Naran is a town of a few thousand people at about 2,400 metres in the Kaghan valley, in Mansehra district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and for three or four months a year it is one of the busiest places in Pakistan. Pakistani families come up from the Punjab plains in enormous numbers to escape the heat, the single main street fills with jeeps and hotels and corn sellers, and then in October the snow starts and almost everybody leaves.
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Two things make it worth a foreign visitor's time. Saiful Muluk, a glacial lake at 3,224 metres under Malika Parbat, which is reached by a rough jeep track and is genuinely one of the most beautiful places in the country. And the Babusar Pass, because the road over it is the one compliant driving route into Gilgit-Baltistan, which makes Naran a planning decision rather than just a destination. That second point is in the safety section and is the most important thing on this page.
What Is Here
Saiful Muluk sits eight or nine kilometres up a side valley from Naran, and the track to it is rough enough that the local 4x4 jeeps are the standard way up, taking around forty minutes each way. You can also walk it in three to four hours each way, which is a real hike at altitude and a better day if you are fit and acclimatised. The lake is ringed by snow for much of the season and the water is glacial. It is extremely busy in July and August and almost empty in late September.
Lake Lulusar is about thirty-five kilometres up the valley on the way to Babusar, at around 3,400 metres, roadside and spectacular. Lalazar is a meadow plateau above Battakundi reached by jeep. Dudipatsar is a serious two-day trek to a high lake and needs a guide and proper preparation. The Kunhar river runs the length of the valley and is fished for trout.
Beyond that, Naran is a bazaar town rather than a charming one: the main street is concrete hotels, jeep stands, tyre shops and food stalls, built fast for the domestic season. Nobody should come for the town. Come for the valley above it.
The Babusar Pass, and Which Road You Take
Gilgit-Baltistan is not advised against and its main road in is, and reading the boundary precisely is what makes the trip possible. The FCDO advises against ALL travel on the Karakoram Highway "between Mansehra and Chilas via Battagram, Besham City, Dasu and Sazin UP TO THE JUNCTION WITH THE N15". That is the standard route north from Islamabad, so the obvious drive is not available. BUT THE PROHIBITION ENDS AT THE N15, which means the N15 over the BABUSAR PASS, approached through the Kaghan valley and Naran, is NOT advised against and is a compliant road approach to Gilgit-Baltistan. The catch is seasonal: the FCDO notes Babusar is liable to close with snowfall, which in practice limits it to roughly July to September, and it separately warns that all sections of the Karakoram Highway north of Battagram up to the Chinese border have experienced landslides and that the road should not be driven at night because it is narrow with steep drops. THE ALTERNATIVE IS TO FLY AND THE FCDO IS LUKEWARM ABOUT IT: flights to Gilgit and Skardu "may be unreliable and may change at short notice", and flights to and from the mountainous north are frequently delayed or cancelled by weather, so alternative routes should be planned. A GUIDE THAT SAID ONLY "FLY" WOULD BE WRONG AND ONE THAT SAID "DRIVE THE KARAKORAM HIGHWAY" WOULD SEND YOU INTO AN ADVISE-AGAINST-ALL-TRAVEL ZONE. The honest answer is Babusar in late summer, or a flight with slack in the itinerary, and a plan for what happens if neither works.
That is the single most consequential piece of route planning for any trip to northern Pakistan, and it bears repeating in plain terms because the two roads are easily confused. The Karakoram Highway north from Mansehra through Battagram, Besham, Dasu and Sazin is advised against for all travel, and that is the obvious route on a map. The road up the Kaghan valley through Balakot to Naran and over the Babusar Pass is a different road, is not advised against, and joins the Karakoram Highway north of the prohibited stretch near Chilas.
So if you intend to reach Hunza, Gilgit or Skardu by road, Naran is not a detour. It is the route. The constraint is the snow: Babusar is generally open from around early July to September and the exact dates move every year, so this is something to confirm with the local authorities or a reputable operator at the time rather than to plan on from any page including this one.
