Cost of Traveling to Tibet

Lhasa has many different varieties of hotels, from basic hostels to international, branded five-star hotels. You will find the best hotels to suit your budget here. The price ranges from 30 USD to over 200 USD.

For affordable prices and the best location, the most common preference of most international travelers is four-star and three-star hotels around Ancient Lhasa city. Here it usually costs about 60 USD per night.

As you travel to lease-developing regions like Mount Everest and Mount Kailash, hotel standards tend to become more basic and humbler, with fewer choices.

The cost of guest-room accommodation at Rongbuk Monastery near Everest base camp is about 25 USD, and there is no private toilet, bath, or breakfast. Since you are on an Adventure of a lifetime tour, it is best to scale down your expectations.

Much of your tour price money goes to the Vehicle in Tibet. The cost of the car is paid according to the distance covered on a kilometer-based basis. The distance to Mount Kailash from Lhasa is about 3720 kilometers, and it is 1340 kilometers to Everest.

The most basic price for a car is 1100 RMB per day for small vehicles, which goes up to 1400 RMB per day for the Big 27-seater bus. The cost differs from season to season. It is cheaper to visit in winter than in summer. The highest price of the smaller van with five passenger seats is about 1500 RMB per day during the high season, like the Chinese National Holiday in the First week of October.

If you want to travel to Tibet on a Budget, it is best to join our small group tour for the best value, as you will be sharing the Vehicle cost with other travel partners.

Entrance fees to the attractions in Tibet are included, whether you are visiting on a private tour or a group tour. The most expensive entrance fees are for Everest Basecamp, Kailash, and Potala Palace.

The average entrance fee to most attractions in Tibet is about 60 RMB. During the winter, you can get a great discount on entrance fees to all the major attractions.

All our Tibet tours include breakfast at the hotel. Upon arrival in Tibet, we will also invite you and your dinner members to a welcome dinner. You will have to pay for your lunch and dinner.

A basic meal in a local Tibetan restaurant, such as Tibetan soup noodles or momos, and a beverage like Sweet Milk tea, Yak butter tea, or Lhasa beer, will cost you 15 RMB to 30 RMB.

There are a few higher-end restaurants in cities like Lhasa and Shigatse that serve more diverse cuisines, such as Nepali, Continental, Indian, and Chinese. These restaurants usually charge between 30 RMB and 90 RMB per person.

As you travel outside the two mentioned cities, there are minimal food options. If you are particular about what you eat, it is a good idea to buy some dried and wet fruits and other food forms. In a remote area, you will get straightforward dishes like line rice with yak meat, egg-fried rice, and soup noodles.

The Tour guide you hire depends on the kind of tour you are undertaking. If you are doing a hiking tour in a remote region of Tibet, we will have to hire a higher-end tour guide with many years of experience in the wilderness. These guides charge higher fees.

The guide fees for other regular tours are not more than 75 USD or 600 RMB. In addition to tipping the guide, tourists are not obliged to tip the tour guide. However, tourists usually tip the tour guide and the driver at the end of the tour. This is highly recommended by all travel agencies as the tour guide and driver typically don’t have much work in the six months of winter.

The amount of the tip depends on your personal capabilities. For our team members at Tibet Universal Travel, the highest tip they have received was about 10,000 USD, and the lowest was 10 USD. It is not the amount but the gesture of gratitude.

In a Tibet Group Tour, tour members usually meet in the hotel lobby on the last day of the trip to make a group tipping collection for the guide and driver.

The other personal expenses in Tibet depend on your itinerary and personal preference. We recommend keeping about 500 USD for personal expenses. When you go shopping, it is highly recommended that you bargain.

Tibet’s most common personal expenditures are souvenirs, Medicine, food, and porter service, especially if you are trekking around Kailash.

The only international flight available to Tibet is from Kathmandu. Yet there are plenty of daily flights from different cities in China. The cost of a flight to Tibet varies greatly depending on your flight booking platform. Many of our clients find it cheaper to book their flight tickets with us using a local Chinese platform.

The cost of a one-way flight ticket from Kathmandu to Lhasa is about 500 USD, and there are three flights weekly in high season and one in low season. The cost could reach about 600 USD in the low seasons.

The more efficient and budget way to reach Tibet is to take an international flight to any major city in China and take a local flight to Lhasa. There are plenty of daily flights to Lhasa from all the major cities. Yet we will always recommend Chengdu as a transit point for easier Tibet travel permit delivery.

The cost of traveling overland to Tibet from other regions of China or Nepal is more than taking a flight to Tibet. Though it is hard to tell the exact amount you will need to bring, our experiences tell us you will need at least 1700 USD.

You can travel to Tibet overland via these highways: the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, but our favorite, the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway, is closed as of now in the year 2025. With the opening of all the international borders after COVID-19, you can also do epic Kathmandu-Lhasa Overland tours with Mount Everest.

A train journey to Tibet from another part of China is highly economical, and it offers stunning views of the remotest region of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Many websites claim it’s good for acclimatization. But since the train is pressurized, this is not a particularly good claim.

The train fare is much cheaper than the flight. However, the train fare can vary greatly depending on the route and seat class you prefer.