Pakistan-Afghanistan Border Crossing at the Torkham Border

After you got Afghanistan tourist visa in Pakistan, you are ready to cross the Torkham border from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

This travel guide walks you through how to get prepared for crossing the Torkham International Border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. I will show you the exact way and how to manage your journey from Peshawar to Kabul, and then back to Peshawar from Kabul.

Stay tuned as well on my Instagram where I share a lot of travel stories. Click here to watch my saved pictures and videos from Afghanistan starting with the visa application in Pakistan and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing.

If you want to stay connected from the border to Kabul, you can either get an eSIM or buy an Afgan sim card at the border.

You can buy an Afghan SIM card from the guys who exchange money at the border on the Afghan side. Of course, they sell it way more expensive than in Kabul.

If you prefer the eSIM, get an e-sim from Airalo.

1 G valid for 7 days costs 8 USD.

3 GB valid for 30 days costs 16 USD.

As for the internet connection on the way between Kabul and Torkham border, it’s mostly only available on a couple of sections of the road such as when you are close to Jalalabad and Kabul.

As for the local sim card prices, I’ll write about them in my detailed Afghanistan travel guide.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have censored certain websites and online activities. Therefore, I always use a VPN both in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There are a lot of VPN providers that are recommended in both countries. They all have their pros and cons. After comparing all of them, I got Express VPN.

Generally, I use my VPN either on the USA or German server 24/7.

When I’m not on the VPN for some reason,  I always hop on the VPN when I do online banking for safety reasons.

I have signed up for Express VPN’s 12-month plan as I find it useful in pretty much every single country where I am in the world.

Afghanistan is not covered by most travel insurance companies due to the fact that foreign governments and authorities advise against unnecessary travel to Afghanistan.

There are only a few insurance companies that you can use when traveling to Afghanistan. Two of them are the SafetyWing and IATI Insurance.

They have a number of different travel insurance plans and their prices are definitely affordable.

Officially, you can enter Afghanistan via the Torkham border with a maximum of 1,000 USD.

I have read that there were travelers entering Afghanistan with more money. But in any case, officially 1,000 USD is the limit.

When you enter Afghanistan, it can happen that they will search and check how much money exactly you have. However, it can happen that they will not check it.

It can be if they check that you have more than 1,000 USD, they might make you exchange the money for Afghani.

6.1. ON WHICH DAY OF THE WEEK SHOULD I CROSS THE PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN BORDER TO ENTER AFGHANISTAN

In this section, I will also talk about travel permits. If you don’t know what the travel permits are, don’t worry, we will also get there in the next section of this travel guide.

For now, just remember that once you are in Kabul, you have to register yourself at the Ministry of Information & Culture where you will get your main travel permit.

It’s nearly impossible to travel from Peshawar to Kabul and get the travel permits on the same day. And don’t worry because it’s totally fine to get your travel permits one day after you cross the border.

If you considered staying in Jalalabad before heading to Kabul, maybe better not. There were 2 travelers who were detained because they stayed in Jalalabad without registration and didn’t get the travel permits first. You might not get into the same situation but I recommend that first you go to Kabul from Torkham in order to avoid trouble.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU CROSS THE TORKHAM BORDER ON FRIDAY?

Friday is the weekend in Afghanistan. According to a friend’s report, Friday was a good day for crossing the Torkham border because it was not busy on that day at all. Thus, it took around an hour for him to cross the Torkham Border.

If you cross the border on Friday, you will have to get your permits on Saturday.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU CROSS THE TORKHAM BORDER ON THURSDAY?

Thursday can be problematic because if you cross the border on Thursday, you can only get the travel permits on Saturday due to the fact that on Friday, all governmental offices in Afghanistan are closed.

This means that you will be without travel permits on Friday. In order to avoid issues with the authorities, it’s better not to schedule your departure time for Thursday.

CROSSING THE TORKHAM BORDER FROM SATURDAY TO WEDNESDAY

Generally, according to travel reports, they are the busiest days at the Torkham border.

However, on the day when I crossed the Torkam border from Pakistan to Afghanistan, on Wednesday, it wasn’t busy at all.

Nevertheless, it was a full-day trip to get to Kabul to my hotel from Peshawar using public transport.

6.2. AT WHAT TIME SHOULD I CROSS THE PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN BORDER TO ENTER AFGHANISTAN

Start the day as early as possible. We left our hotel in Peshawar at around 7:30 am and we got to our hotel in Kabul after 5 pm.