The Permission You Need Before You Travel
Pakistan has a permission regime that applies before you arrive and it is easy to miss because it is not in the advised-against lists. The FCDO states that you MUST obtain advance permission from local or federal authorities to travel in KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, BALOCHISTAN and several districts of AZAD KASHMIR, and that there are prohibited areas across the country particularly around military installations, nuclear plants and naval and air bases, where officials may stop you and turn you back. It adds that you or your agency should contact the local authorities of your destination in advance to check the security situation, that in higher-risk areas the authorities sometimes arrange POLICE ESCORTS for your own protection, and that they will tell you if you need a NO OBJECTION CERTIFICATE. NOTE WHAT THIS CATCHES: the Kaghan valley and NARAN are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and so is the Babusar Pass road, so the one compliant driving route into Gilgit-Baltistan runs through a province that requires advance permission. This is a question for a reputable operator rather than something to improvise at a checkpoint.
Read that carefully if Naran is on your itinerary, because it applies directly. The Kaghan valley is in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and so is the Babusar road, and the Foreign Office states that advance permission from local or federal authorities is required for travel in that province. This is not a checkpoint formality to improvise and it is not in the advised-against lists, which is exactly why it gets missed.
In practice this means engaging a registered Pakistani operator who handles it, asking them explicitly whether a No Objection Certificate is needed for your route and whether a police escort will be arranged for any section, and having whatever documentation results with you in hard copy. There are checkposts on this road and they do check. A trip arranged entirely independently by a foreign visitor is the one most likely to be turned back, and being turned back at Balakot after a long drive is the mild version of this problem.
When to Go
The season is short and it is not negotiable. The valley road to Naran is generally open from May, Saiful Muluk's track clears around late June or July, and Babusar opens around early July. Everything starts closing from late September and Naran is largely shut and snowbound from November to April, with the road itself often closed above Kaghan.
So July to mid-September is the window, and within it late August and September are much better than July and early August, because the domestic holiday crowds thin and the weather is more settled after the monsoon. The monsoon does reach the lower valley in July and August and brings the real local hazard, which is landslides.
Temperatures in season are pleasant in the day at fifteen to twenty-five degrees and cold at night, down to near freezing at Naran and below it at the lake. Nobody should come here without warm clothing whatever the month.
Is Naran Safe for Women Travelers
UK FCDO: Pakistan carries both grades of warning over substantial parts of the country, and the lists are specific enough to plan around rather than vague enough to frighten. ALL TRAVEL is advised against to twenty-one districts of KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, which the FCDO names individually: Bajaur, Bannu, Buner, Charsadda, Dera Ismail Khan, Hangu, Karak, Khyber, Kohat, Kurram, Lakki Marwat, Upper Dir, Lower Dir, Mohmand, Orakzai, PESHAWAR INCLUDING THE CITY, SWAT, Tank, North Waziristan, and Upper and Lower South Waziristan. Also to the whole of BALOCHISTAN PROVINCE; to the N45 HIGHWAY from the north of the Mardan ring road to the edge of Chitral; to the KARAKORAM HIGHWAY between Mansehra and Chilas; and to within 10 miles of the Line of Control in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. ALL BUT ESSENTIAL TRAVEL is advised against to Malakand, Mardan, Nowshera, Shangla and Swabi in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; to AZAD JAMMU AND KASHMIR as a whole; to ALL OF SINDH PROVINCE NORTH OF AND INCLUDING THE CITY OF NAWABSHAH; to Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab; and to within 5 miles of the border with India except at official crossings. TWO CONSEQUENCES THAT CATCH PEOPLE OUT. PESHAWAR AND SWAT ARE BOTH IN THE ALL-TRAVEL LIST, so the Khyber Pass and the Swat valley are not available whatever a tour operator says. AND MOHENJO-DARO IS INSIDE THE SINDH ZONE: Pakistan's most famous archaeological site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site sits in Larkana district, roughly 300km north of Nawabshah, so it falls under the all-but-essential advice even though the advisory never names it. That determination is geographic and it is not close.
Read the geography precisely, because it decides whether this trip happens. Naran is in Mansehra district. Mansehra is not among the twenty-one Khyber Pakhtunkhwa districts under advise-against-all-travel, and it is not among the five under all-but-essential advice either. So the Kaghan valley carries no advise-against. What applies instead is the province-wide advance permission requirement above, and the all-travel prohibition on the Karakoram Highway stretch that this valley exists to let you avoid.
