horse-drawn carts.

Budget: if you simply live and eat local food, you can get by for less than 20 € per day. For a very comfortable hotel room, count about forty euros, and less than 10 € for a meal a little more elaborate.

Health: Protect yourself from mosquitoes because of malaria, and have your classic vaccines up to date. It is prudent to add those against meningitis, hepatitis A and B and possibly rabies.

Security: conditions are very unsafe, outside the cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. And even in the latter, it is essential to remain very vigilant, because the terrorist risk is still current as we write these lines.

Shopping: in the bazaars you will find carpets, leather goods, clothes, especially the "salwar kameez", a long tunic to wear on pants.