Pamir Highway (M41)

The Pamir Highway is the primary reason many travelers come to Dushanbe: the city is the starting point for one of the great overland routes in the world. From Dushanbe, the M41 climbs southeast through the Hissar and Darvaz ranges, passes through Qurghonteppa and Kulob, then enters the dramatic Panj River gorge that forms the Afghan border.

The road continues through Khorog (capital of Gorno-Badakhshan) and on to the high plateau of the eastern Pamirs — an otherworldly landscape of flat, treeless plains at 4,000 meters, bracketed by peaks exceeding 6,000 meters. Most travelers hire a driver in Dushanbe for the journey; the drive from Dushanbe to Osh takes 4–6 days with stops. The route requires a Gorno-Badakhshan permit, available in Dushanbe.

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The Pamir Highway (M41) is the second-highest road in the world after the Karakoram Highway, running from Dushanbe to Osh in Kyrgyzstan through the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province. Soviet engineers built it in the 1930s primarily for military purposes; the road crosses the Wakhan Corridor with Afghanistan just across the Panj River, and vehicles sometimes have direct sightlines to Afghan villages. The drive takes 4–6 days depending on stops and road conditions.

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