What: Are you a student or an adventure traveller who wishes to experience Tibet’s living and breathing culture? Then consider our Tibetan homestay program for your next visit. We arrange homestays for university students and adventure travellers in conjunction with some volunteer experiences in Tibetan villages in the Kham and Amdo regions of the Tibetan Plateau. You will stay with Tibetan families, work in the fields, herd yaks, prepare meals, help with children’s homework, assist family chores, learn local dialects and immerse yourself in Tibetan culture.
Depending on your skills and interests, we also arrange limited volunteer opportunities around health, education, environment and community-based tourism projects. Naturally, students generally have greater emphasis on studying and learning and private groups have greater focus on working on projects. In both cases, we encourage everyone to learn more about the culture, volunteer your time and enjoy your stay in a Tibetan village. Compare that to travellers who visit the standard tourist destinations and end up forced to spend their time in souvenir factories and fighting through traffic!
Where: The Chinese government does not permit foreigners to stay with families in Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). Thus, we arrange all our homestays experiences in the Tibetan regions outside the TAR, known as Amdo and Kham. For example, we work with several villages in Minyak, Bathang, and Dege in Sichuan (Kham), the Shangri-La area in Yunnan, Nangchen in Qinghai, and Labrang in Gansu. In addition, we can arrange excursions to better-known places like Lhasa as some visitors feel they have not properly been to Tibet if they haven’t seen the Potala Palace or the Jokhang Temple.
How: We normally work with universities, travel companies, and private groups to offer a customized itinerary based on your interests and needs. Most people like to stay for 1-2 weeks in one community with several villages that offer a variety of experiences like hiking, horse trekking, monastery visits, nomads and homestays so you don’t have to drive far.
When: Many people think Tibet is too cold to travel through during the winter, but a growing number of people are enjoying winter trips. The winter experience can be very different from summer as there are less tourists and more festivals such as Losar (Tibetan New Year) and Monlam, the Great Prayer Festival. However, the best time for our homestays program is from April to November depending on where you choose to go and stay.