Are you thinking of making the long awaited road trip to Leh-Ladakh? It’s pretty much an absolute must do if you are from any of the metro cities in India. Ladakh has been on the top summer destinations since the start of the last decade and the trend has continued into this decade. 

The first thing that you got to decide is how long are you planning this trip for? Whether it’s six days or more, it could be even a 21 days trip. Planning for Ladakh depends purely on how long you plan on going there without deciding the duration you cannot really decide anything beyond this.

How do you decide the duration?

So honestly, the duration entirely depends on how long you plan on travelling around Ladakh, because the things to do is just about, do you have enough time to cover everything that’s there to do. Most people end up spending around five to seven days on an average in Leh. This includes travel to and fro by flight.

But on a serious note, that’s honestly not enough of time to get in and out of Ladakh by seeing everything. It is just like you are travelling in fast forward, since most of the things are a blur with the attitude and the weather which will definitely take you at least three to four days to get accustomed to.

When you are planning a trip to Ladakh, you should at least plan for a minimum of eight to 12 days since that’s really how much of time, the place needs to do a quick run around. Most people have been doing very short trips to Ladakh, but that’s not really how you can go about seeing places. Ladakh is not the kind of place you will come back to over and over again considering how far and costly is is. 

When you decided the duration of your Ladakh trip, the next thing to do is to actually sit down and decide where all do you want to go and explore. The regular tourist circuit which everybody does includes a couple of days in Leh then you have Nubra valley for a night, then you go to Pangong Tso for another night and after that you are back to Leh and then you fly out.

That takes roughly around six to eight days to see this depending on how slow fast you want to go to Nubra valley, whether you want to spend one night or two nights there.

When you are deciding on where exactly you should be staying along this road trip, it highly again depends on what your budget for the trip is? If your budget isn’t too much you, then you will find a combination which isn’t exactly extraordinary but it will make sense in Ladakh like home stays which are extremely clean. It’s a better option to opt for home stay rather than a hotel since the experience is more enriching and at the same time it’s not heavy on the pocket. 

Expect homestay to be priced anywhere between Rs 1000 to 2000 depending on what kind of a deal you can crack. Anything below that will be a guest house which will have the room and a bathroom and most probably solar heating to give you water. A home stay is a better way to experience Leh, Nubra valley and if you’re planning on staying close to Pangong, we would recommend the village of Thangse stay which is 30 kms away from Pangong Tso.

Budgeting for food in Ladakh

Remember that every place and every season the costing will be different. So you can find food to range from anywhere between Rs 100 to going up to even Rs 2000 for a meal. Obviously these are in Leh market where all the cafes and fine dine restaurants are located. 

What kind of medicines you should be carrying to Leh?

You can ask your physician and then decide or you can pack the regular medicines that you feel you need if you have any health complications. Please make sure that you visit the doctor before going to Leh because it’s not the kind of attitude you want to falls sick in.