It was actually a very exhausting day and there is no way I would have done the registration on the same day. It was totally fine to do it on the next day.

PAKISTAN-AFGHANISTAN BORDER CROSSING FROM PESHAWAR TO KABUL

In this scenario, you will travel from the Pakistani city of Peshawar to the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul.

STEP 1: HOW TO GET TO KARKHANO MARKET FROM PESHAWAR

You can take a metro bus to the Karkhano market in Peshawar. Here, there are many shared taxis.

Alternatively, you can just order a taxi. We ordered a taxi using the Indrive taxi app. From our hotel, Golden Palace Guest House, to the shared taxi station at the Karkhano Market, the ride was nearly 10 km and it cost 350 Pakistani rupiah (1.20 USD).

STEP 2: HOW TO GET FROM KARKHANO MARKET TO TORKHAM

Take a shared taxi to the border town called Torkham.

When you get to the shared taxi station, just say “Torkham” to the drivers, and they will understand where you want to go to.

A seat costs generally 500 PKR  (Pakistani rupiah). This amount is about 1.70 USD. But I know someone who traveled to Afghanistan with a Pakistani friend and she only paid 400 PKR. This shared taxi was also with an AC. Now, that I have experience with traveling in Afghanistan, I can tell you that was probably because of the age of the car. If you travel with a good car, you will pay more than with an older car.

When I got to the Karkhano market with Natalia, we were approached by all the taxi drivers and we quickly picked one who could speak English. It can be overwhelming for less experienced travelers.

We were quoted 500 Pakistani rupiah per seat and we were totally fine with it as the car was a very good car.

When we were there, we were surrounded by a lot of children begging. It was also a very overwhelming experience. We waited 5 minutes in the car and then we decided not to wait any longer and pay for the whole car just 2 of us.

This way, we paid 2000 Pakistani rupiah in total which is only 6.80 USD for the entire car. That’s not much for 42 km.

We left the shared taxi station at 8 a.m. and reached the Torkham border at 9:20 a.m..

I definitely recommend that you leave this shared station in Peshawar latest 8 a.m.. Otherwise, you will get to Kabul too late.

On the way, there was only one funny situation. At a checkpoint, we were stopped and the policemen there asked if we had a permit. I asked him to wait so that I call my friend in the Pakistani military to clear the situation. I was looking for the number super slowly and thex got bored of that I think. So, he just smiled and waved indicating that we could leave.

Once you are dropped at the parking lot, walk to the border crossing. Just where the crowd is, you will see a security station with men holding guns. I walked up to them and told them that we would like to go to Afghanistan. They were very friendly and called their colleagues to assist us.

STEP 3: CROSSING THE TORKHAM BORDER FROM – PAKISTAN SIDE

Bordercrossing should take at least an hour. But it can also take several hours. For us, it took 1 hour 30 minutes in total.

When we were there, it was kind of busy but it was not tragic.

As we were women, we had to proceed to a booth where a female officer gave us a light pat down and a quick once over with a handheld scanner. Moreover, she counted every single bank note we had in our purses.

I only had around 70,000 Pakistani rupees which is nearly 240 USD. That was all fine.

Natalia had a lot of different banknotes from different countries. She had around 200 USD which she had to declare. Don’t ask me why.

That’s just what it is.

After this security check and money counting, we had to walk a minute or so to get to the place where we got our exit stamp. There is a separate queue for women. It was a very interesting experience. Get ready for women with babies pushing you in the queue, trying to cut the line from every possible direction.

It was pretty hot that day and I had to push the woman’s hand with their passport away from my mouth.

After we got our exit stamp, we were stopped by 2 women, and they dropped the polio vaccination into our mouths. We quickly left,  spat it out, and rinsed our mouths with water. Don’t be shy about spitting.

Then we walked through a corridor.

Then, we were checked again by 2 men. That was still the Pakistani side. They wrote down our details on a piece of paper and they even asked for our social media accounts. I think in the end we ended up not sharing them.

STEP 4: CROSSING THE TORKHAM BORDER FROM – AFGHANISTAN SIDE

The Afghan side was so quick. 

We got no polio because in Afghanistan. Natalia just showed a certificate with other vaccines to the guys giving polio and said it was for both of us. And they said okay and we left.  I think we didn’t get polio because we were women and the only workers who were men didn’t want to do it for us.

Already when were getting our visa stamped, we were approached by taxi drivers and children selling all kinds of things.