On terrorism the wording is the strong form and the geography is specific. The FCDO states that terrorists are VERY LIKELY to try to carry out attacks and that there is a HIGH THREAT of terrorism and sectarian violence THROUGHOUT Pakistan. It names the groups operating: Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, Tehreek-e Jihad Pakistan, Balochistan separatists, Islamic State Khorasan Province and al-Qaida. It records that they MAINLY TARGET GOVERNMENT SECURITY FORCES, that areas of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Peshawar, and Quetta, suffer regular attacks, and that attacks have also taken place in KARACHI, ISLAMABAD AND LAHORE and other major cities. A number of attacks have targeted CHINESE NATIONALS specifically, and some have targeted people of East Asian appearance more generally. ON KIDNAP it is equally direct: there is a threat throughout the country, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan; terrorist groups are UNLIKELY TO PRIORITISE the kidnap of westerners and any such kidnap would likely be OPPORTUNISTIC; and British nationals including tourists are seen as legitimate targets. It also states that the British government does not make substantive concessions to hostage takers.
The mountains and the monsoon are the two environmental facts. The monsoon runs from late June to early October and the FCDO records that flooding can affect ALL PROVINCES, with roads and bridges damaged or destroyed; the 2022 floods put roughly a third of the country under water. Landslides and road blockages are a particular risk in hilly and mountainous regions, the advice includes taking extreme care crossing swollen rivers, and the Pakistan Meteorological Department and the National Disaster Management Authority are the sources to watch. Pakistan is also seismically active: the 2005 Kashmir earthquake killed more than 70,000 people. AND THE PRACTICAL POINT FOR AN ITINERARY is that monsoon season and the Babusar Pass window overlap, so the one time the compliant road north is open is also the time landslides are most likely, which is the strongest argument for building slack into a northern trip.
Those environmental hazards are the real risk here and they are not abstract. The Kaghan valley road is cut into steep ground above a river, landslides close it every monsoon season, and vehicles have been lost off it. The 2005 Kashmir earthquake destroyed Balakot, at the bottom of this valley, almost completely and killed tens of thousands of people in this district; the town you drive through was rebuilt. Flash floods in the Kunhar have killed people, including visitors who were in the river bed.
What the advisory says and does not say about women travelling here. Pakistan has no dedicated sexual assault section of the kind the FCDO writes for Turkey, Egypt or Sri Lanka, which is an absence of published data rather than an absence of risk and should be read that way. What it does carry is a DRESS CODE instruction stated as a requirement rather than a suggestion: Pakistan is an Islamic country, both men and women should cover shoulders and legs in public, and women should cover their heads when entering mosques and holy places AND IN RURAL AREAS. That last clause is the one visitors miss, and it covers most of Gilgit-Baltistan and the Kaghan valley. A shalwar kameez bought locally is the most comfortable and least conspicuous solution and costs very little. TWO MORE LAWS WORTH KNOWING. It is illegal for unmarried couples to live together, although the FCDO notes the hotel-room rule does not generally apply to visiting foreign nationals, particularly in tourist areas. And ALWAYS CARRY PHOTO ID, because you may be asked for it and you might be detained until you can produce valid identification.
Naran in season is full of Pakistani families, which changes the atmosphere considerably and mostly for the better: a foreign woman here is among thousands of domestic tourists rather than alone in a conservative small town. That said, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the most conservative province in the country, the jeep drivers and hotel staff are all men, and the main street in the evening is overwhelmingly male. What works: shalwar kameez with a dupatta, which here is the expected standard rather than a nicety; a jeep and driver arranged through your hotel rather than hailed at the stand; not walking the bazaar alone after dark; and travelling with a guide or a group, which the permission regime pushes you towards anyway.
The photography rules here are enforced and British nationals have been arrested under them. Do not photograph military establishments, airports, or ANY infrastructure including BRIDGES AND DAMS, and do not photograph from an aircraft. The FCDO records that British nationals have been ARRESTED ON SUSPICION OF SPYING, and advises checking with officials if you are unsure. This is more restrictive than it sounds on a trip north, because the Karakoram Highway is a sequence of bridges and the region's most photographed features include reservoirs and dams. It also asks that you not photograph people without permission, which in practice matters most in conservative rural areas and with women.
