You need to have a full preparation for both in psychology and personal stuff before you start Tibet travel, such as Tibet permit, personal gear, medicine for altitude sickness and camera as well as attitude for altitude problem. Travelling on the Tibet-Qinghai plateau with average altitude of 4,000 m above sea level, you Must need to slow down your foot steps even if you are an impatient person. In the eyes of geographer, Tibet is “ the third pole of earth”, where there’are the highest mountain peak Mt. Everest, the highest lakes in the world. There are shortage of oxygen and modern hospital equipment, so you may confront with some difficulties. PTT has drawn the conclusion for Tibet travel. That is to prepare your Tibet travel plan half year in advance. You’d better to rehearsal the following items of preparation for Tibet travel by PTT, if you try to get a better understanding of Tibet area.

Tibet travel document preparation
If you are NOT the Chinese passport holder, except your own passport you need to have Tibet permit issued by Tibetan Tourism Bureau (TTB permit).And if you want to visit some where out of Lhasa and Shigatse area in Tibet, you have to get both TTB permit, the Alien’s Travel Permit (PSB permit) or Tibet Military permit as well. You also have to apply for Mountain climbing permit to Association of Mountain Climbing Tibet,if you try to climb mountains in Tibet. Click here to check related page of Tibet travel permit.

Option for Tibet travel season
There is a saying for Tibet travel: the better season you take, the more experiences you’ll have. It’s suitable to travel in Tibet from April to November according to the climate condition. And the best season to take Tibet travel will be the end of July and beginning of October due to some many festivals on the season when there’ll be the all Tibetan people in colorful traditional dresses enjoying different activities such as Horse race, equestrianism and Tibetan opera and so on.. The biggest Tibetan festival after Tibetan New Year is Shotun Festival starting on 30th of 6 Month of Tibetan lunar calendar. Before day break, a lot of people gathering on the mountain side where the Drepung Monastery is located are waiting for the opening ceremony and a huge Buddha Tangkha (painting) will be put on the slope of the mountain side. Around some hundreds long Buddha Tangkha will be on display and the crowded people and monks start prostrating in front of the giant Buddha piously. The situation is so solemn. Since the first day of the 7 month of Tibetan Lunar year, Tibetan opera will be on at different places in Tibet. The atmosphere is bustling and cheerful different from Shotun Festival. The next is Horse race, equestrianism on show in Nagqu and Dangxiong area. It’s so good to watch the local games. It doesn’t matter if you miss the Shotun Festival because there’ll be Bathing Festival on 6th to 12nd  of 7 month of Tibetan lunar year in which you could see what you can’t see in another days the exciting activities. From July to August, it comes the raining season in Tibet with mud-rock flow, landslide and swamp. So it’s better to avoid Tibet travelling overland through Sichuan-Tibet high way or paying visit to Nagri area or driving you own car to Tibet. It will be better off to take Tibet travel to avoid raining season in May, June, September and October. Please check the following form for average temperature and altitude.

Tourist partner
You’d better not to take Tibet tour with many partners, because every one has a different physical condition to be suited with high altitude area.. If one of your partners has altitude sickness, you’ll have to change or cut short the itinerary. So you should choose your partners for Tibet travel carefully. They should have good health and attitude to Tibet travel and they also need to have a full preparation.

Gear for Tibet Travel
The first principle for Tibet travel is “DON’T go to Tibet without warm clothes and security”. We don’t say: the more gear you carry, the better you’ll be. Light gear is the another principle for you to Take Tibet tour. If the luggage is too heavy, how you could keep on travelling in Tibet when you Get altitude sickness which eating you so much. If you are climbing a well-known mountain, it’s something else. Thanks for fast economic development, you could get most everything in Lhasa. Even you could find messages left on the little board in hotels for second-hand gear like sleeping bag, down wear, tent and camera. It’s necessary to bring gear. The first thing is clothes which should be warm. If you are out of big city like Lhasa, Shigatse in some where like Lake Namtso and Base camp of Everest, you could not sleep without down sleeping bag and down wear. The second thing is medicine. Please bring some medicine for cold, diarrhea and so on. Please go to see doctor if you have any worse symptom. Security is the most important thing. Always put security first and travelling second in your mind. PTT offers the list of stuff as follows: 