We were kind of overwhelmed. We got our Afghan visa stamped, went to the toilet, and then started to walk out of the border area taxi drivers following us. We kept telling them that we would walk to the taxi station and get a taxi from there.  Then, children begging were following us along with the taxi drivers all talking to us at the same time.

Behind the fence on the way out, there are men exchanging money and selling sim cards. We stopped there. They have a fair exchange rate and therefore we decided to exchange money with one of the guys there.

More and more children begging and taxi drivers and who knows who else surrounded us. It was overwhelming and we were exhausted. There was nothing difficult about the border crossing but it was still exhausting.

Remember one thing about the children there. They work there. Their job is to beg and steal. You have to be very careful with them as they are very quick to grab stuff and steal.

I asked the guy who was going to exchange money with us if we could go behind the fence to deal with the money. The children and taxi drivers could not follow us there and we could exchange money relatively in peace. Of course, many of the children were still there staring at us and waiting for us to come out.

Once done with exchanging money, we started to walk towards the taxi station. We were really mindful of the people around us. Nevertheless, one of the little girls managed to grab some stuff from Natalia’s bag. It was unbelievable. In one moment no kids were around us and the next moment, a little girl just grabbed stuff out of Natalia’s bag. I don’t even remember how we reacted but all the kids were laughing at us. Nobody is controlling them and nobody will help you if they steal from you.

That means you have to take care of your belongings yourself. I recommend that you cover your backpack with a rain cover and keep your small backpack or handbag in front of you.

Later in Kabul, I talked to a male traveler and he told me that the same thing happened to him. The kids opened his backpack on the sides and grabbed things out of it.

So, I think the best place where foreigners could exchange money is behind the fence. You will see it when you are there. If you walk more towards the taxi station, you might get a little bit better rates but you will have so many children around you waiting for the right moment to snatch something from you.

STEP 5: GETTING TO THE SHARED TAXI STATION FROM THE AFGHAN BORDER

In about 5-10 minutes from the fence where you can exchange money, we reached the taxi station. The station will be on your right side. From this station, you can find shared taxis and minisbuses to Jalalabad and Kabul.

A seat in the minibus/van costs 300 Afghani (3.50 USD) or 700 Afghani (USD) for a seat in a shared taxi. I prefer the shared taxi as it’s much quicker. (By the way, the shared taxi with AC from the border to Jalalabad costs 250 AFG.)

Taliban actually controls the taxi drivers. If they actually learn that taxi drivers charge more, they can be banned from driving. But I haven’t seen any Taliban there when I was at the border.

Once we got to the shared taxi station, we had too many taxi drivers and kids in our faces. It was pretty crazy. We just ran to the cafe there to escape from the people. It was the best decision ever. We had tea there. Sitting in the cafe drinking tea helped us to calm down and discuss how to proceed further.

I’m sure women don’t sit in that cafe there but we had no choice.

While sitting there, there were hordes of people standing in front of the cafe staring at us and waiting for us or who knows what.  After some time, they asked us to leave because those people disturbed the customers in the cafe.

A taxi driver with good English was already following us for a long time. We accepted his offer of 700 Afghani per person.

I was with Natalia in the taxi in the middle of the parking lot. The driver left the car to get more passengers. Our car was surrounded by loads of children and young men. The children were also the ones who snatched stuff from Natalia’s bag.

For a couple of minutes, it was an interesting experience. But then, we said, let’s just leave. We called the driver to come back right away as we wanted to leave as soon as possible. We didn’t want to wait for other passengers. 10 minutes later he came back with a tourist.

We ended up 3 tourists in the taxi. Me, Natalia, and a German traveler. We knew this German guy from our hotel in Peshawar. Just a bit of an interesting side story. This German guy already reached the border the day before but had to sleep at the border because they didn’t want to let him out of Pakistan without a permit for his bike. In the end, he left his bike on the border and joined our taxi to Kabul.

In total, 3 of us paid 2800 for the taxi and we shared that amount. We agreed that he would take us to Kabul.

STEP 6: TRAVELING TO KABUL FROM TORKHAM BY SHARED TAXI

Slowly slowly we were moving from the border.

On the way, show your passport when asked. We only had to stop once at a checkpoint. It was totally relaxed. We, the women, stayed in the car, and the German guy had to get out of the car. He seemed to have a very fun conversation with the guys checking our passports.

The journey was very pleasant. The road from Torkham to Kabul is in pretty good condition. The scenery on the way was spectacular.

The taxi driver dropped us at a shared taxi station very far from the city center of Kabul and he organized a private taxi for is for 250 Afghani. He said he was not allowed to drive any further from there.

