Gilgit
The crossroads city of the high Karakoram.
Gilgit is GB's administrative capital and transport hub — the airport for Hunza, the junction where the Karakoram Highway meets the Skardu road, and a working bazaar town at the meeting point of three mountain ranges (Karakoram, Himalaya, Hindu Kush). Most itineraries pass through; the Kargah Buddha and the confluence viewpoint reward the hours between connections.
Travellers treat Gilgit as a corridor, which is fair — Hunza is two hours north, Skardu four east — but the city has its footnotes of greatness: the 7th-century Kargah Buddha carved into a cliff face, the polo ground where the sport's mountain version is played at full violence, and at Jaglot, the only place on earth where three of the planet's great ranges visibly meet.
Gilgit, asked and answered
Is Gilgit worth staying in?
One afternoon covers Kargah Buddha and the bazaar; we generally route guests straight to Hunza or Skardu and use Gilgit as the flight hub it's built to be.
