Spiti Valley road trips have become the most talked thing on the internet since the 4G network made its way to the Middle Kingdom. Since the dawn of Covid, the whole valley has gone online. The result of the network has transformed the whole valley into a tourist hot spot. 

Which has resulted in travel agents and others selling even weekend trips to Spiti Valley which has attracted the most crowd. But there is a huge difference between a three to seven days Spiti Valley and the eight to 14 days Spiti Valley.  

In common man terms, the three to seven days in here with your friends and family is like calling them for a birthday party and cutting a cake slice to feed the whole group.  You are just running through the buffer area of the Valley by just exploring the hot spots of the place.  

Let’s break down Spiti Valley into three parts.  

Entry and Exit: Route

So you have two options, one is Shimla and Kinnaur which is pretty much open all year round. Then the next is via  Manali (Atal tunnel) and Kunzum Pass which is open only for five to six months of the summer months from May to October.

So even if the routing starts at Manali and ends at Shimla or visa versa, it’s still not worth it. Because the travel time is insane when you are on a short trip doing the whole circuit. 

Imagine going through some of the highest roads and villages in the world and just running through the place in a vehicle. Only stopping at what’s important and then going into a hotel or home stay. A trip less than eight days which starts and ends in New Delhi or Chandigarh will leave you with just three to five days in Spiti Valley at the max. So it will be daily travel of eight-15 hours.  You can’t complete Spiti in five to seven days in less than the above road time daily.  

If you think travelling eight-14 hours daily in a vehicle is fun, try doing it over the weekend in your home city for two days and then take a call. The Valley is five to six times the altitude of your home town. 

Spiti experience = Tourist trailer  

These short fast trips are a beautiful trailer which will leave people wanting more but only 1% of all those who visit Spiti Valley on a three to six day trailer will end up coming back on the trip. Why are we calling it a trailer of Spiti Valley? It is because by visiting Chandartal, staying two to three nights in Kaza and one night in Tabo and then doing day visits to the other high altitude villages such as Langza, Hikkim, Pin Valley, Dhankar is totally not worth it.  

That’s just a visit to the museum in Spiti Valley experience terms.  You will save in terms of money and leaves. But what’s the sense in doing anything which is only entry level? To make it a little bit more relatable, would you get a smart phone which has 2-4GB Ram in the post Covid era just because it’s cheaper than the ones with 8-12 GB? 

The same mindset has to be applied for Spiti Valley road trips. The Spiti experience in the home stays which are located in the villages which are only visited as day trips.  Short trips to Spiti Valley are like a zoo visit. The real deal is a safari in the wild.  

C: Spiritual connect = Nature reconnect 

Spiti has and always will be the road trip which will have a life altering effect on the way you look at things in the city. But that’s if you end up spending time in the monasteries and by the river side or on the hike while exploring the unknown. 

On a short trailer road trip to Spiti Valley, the monasteries have become nothing but a museum to look at and click pictures. Pre-wedding shoots around the monastery campus has become a regular.  So this pretty much sums up the mess up with the short Spiti trips. Would you travel all the way to a monastery which was established in 996 AD to shoot reels or ask for grace for a happy married life. 

For those who have reached this part of the blog, God bless your mind because Spiti Valley has a very strong spiritual aura which is still present. But in the mass volume of this short trip, people have forgotten what is the purpose of travelling to Spiti Valley. 

Finally, it comes down to who you are at the end of the day. Someone who is a traveller at heart, searching for AN experience or are you someone who just wants to get a digital footprint of the place without having a real experience. It’s the best example of reel life versus real life.