Things were happening very fast and I was really exhausted. Thus, I just went with the flow. But let me tell you that this is not where he was supposed to drop us off for the money we paid.

So, this is where he dropped us.

Approximate location, here: 34°36’13.3″N 69°39’34.8″E

This is where you should be dropped according to my Afghan friends:

Location, here.
The name of the terminal:  جلال اباد هډه Kabul
It is read as: Adi Jalalabab or Adai Jalalabad
The 2 locations are actually 40 km (25 mi) from each other.

STEP 7 –  REGISTERING YOURSELF & TRAVEL PERMIT IN KABUL

Border crossing is done but I will add this as the last closing point.

Did you know that Afghanistan 34 provinces. In order to travel in Afghanistan you need a permit for each province.

Don’t stress yourself to register on the same day in Kabul. We got to our hotel in Kabul very late. So, there was no way to get the travel permit on the same way and it was totally fine. But make sure that is the first thing you do after breakfast.

Let’s see how you get your Afghanistan travel permit in Kabul?

STEP 1: Go to the “Ministry of Information & culture – وزارت اطلاعات و فرهنگ‎‎” in Kabul located close to the Presidential Palace.

This is where you apply for your travel permit.

Location, here. GPS: 34.525123, 69.174224

STEP 2:  Once your application is endorsed, they will refer you to the Department of Tourism called “Tourism directory – د ګرځندوی ریاست” for issuing a letter for the provinces you plan to visit.

Location, here. GPS: 34.514378, 69.19766

Whatsapp number of the Department of Tourism: +93 703087130

This permit you get in Kabul is your main permit. Whenever you go to a new city and want to stay there, you will need to go to the local ministries and get your local travel permit.

If you want to know how to obtain local permits for each province, please stay tuned for my FULL AFGHANISTAN TRAVEL GUIDE.

FROM KABUL TO THE SHARED TAXI STATION

Once you have your Pakistani online visa, you can hit the road and cross the Torkham border from Afghanistan to Pakistan.

I got a taxi from Khyber Hotel to the shared taxi station, Adi Jalalabad, at around 9 am. I negotiated a taxi at 400 Afghani (~ 5.80 USD) but in the end, I gave 500 Afghani (~ 7.20 USD) to the driver. On a side note, I experimented with many drivers on the street to get a cheaper ride but pretty much everyone wanted 500 AF.

I got to the shared taxi station at around 9:30 am. It was full of people. It’s not for fainthearted Western female travelers. I was surrounded by loads of taxi drivers, people, and children in a few seconds.

While the children were asking for money from me, I was getting many taxi ride offers and I was telling them that I wanted the one that was 600-700 Afghani (~ 8.70 – 10.10 USD) per seat. Nobody there expected that I knew the prices already. A guy accepted 700 for the front seat. I got into his car.

The car was surrounded by small children wanting money from me and just fooling around the car. After I assessed my situation, I realized that I had done something stupid. I was in the third or fourth car in the line and when I saw that the first car was almost full, I got out of the car, walked to the first car, and asked if they had one more seat available.

They said yes and confirmed that the price was 600 Afghani per seat at the back and 700 Afghani at the front.  I jumped in the car and we left right away.

FROM THE SHARED TAXI STATION TO TORKHAM BORDER

On the way, we stopped once for lunch at a restaurant. I was seated in the family section. I was by myself there. I just ordered a tea. Behind the curtain, there was a family: a brother with a sister and a mother. They invited me to join them. They were on their way to a hospital in Pakistan. Many Afghans, especially women, go to hospitals in Pakistan. They shared their food with me and were very happy that I enjoyed my time in Afghanistan.

AT THE TORKHAM BORDER – AFGHAN SIDE

We got to the border in about 5 hours. When I was about to pay, the driver told me to wait. He took the money first from the Afghans sitting on the back seats. At that moment, I knew already something funny would happen. He left me as the last one to pay. I gave him 1000 Afghani and he gave me back 200 Afghani. I told him that we had agreed on 700 and not 800. After that, he just tried to get rid of me.

I minute later I met the guys who were in my shared taxi. They asked if everything was ok. I told them that the driver gave me only 200 Afghani back. They decided to get the right amount back from the taxi driver and they did. It was a little bit of a drama. I didn’t really care about losing 100 Afghani. But I was annoyed a bit that he managed to trick me. Thus, I appreciated that I got help.

Then, I walked to the border. On the Afghan side, I got no Polio but I still got the polio certificate. It was fun to fill in my polio certificate without getting the actual oral vaccine. We had a good laugh.

