The Pamir Highway: Central Asia’s greatest road adventure in Tajikistan. Travelling in 4x4s, we follow this rugged mountainous route through the remote Pamir range, discovering an area along the Afghan border, much of the time alongside the Panj River, that only the most adventurous ever explore. On the way, we visit the ruins of Zoroastrian castles and shrines and see a Buddhist stupa. We head off the main highway to go even deeper into the country, encountering lands where the language changes from one valley to the next. To make sure we see as much as possible, we’ve designed our tour to roughly follow a figure of eight, meaning we mostly avoid retracing our steps.
Pamirs, also called Pamir “The Roof Of The World”, highland region of Central Asia. The Pamir mountain area centres on the nodal orogenic uplift known as the Pamir Knot, from which several south-central Asian mountain ranges radiate, including the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram Range, the Kunlun Mountains, and the Tien Shan. Most of the Pamirs lie within Tajikistan, but the fringes penetrate Afghanistan, China, and Kyrgyzstan. The core of the Pamirs is in the highlands of Tajikistan, with the highest mountains in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous oblast (province).
The Pamir Mountain range is part of the Western Himalaya and features several peaks over 7000m. The terrain is diverse from towering peaks to high altitude desert plains and climate conditions can vary from +35C to -40C depending upon the time of year. The Pamir Highway follows paths forged long ago by the ancient Silk routes, when that precious commodity travelled from China to European and Arabian markets and traded goods returned in its stead. Legacies of those forgotten times can still be seen with cliff top fortresses and ancient caravanserais.
The highway winds over 2000km from Samarkand in Uzbekistan through Dushanbe (capital of Tajikistan) and the Pamir mountains to Osh in Kyrgyzstan and then on to Bishkek (capital of Kyrgyzstan) through the Tien Shan mountain range.
The peoples of Central Asia hold hospitality as a value of great importance and travelers are warmly welcomed whether the visit is planned or otherwise!
The word pamir in the language of the region denotes the high undulating grasslands of the eastern portion of the mountains, especially where they abut Afghanistan and China. Deep river valleys mark the boundaries of the Pamirs in the north beyond the ridges of the Trans-Alai Range, and the valleys of the Vākhān region (Wakhan Corridor) of Afghanistan form the southern limit. The Sarykol pamir in the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in western China bounds the eastern margin, and a series of southwestern-aligned valleys that eventually drain into the Vakhsh and Panj rivers serrate the western boundary.
Pamir ECO TOURS is a Tajikistan based full service adventure travel Company, founded and run by local people and is one of the main tour operators of the Pamirs specialized in eco and Agri-tours.
We specialize in individual and group tailor-made tours along the Silk Road, cultural tours, eco trekking and mountaineering expeditions around Central Asia and can provide all travel services in Central Asian destinations.
Pamir Eco Tours focuses on responsible tourism maximizing the benefits for the local tourism products, employing local guides, drivers, choosing to work with locally owned business and linkages with other tourism organizations, as well as exploring business potential related to the sustainable management of natural resources.
Pamir Eco Tour even if is a new company which has been set up by the founder of Public Organization “Environmental Consultancy, the GBAO based non-governmental organization with the overall goal of of providing practical assistance for the public benefits, which includes environmental protection, conservation and protection of biodiversity, will provide ecological consultancy to contribute to the improvement of natural and habitat environment, support with the development of plans for natural resource management (land, pasture, forest and water) at the local level and through this directly contribute to poverty reduction and livelihood improvement of the high mountain population thereby creating opportunities for economic and social development as well as community health promotion. Under this new initiative Pamir Eco Tour
focuses on commercial activities maximizing the benefits for the local population by developing tourism products and linkages with other tourism organizations, as well as exploring business potential related to the sustainable management of natural resources.
Ready to embark on a journey through one of the world’s most impressive regions? Contact us, and we will tailor an itinerary just for you.