Three altitude and mountain points. Saiful Muluk is at 3,224 metres and Babusar at 4,173, and people who drive up from Islamabad at 500 metres in a day do get altitude sickness: if you have a headache with nausea at the lake, go down. The jeep tracks are genuinely rough and jeep accidents on the Saiful Muluk track happen most seasons, so a driver who will not be hurried matters more than the fare. And the lake water and the river are glacial meltwater, cold enough to incapacitate a swimmer within a minute, which is how most of the drownings here happen.
The Naran Packing List
Warm merino, because it is cold even in August
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the foundation of this list. Naran is near freezing at night in the middle of summer and Saiful Muluk is colder, and at the same time you need to be covered wrist to ankle in the most conservative province in Pakistan, so a warm long-sleeved layer does both jobs at once. Wool is also the right choice because hotel laundry here is slow or absent and wool stays wearable for days.
An insulated jacket, which is not an overreaction
A Columbia Powder Lite insulated jacket. At the lake and on the Babusar Pass at 4,173 metres you will want it in August, and if you are crossing the pass early or late in the season you will need it.
A waterproof shell for the monsoon and the wind
A Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket. July and August bring monsoon rain to this valley, the pass is windy and exposed, and an open jeep in rain at 3,000 metres is genuinely cold.
Boots for the lake track
A waterproof hiking boot with ankle support if you intend to walk to Saiful Muluk, which is a rough nine kilometres of loose rock and stream crossings. If you are taking the jeep both ways, a sturdy shoe is enough, but the last stretch at the lake is still rock and snow patches.
Warm socks and a hat
Two pairs of Darn Tough merino hiking socks, which handle both the wet track and a cold night in a hotel with limited heating. A warm hat and gloves as well, which are sold in the Naran bazaar if you arrive without them.
Sun protection, which altitude makes more important
A wide brim UPF 50 sun hat, high-factor sunscreen and real sunglasses. UV at 3,200 metres with snow around the lake is severe, and the cool air disguises it completely; sunburn at Saiful Muluk is the commonest minor injury of this trip.
Water, treated or bottled
An insulated water bottle. Bottled water is sold in Naran and at the lake and not reliably in between, and the Kunhar is glacial and silty rather than clean. Dehydration at altitude is easy to miss in cold air.
The small things
Rupees in cash, and plenty, because there is one unreliable ATM in Naran and nothing above it, and the jeeps, hotels and stalls are all cash. Your permission documentation in hard copy. Rehydration salts and basic altitude awareness. A power bank, since electricity in Naran is intermittent and generator-dependent. And a dupatta, which here is the expected standard of dress and not an accessory.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Naran
Emergency numbers: 15 for police, 1122 for Rescue 1122, and 16 for fire, with the practical caveat that in the upper Kaghan valley these reach a district system rather than a quick response and mobile coverage is patchy to absent above Naran. There is a police post in Naran town and a district headquarters at Mansehra. The KP Tourism Police operate in the valley during the summer season and are the right first call for a visitor problem that is not medical. For anything serious the chain in practice is your hotel or operator, then Mansehra, then Islamabad. A First Information Report is the document to ask for in any incident you will claim on.
US State Department travel advisory: the Pakistan advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/pakistan, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: Naran has a small basic health unit that is seasonal and suited to minor problems only. The nearest real hospital is at Mansehra, which is roughly four hours down the valley on a mountain road, or Abbottabad, about five hours, which has the better facility at Ayub Teaching Hospital. For anything serious the answer is Islamabad, six to eight hours away, where Shifa International and the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences are the facilities foreign visitors use. That distance is the central medical fact of this destination and it is worse than it looks, because the valley road can be closed by a landslide at any point in the monsoon season. Confirm that your insurance covers helicopter evacuation and trekking or travel to at least 4,200 metres, naming the Babusar Pass altitude, and confirm that it covers Pakistan at all, which many policies do not.
Official health authority: the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, Pakistan's federal health ministry. Altitude sickness is the likely medical problem here, at 3,224m at Saiful Muluk and 4,173m on the Babusar Pass, particularly for anyone who has driven up from Islamabad in a single day
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Islamabad.
