How Many Steps Up the Potala Palace Above Lhasa?

The Potala Palace climb is about 360 steps from Shol Village to the gate, then five floors of stairs inside. At 3,700 meters, most travelers need 3 to 4 hours. Tickets cost CNY 200 from May 1 to October 31 and CNY 100 from November 1 to April 30, and the palace closes Mondays from December 1, 2025.

Long before you climb it, the Potala Palace teaches you to look up. It sits on Marpo Ri, the Red Hill, at 3,700 meters (12,100 feet), and its white and crimson walls rise 13 stories above the city: more than 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and some 200,000 statues packed into a fortress that has watched the Lhasa Valley since the Fifth Dalai Lama began building in 1645. UNESCO inscribed the Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace in 1994, and the palace still draws more than 2 million visitors a year.

The climb starts in Shol Village, the old walled settlement at the foot of the hill, where you pass a small gallery of artifacts before the stairs begin. From there it is about 360 steps to the palace entrance, and the honest advice is to take them slowly. At this altitude, a staircase that would be nothing in Denver will stop you every few flights. Give yourself at least two full days in Lhasa to acclimatize before your timed slot, carry water, and let the pilgrims pass you. They are not in a hurry, and neither should you be. Inside, five more floors of stairways climb through the White Palace and the Red Palace, and staff keep the flow to roughly one hour so the halls and chapels are never overwhelmed.

What you are climbing through is not a museum of one man. The White Palace held the Dalai Lamas' living quarters and ceremonial halls. The Red Palace is the spiritual core, where the gilded stupa of the Fifth Dalai Lama rises through several floors and the Phakpa Lakhang preserves a sandalwood Avalokiteshvara that pilgrims treat as the palace's beating heart. Photography is banned from the moment you pass the White Palace gates, hats and sunglasses come off in the chapels, and shorts, skirts and flip-flops have no place on these stairs. The rules are strict, but they are also why the place still feels alive.

Then walk the hill from the outside, the way pilgrims do. The Barkhor circuit around the Jokhang sits about 2 kilometers east of the palace, and the longer Lingkhor path threads past the Potala's eastern foot; both run clockwise. Join the flow in the early morning, when men and women in dark chuba spin brass prayer wheels, juniper smoke drifts over flagstones worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, and the city wakes around you. For the postcard angle, climb Chakpori Hill across the road from the palace, the view printed on the CNY 50 note, and wait for the sun to rake across the white walls. Late afternoon is softer; blue hour, when the palace lights come on, is the photograph most travelers keep.

None of this happens on impulse. The palace sells timed tickets only, there are no same-day sales, and the sole official channel is the Potala Palace Ticket Booking System mini program on WeChat. Book the moment your dates firm up, pay within 15 minutes or the order lapses, and remember the 7-day rule: each visitor may hold only one ticket in any seven-day window. Line 1, the full route through 16 halls, costs CNY 200 from May 1 to October 31 and CNY 100 from November 1 to April 30. Line 2, a shorter six-hall route centered on the Fifth Dalai Lama's stupa, runs only in peak season when daily demand passes 5,000 and costs CNY 100, half the Line 1 peak price. Bring the same passport you booked with; a photo of it will not get you through the gate.

Foreign travelers cannot simply buy a ticket and board a plane. You need a Tibet Travel Permit, arranged only through a licensed agency, and the workable lead time is 15 to 20 days before departure. You will also need copies of your passport and China visa, and on the ground your documents are checked at checkpoints and again at the palace gate. Fly into Lhasa Gonggar International Airport, roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of the center and a 1- to 1.5-hour drive, with taxis around CNY 200, or arrive on the Qinghai-Tibet railway and let the altitude come to you gradually. Either way, schedule the palace for your third day, not your first.

May through October is the season most travelers choose: mild days, blue skies and higher oxygen, with May and June the quietest and cheapest of the warm months and July and August green but wet, though most rain falls at night. September and October bring crisp air and golden light. November through April is cold, quiet and cheap, with Line 1 tickets at CNY 100, and since December 1, 2025 every Monday except national holidays belongs to the maintenance crews, so plan around it. Tell ChinaMira your dates and we will lock in your palace slot, arrange the permit, and build the rest of Lhasa around the climb: the Lingkhor at dawn, Chakpori at sunset, and a guide who knows which of the 360 steps is worth stopping on.