7 Days in Lhasa: First-Timer Plan

A full week in Lhasa, and none of it needs to leave the city. Seven days at 3,656 meters is enough to work through every monastery at a genuinely relaxed pace, two separate old-town days, and still have a spare morning before you fly out. This extends our 6-day plan ; if Ganden Monastery, Yamdrok Lake, or Shigatse are on your radar, that’s a different trip covered on our Lhasa and Tibet gateway guide .

Book these before you go

Day Focus
Day 1 Arrival, rest, permit and Potala reservation confirmed
Day 2 Jokhang Temple, Barkhor kora
Day 3 Potala Palace, Sera Monastery’s monk debates
Day 4 Drepung Monastery, Norbulingka
Day 5 Ani Tsankhung Nunnery, Tibet Museum
Day 6 Second old-town day: dawn Jokhang, markets, workshops
Day 7 Free morning, shopping, departure

Day 1: Land, then do almost nothing

Whatever flight gets you here, your only job today is rest. Lhasa sits at 3,656 meters, and altitude sickness (headache, nausea, trouble sleeping, feeling winded on stairs) is genuinely common in the first 24 to 48 hours, not a rare unlucky-traveler thing. Check into your hotel, drink water constantly, skip the beer, and walk slowly if you go out at all.

Late afternoon, once you’re feeling human, wander toward Barkhor Street and duck into a sweet tea house, a tian cha guan if you want the local name. These are cheap, unpretentious rooms full of locals playing cards over a thermos of sweet milky tea, a completely different drink and different scene from the yak butter tea you’ll try later (that one’s salty and savory, an acquired taste worth trying once). For dinner, momos and a bowl of thukpa noodle soup at a family-run spot in the Barkhor backstreets will beat almost anything on the main tourist square, both in price and in how it tastes.

Day 2: Jokhang Temple and the Barkhor kora

Morning at Jokhang Temple, the spiritual center of Tibetan Buddhism and genuinely the most alive religious site in the city, packed with pilgrims prostrating on the stone outside and murmuring mantras inside. No photos of the chapel interiors or the Buddha images, full stop, and that rule matters here more than almost anywhere else you’ll visit.

Finish with the Barkhor kora, the circuit that loops clockwise around the Jokhang. Walk it the same direction as everyone else, spin the prayer wheels as you pass, and let the crowd of pilgrims, incense smoke, and market stalls carry you along. It’s less a tourist attraction than a functioning piece of daily religious life that you happen to be allowed to walk through.

Day 3: Potala Palace and Sera’s debating monks

The Potala Palace only issues a capped number of real-name, reserved tickets each day, roughly 2,300, sells out fast in peak season, and never sells same-day at the gate, so your agency needs to have this locked in before you arrive. Once inside you get a strict window, usually about an hour, to move through the Red Palace and White Palace, the burial stupas, and the chapels where the Dalai Lamas once lived and ruled. Go in expecting a timed, structured visit rather than a leisurely wander, and it won’t feel rushed, it’ll feel efficient.

In the afternoon, Sera Monastery is famous for one specific spectacle: monks debating scripture in a gravel courtyard, standing opponents slapping their palms together with each rhetorical point. It runs most afternoons, roughly 3 to 5pm, best Monday through Saturday and thinner in the winter months.

Day 4: Drepung Monastery and Norbulingka

Drepung was once the largest monastery on earth, home to more than 10,000 monks at its peak, and the hillside climb up through its whitewashed colleges still gives a sense of that scale even now that it’s far smaller. Give it a full half-day; the walk up is real exercise at this altitude, so pace yourself. In the afternoon, head to Norbulingka , the former summer palace of the Dalai Lamas. It’s quieter than anywhere else on this list, all gardens and shaded paths and low-key pavilions, and after three days of monasteries and crowds it’s a genuinely restful few hours rather than another item to tick off.

Day 5: Ani Tsankhung Nunnery and the Tibet Museum

A deliberately lighter day. Ani Tsankhung Nunnery, tucked into the old town, is home to a community of chanting nuns and makes a calm, short visit compared with the bigger monastery half-days earlier in the week. Spend the rest of the day at the Tibet Museum, which gives real context to everything you’ve already seen, or keep wandering the backstreets if a museum isn’t how you want to spend a rest day.

Day 6: A second old-town day, properly this time

By your sixth day, you’ve earned the right to stop checklist-sightseeing. Go back to the Barkhor at dawn, before the tour groups, and watch the kora at its most local: pilgrims, prayer wheels, and almost no other visitors. Spend the rest of the morning actually shopping, turquoise, coral, yak wool, thangka paintings, rather than glancing at stalls on the way somewhere else, and duck into a workshop if you find one doing traditional carpet weaving or thangka painting demonstrations.

Day 7: One last morning, then departure

Sleep in a little. Spend the morning back in the Barkhor for souvenir shopping (bargain, it’s expected and part of the fun) and one more round at a sweet tea house before you have to think about airports again. Reconfirm your flight or train timing with your guide the night before, since your Tibet Travel Permit gets checked again before you’re allowed to board, and build in real buffer at the airport or station rather than cutting it close.

Things worth knowing

Every foreign visitor needs a Tibet Travel Permit and a guide for the whole trip, arranged through a licensed agency 20-30 days ahead, no exceptions apart from Hong Kong and Macau passports. Carry cash, since Alipay and WeChat dominate and foreign cards rarely work outside the biggest hotels, and set up a VPN before you land. Pack real layers, the sun at this altitude is intense at midday and the evenings drop fast.

One concrete last tip: keep a printed or saved copy of your permit paperwork separate from your passport. Staff check it at boarding on the way out just as carefully as they did on the way in, and fumbling for a document buried in a bag is a bad way to end a great week.