Official tourism authority: the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan, used here as a LABELLED SUBSTITUTE rather than as the national tourism board. Pakistan's national tourism bodies cannot be linked safely: every URL form of tourism.gov.pk fails certificate verification and the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation's domain does not resolve to a working site, so a link to either would give you a browser security warning or a dead page. Gilgit-Baltistan's own government is the authority that actually administers the registration and trekking permits this guide tells you about. The tourism row here points at the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan as a LABELLED SUBSTITUTE because Pakistan's national tourism bodies cannot be linked safely; for Naran the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Culture and Tourism Authority is the relevant provincial body and is also the practical source for whether the Babusar Pass and the Saiful Muluk track are currently open, which changes week to week
You need advance permission to travel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Arrange it through a registered operator before you go.
Babusar is the compliant road to Gilgit-Baltistan, open roughly July to September. The Karakoram Highway from Mansehra is not.
Solo women safety assessment: Naran is a manageable destination for a woman travelling alone in season, when the valley is full of Pakistani holidaying families, and it requires more planning than anywhere else in this batch. READ THE GEOGRAPHY PRECISELY. The FCDO advises against ALL travel to twenty-one named districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to all of Balochistan, to the N45 towards Chitral, to the KARAKORAM HIGHWAY BETWEEN MANSEHRA AND CHILAS via Battagram, Besham City, Dasu and Sazin up to the junction with the N15, and to within 10 miles of the Line of Control; and against ALL BUT ESSENTIAL travel to Malakand, Mardan, Nowshera, Shangla and Swabi, to Azad Jammu and Kashmir, to Sindh north of and including Nawabshah, to Dera Ghazi Khan and to within 5 miles of the Indian border. NARAN IS IN MANSEHRA DISTRICT, WHICH IS IN NEITHER LIST, so the Kaghan valley itself carries no advise-against. TWO THINGS DO APPLY. First, the FCDO states you MUST OBTAIN ADVANCE PERMISSION from local or federal authorities to travel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is not in the advised-against lists and is therefore the requirement most itineraries miss; arrange it through a registered Pakistani operator, ask explicitly whether a No Objection Certificate is needed and whether a police escort will be arranged, and carry hard copies, because the checkposts on this road do check. Second, the road matters: the Karakoram Highway north from Mansehra is advised against for ALL travel, while the N15 up this valley and over the BABUSAR PASS is not, which makes Babusar the one compliant road approach to Gilgit-Baltistan. Babusar is open roughly early July to September and the dates move with the snow, so confirm locally. On terrorism the wording is the strong form, with terrorists VERY LIKELY to try to attack and a HIGH THREAT throughout Pakistan. THE ENVIRONMENT IS THE REAL DAY-TO-DAY RISK: landslides close this road every monsoon, the 2005 earthquake destroyed Balakot at the foot of the valley, flash floods in the Kunhar have killed people in the river bed, the jeep track to Saiful Muluk is rough and accidents happen most seasons, and the glacial water is cold enough to incapacitate a swimmer in a minute. Altitude sickness is likely if you drive up from Islamabad in a day. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the most conservative province: shalwar kameez with a dupatta is the expected standard, arrange a jeep through your hotel rather than at the stand, and do not walk the bazaar alone after dark. Photography rules are enforced and British nationals have been arrested. There is one unreliable ATM and no mobile coverage above Naran. 15 for police, 1122 for Rescue, KP Tourism Police in season, Mansehra four hours down the valley and Islamabad six to eight hours for anything serious.
Reading On
Naran is the gateway rather than the destination for most trips north, so the posts to read next are the ones over the pass. The Hunza packing list covers the valley the Babusar route reaches, and the Skardu packing list the Baltistan side, both in Gilgit-Baltistan and both carrying the registration and permit requirements that region adds. The Islamabad packing list covers the capital you will set out from and return to, and where the hospitals are. For the plains, the Lahore packing list and the Multan packing list cover Punjab's two great cities, and the Karachi packing list the coast and the country's best hospital. The Pakistan travel guide for women carries the country-level advice, with the advised-against zones mapped precisely, the Babusar Pass route set out as compliant access to Gilgit-Baltistan, and the permit and insurance implications stated, and it is the thing to read before you book any of this. For why wool is the layer for a freezing August night and a conservative province at once, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
