Tibet is the one region of China where you cannot just show up. Every foreign visitor needs a Tibet Travel Permit plus a booked tour with a licensed local operator, and the rules have not loosened as of 2026. That sounds worse than it is. The process is bureaucratic but predictable, and your operator handles nearly all of it.

The permits, in plain language

The Tibet Travel Permit is issued by the Tibet Tourism Bureau and is only available through a registered agency, never directly. You send a scan of your passport and Chinese visa, and the agency applies on your behalf. It usually takes 10 to 15 working days, so plan ahead. If you want to leave Lhasa for Everest Base Camp or Mount Kailash, extra permits are required, but your agency bundles those in. Journalists and diplomats are a separate story and often refused; everyone else with a standard tourist visa is generally fine.

Fly or take the train?

The train from Xining to Lhasa takes about 21 hours and the soft sleeper cabins have oxygen supply above 4,000 metres. People romanticise this ride. Parts of it are genuinely spectacular, especially the lakes and permafrost of the Kekexili section. But sitting upright for a day and a half at altitude, then starting sightseeing immediately, is a rough way to begin. Flying in from Chengdu takes two and a half hours. My honest take: take the train only if the railway itself is on your list, not for acclimatisation, because the cabins are pressurised to roughly 3,000 metres anyway and you still need two quiet days in Lhasa.

Altitude is the real boss fight

Lhasa sits at 3,650 metres. Day one, drink more water than you think you need, skip alcohol, and do not sprint up the stairs at Potala Palace, which has a few hundred of them and no mercy. Most travelers feel headaches and poor sleep for two nights, then fine. Bring ibuprofen; buy canned oxygen locally if you want it, it costs about five euros.

What is actually worth seeing

• Potala Palace: timed entry, book days ahead, and no photos inside.
• Jokhang Temple and the Barkhor kora: the spiritual centre of the city, best in the morning when pilgrims circle it.
• Yamdrok Lake: a day trip over a 4,400 metre pass, absurdly turquoise.
• Everest Base Camp: three days each way by road from Lhasa. Worth it if you have a week for Tibet alone.

We run guided Tibet trips with all permits included, listed on our tours page. Budget realistic: permits and a licensed guide are not cheap, and that is exactly why the "Tibet on 300 dollars" blog posts you may have read were never true.

Originally published on 71Asia Tours blog.