•  Passport
•  China visa
•  Tibet permit
•  Air ticket
•  Cash or credit card
•  luggage box
•  Backpack
•  Waist bag
•  Suitable clothes (better to take outdoor clothes)
• Outdoor shoes (water proof for summer)
•  Sun cream
•  Sun cap
•  Sun glasses
•  Tooth brush
•  Tooth paste
•  Slippers
•  Medicine( for cold and diarrhea Aspirin)
•  Car pillow
•  Camera
•  Torch
•  Mobile phone( can be for GSM and CDMA system)

Mental peparation
Although taking train to Tibet is possible.
But the better way for you is fly and car to Tibet. The advantage is you could stop wherever you want by car. And it’ll save you lot of time to fly to Tibet. You may start having symptom of altitude problem in the area over 3,000 meters above sea level because of shortage of oxygen. Normally you will have headache, being sleepy and no appetite. So you may bring water with glucose in case of this situation. If you take plane, fast way in short time, to Tibet, you don’t have any symptoms, when you arrive at Lhasa air port due to not very high altitude.. So this is the best way to get yourself acclimatized that you’d better to have free leisure time for the rest of day after arrival at Lhasa. After the symptoms have disappeared, you may go out of Lhasa city. There is no special medicine for this problem. There are two kind of medicine which have some effect. One is Nifedipine which can expand blood vessel. When the altitude problem gets you, your heart beat will be fast and blood pressure will be high. Putting a piece of Nifedipine under you tongue will  lysis the symptom. Another one is Inosine tablet which can promote the red cell to carry more oxygen. Three time per day, it’ll lysis headache. Both the two kind of medicine have no side effect. Aspirin, cheap and effect, is very good for headache. Normally, people make use of oxygen therapy to lysis difficulties caused by altitude problem. Surely, it can ease off the symptoms, like chest tightness, hard breath. But when you stop using oxygen, the symptoms will be back. This will delay the procedure of acclimatizing. So doctor claim that if your problem is not so serious, don’t use oxygen so that you can be acclimatized easily. Also you’d better not take alcohol drinks and cigarette smoking and please don’t eat too much. You need to eat more fruits and vegetables rich with vitamins!

Money preparation
Now, it’s different from inland China, there are only Bank of agriculture, Bank of China and Bank of construction. Credit cart is not popular in Tibet. PTT recommend you to change enough RMB before you get in Tibet. You can also use traveler’s check, but it’s not convenient to use it here.

Learning to get a long with local people
You’ll get benefit from learning to get a long with Tibetan people before you kick off your Tibet travel. Specially, you should pay more respect to lamas and monasteries. Always clock wise walk, when you meet any objects related with Buddhism. If you do this on the opposite way, you’ll not be welcome by local people be regarding you as a believer of original Ben religion. You’ll have many chances to visit local family, when you visit Nagri area. Please remember when you visit Tibetan family, they may offer you a full bowl of Barley wine. You need to put both your hands to take the bowl. And put your middle figure of right hand up and then touch the wine a bit and make a fillip up to the air-meaning to pay respect to God or deity and then 2 times for earth, Buddha. The custom goes like that you drink a mouthful of the wine, they will add more to full. Three times like this, last time you need to bottom up. When you drink yak butter tea, you need to wait for host hold the cup in front of you, then you can take it. When you are ready to leave , there will not be any tea left.  Other wise it’s not polite. 

Notice of photography
Tibet is a dream land for photographers. But in order to take beautiful pictures please take the notice. First, camera shouldn’t be pretty heavy. If you take very heavy camera set in the high land with less oxygen. It’s a burden for you. Because of the strong sunshine in Tibet, there will be a big difference of light. So you need to make better use of camera flash. Ultraviolet (UV) rays here are Strong in Tibet, it’s necessary to use UV lens. An sunshade should be used here. Best time in day time is before 9 o’clock and after 5 o’clock.. There many races and activities in Tibet. So it’s a good chances to take picture. Before you come to Tibet, please check and learn some tips about it. If it’s winter time, please note the temperature difference between day and night. A lithium battery will be better than the others. Extra battery should be kept.

Travel insurance
You must buy travel insurance according to recommend from PTT. Please choose the insurance covering altitude sickness. You have more chance to go to hospital, and the expanse of medical care is pretty high. Insurance company from China will offer pretty low amount of insurance. The highest amount of insurance is 300,000 yuan (about USD 43,000). We recommend that you may buy insurance covering a large scale in your own country. If hospitalized, please remember to collect every single document from hospital that insurance company may need you to offer.