AT THE TORKHAM BORDER – PAKISTANI SIDE

On the Pakistani side, many interesting things happened. First, I got the polio in the waiting area where you get the entry stamp as well. After getting my polio oral vaccine, I took a seat, spat out the vaccine, and rinsed my mouth with water several times in front of everyone. The women and men giving the vaccine were just laughing at me. I’m happy that I made them laugh. So, that’s all about the vaccines.

At one point, I talked to the same guy who took so many of my details and asked many questions on my way to Afghanistan. Again, he asked so many questions.

While sitting and waiting for something or answering his questions, I saw so many children and men there who got beaten up. They all just accepted the beating. There were so many children crying loudly and laughing simultaneously. It seemed like they were acting the whole thing out for some reason. Why did it seem like acting? Because some of them stopped for a second, laughed, and started crying loudly again.

The man who asked the questions from me said that I needed a military escort from the border all the way to my hotel in Peshawar. I tried to avoid it saying: “Look, I came to the border from Peshawar a month ago with a shared taxi without a military escort. Believe me, I can get back to Peshawar alone taking a shared taxi.” I even asked to talk to some boss there.

While waiting for some big boss, I was just watching the children beaten up so badly. I saw little girls beaten up and laughing. They are even laughing when these big men beat them up. That was unbelievable. The big boss came and explained again that they could not let me go back to my hotel alone.

All in all, I can say it was really stupid that I tried to get rid of the military escort. They put me in a taxi with a nice soldier with a machine gun. The taxi had another passenger from Afghanistan.

I don’t know how much he paid but I had to pay 2000 Pakistani rupee (~7 USD) for the ride.

FROM THE TORKHAM BORDER TO MY HOTEL IN PESHAWAR

On the way, there was about 7 military escort exchanged. Each exchange was documented with photos of me and the military staff. The 55-km ride this way took 3 hours.

The military escort meant either a man with a machine gun at the back in the car with us or two men with machine guns in front of us in their own military vehicle as you can see in my pictures.

The military escort was a very interesting experience and everybody seemed to have a lot of fun on the way. The taxi driver enjoyed chatting with the soldiers on the way and the soldiers seemed to be very proud of taking care of me.

Keep yourself up-to-date on Tolo News regarding the Torkham Border.

Sometimes, clashes between the Pakistani and Taliban forces can happen as it happened 1 hour after I crossed the border. Following that the border was closed for more than a week.

You can also check the news regarding the road conditions. Due to landslides, the roads on the way might be closed or the taxi needs to take a detour.

Throughout this travel guide, I mentioned the hotels where I stayed in Peshawar (Pakistan) and Kabul (Afghanistan).

If you want to make a booking on WhatsApp, it’s possible. There is no need to book weeks in advance. If you make a booking on WhatsApp a couple of days before your arrival date, it’s more than enough.

GOLDEN PALACE GUEST HOUSE in PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN

It’s a great option for budget travelers. They can host foreigners as they have a license for hosting foreigners except Chinese tourists.

Price: 5,000 Rupees (~18 USD) per night for a single room and 6,500 Rupees (~22 USD) for a double room including breakfast.

Address: Golden Palace Guest House, Old Bara Road, University Town, Peshawar, Pakistan

Location on Google Maps: here.

Whatsapp Number: +92 344 8933013

HOTELS IN KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

Khyber Hotel

Location on Google Maps: here.

There are a lot of foreigners staying in the Khyber Hotel. As a solo traveler, it was nice to meet other travelers in the hotel.

Price: they have rooms for 1,500 AF (~20 USD), 2,000 AF (~26.50 USD), and 3,000 AF (~40 USD) per night including breakfast. Rooms starting at 2,000 AF have aircon. Rooms that start at 3,000 are generally newly refurbished.

I stayed around 2 and a half weeks in Khyber Hotel and I really liked staying there. It was my base in Afghanistan. Whenever I traveled from Kabul to another city, I left my big backpack in the hotel and I just took my small backpack. It was very convenient for me.

The breakfast is very basic in the Khyber Hotel.

In case you want to book in advance, this is their Whatsapp: +93 79 888 8141

Golden Star Hotel and Restaurant

Location on Google Maps: here.

Price: Rooms start at 3,000 Afghanis for a single room. I didn’t stay here but foreign travelers also like this hotel in Kabul.

Shahr Guesthouse

Location on Google Maps: here.
Price: ~800 AF (~10.60 USD) for a single room with breakfast.