Pin Valley National Park
Pin Valley National Park, established in 1987, protects 675 km² of cold-desert habitat near Kaza — home to snow leopards, ibex and blue sheep.
Himachal Pradesh⛰ 3,650 m3 itineraries
Kaza and the Spiti valley
Kaza at 3,650 m: Spiti's largest town, Key Monastery, Kibber, Chicham Bridge, Dhankar and its lake, and copyable itineraries for one to four days.
Itineraries you can copy
All 3 →
Day plan · First visitClassic
One day around Kaza — Key Monastery, Kibber and Chicham Bridge
A single-day Kaza loop: Key Monastery, Kibber village and Chicham Bridge over the gorge, with real drive times. Free, copyable itinerary on HimLocal.
Best Jun–Sep
See the plan →
1 night · 2 days · First visitClassic
Two days in Kaza — the monastery circuit and Dhankar
A two-day Kaza plan: Key Monastery, Kibber and Chicham Bridge on day one, Dhankar and its lake on day two. Free, copyable plan on HimLocal, with real distances.
Best Jun–Sep
See the plan →2 nights · 3 days · First visitClassic
Three days in Spiti — Kaza's monasteries and the Pin valley
A three-day Kaza plan: the monastery circuit and Dhankar on days one and two, the Pin valley's Kungri and Lhalung on day three. Free on HimLocal.
Best Jun–Sep
See the plan →Kaza is the subdivisional headquarters of Spiti — a cold-desert valley closer in terrain, climate and Buddhist culture to Tibet and Ladakh than to the rest of Himachal. It sits at 3,650 m on the Spiti River, and is the largest town and commercial centre for the whole valley — the base almost everyone uses for the circuit around it.
Key Monastery, also spelled Ki Gompa and Spiti's largest, sits on a hilltop a short drive out; Kibber and its wildlife sanctuary, home to snow leopards, are a little further, reached in season via Chicham Bridge over the gorge between them. Dhankar, built as a fort monastery on a spur above the Spiti and Pin rivers, and Dhankar Lake above it, sit on the road towards Tabo. In the Pin valley, Kungri Monastery, Spiti's second oldest, and further along the same road, Lhalung Gompa and Tangyud Monastery at Komic round out the valley's fort monasteries.
Langza, Hikkim and Komic sit close by on the same high loop — known respectively as the "fossil village," the site of one of the world's highest post offices, and one of the world's highest motorable villages. The road to them is a genuinely rough, high-altitude track. Our own routing can't measure it reliably, so ask locally about conditions before attempting it rather than relying on a quoted drive time here.
Further into the Pin valley past Kungri and Lhalung, Pin Valley National Park protects snow leopard and ibex habitat across 675 km² of cold-desert terrain — a longer day out, but a real one, not a stretch add-on to the main circuit.
Photos: Timothy Gonsalves (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Timothy Gonsalves (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Deepank Ranka (CC BY-SA 4.0) — via Wikimedia Commons, resized.
Places worth the drive
Tangyud Monastery
Tangyud Monastery at Komic dates to the early 14th century, its walls built to double as a fort, on a canyon rim overlooking Kaza in the valley below.
Kibber
Kibber sits at 4,270 m near Kaza, one of the highest villages on the Spiti circuit, with its own monastery and a wildlife sanctuary close by.
Dhankar
Dhankar sits on a 300-metre spur above the Spiti and Pin rivers, a fort monastery built on the same pattern as Key Monastery and Ladakh's Thiksey.
Dhankar Lake
Dhankar Lake sits at 4,140 m above Dhankar Monastery, reached by a trek from below, with views back down over the monastery's dramatic spur.
Chicham Bridge
Chicham Bridge sits at 4,145 m on the road between Kaza and Kibber, a suspension bridge over the deep gorge that once meant a long detour to cross.
Lhalung Gompa
Lhalung Gompa sits further up the Pin valley from Kungri Monastery, a quiet fort monastery with a notable statue of Manjushri inside its hall.
Kungri Monastery
Kungri Monastery in the Pin valley is second only to Key Monastery in age among Spiti's gompas, known for a sword dance performed each year.
Key Monastery
Key Monastery sits a short drive from Kaza, Spiti's largest and oldest active monastery, a training centre for lamas since the 11th century.
On the map
Open the Kaza map →The places a Kaza day reaches, with the road time from town. Each opens on the map with its plans and pages beside it.
Before you go
All articles →Things to do in Kaza — 9 worth the drive, and what each costs
Nine things to do in Kaza and the Spiti circuit, sorted by distance from town, with measured drive times, what each costs, and when to visit.
The monasteries of Spiti — a guide to Kaza's gompas
A guide to Kaza's fort monasteries — Key, Dhankar, Tangyud, Kungri and Lhalung — their founders, their settings, and which one to see first.
How to reach Kaza — two roads, two very different seasons
Getting to Kaza via Manali over Kunzum La (summer only) or via Shimla and Kinnaur on NH505 (open most of the year) — and which route to pick.
The best time to visit Kaza and the Spiti valley
Kaza and the Spiti valley by season: when the Manali road opens, when it closes for winter, and why the visiting window is shorter than it looks.
Questions people ask
Do I need a permit to visit Kaza or Spiti?
Foreign nationals need an Inner Line Permit to visit Spiti. Indian citizens have not needed one since the requirement was abolished in 1992 — most domestic visitors reach Kaza and the circuit around it with no permit process at all to worry about.
Is Kaza open year-round?
Kaza itself is, but not by the same road every month. The Manali route over Rohtang Pass and Kunzum La closes for roughly seven months a year; the longer Shimla–Kinnaur route (NH505) stays open year-round except for landslides or heavy snow.
How many days do you need in Kaza?
Two days covers Key Monastery, Kibber and Chicham Bridge. A third day reaches Dhankar and its lake. A fourth adds the Pin valley monasteries, Kungri and Lhalung, further out along a different road entirely, on the far side of the river.
Photographs by Wikimedia Commons contributors (CC0, CC BY, CC BY-SA), resized; each picture is credited on its own page.