Flights:

We recommend that you take a flight that arrives in Lhasa in the morning. Morning flights are more likely to be on time. Flights from Chengdu, Xi’an, Chongqing or Kunming take approximately 2 hours and flights from Beijing or Shanghai take approximately 5 hours.

Train:

We recommend that you take a train from Xining or Lanzhou to Lhasa. This will make your journey shorter and as there are more trains per day in these two cities than from other more distant locations, the chances of a successful booking will be higher.

The journey takes about 20 hours from Xining and 23 hours from Lanzhou, with the best scenery starting about 10 hours before you arrive in Lhasa.

There are also direct trains to Lhasa from Beijing or Shanghai, but we don’t recommend this: the journey takes more than 40 hours.

If you decide to travel to Lhasa by train, it’s a good idea to have a back-up plan ahead of time; for example, fly first and then return by train. It is much easier to book train tickets from Lhasa. Traveling to Tibet by train is not conducive to acclimatizing to the high altitude. Train carriages to Lhasa are sealed and oxygenated, so you will still need to acclimatize to the thin air once you get off the train.

Connecting to Tibet via International Flight

Air Entry: If you wish to fly to another city in China and then connect to a flight to Tibet, please allow at least 3 hours between flights. We will transfer your Tibet entry permit to you while you wait for your next flight.
Train: If you are traveling to Tibet by train after taking an international flight, we will send you a scanned copy of your Tibet Entry Permit in advance. A hard copy of the scanned Tibet Entry Permit can be used for train travel.
In general, we recommend that you do not travel to Tibet directly after your international flight. Jet lag and fatigue may make you more susceptible to altitude sickness. We recommend that you spend at least two days elsewhere in China before traveling to Tibet.