Last Updated on: 24th May 2026, 07:56 pm
The Torkham Border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is one of the world’s most chaotic borders, with approximately 10,000 people crossing daily – at least when it’s open. The border closes frequently due to military clashes or political disputes.
At the time of writing, Torkham is mostly closed, only opening sporadically on certain days. As such, it’s likely not a viable option for foreign travelers hoping to visit Afghanistan right now. You’re better off either flying or entering via Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.
Nevertheless, in the following article, I’ll be detailing my experiences and what I dealt with crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan – easily one of the craziest travel experiences of my life. Should the Torkham Border open up again soon – and if you’re daring enough to try it – you’ll hopefully find this account helpful.
Unfortunately, due to the chaos and the security situation, I didn’t take any photos during the border crossing. All photographs below, therefore, are from various other locations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Obtaining an Afghan Visa in Peshawar
Foreign travelers planning to visit Afghanistan from Pakistan can obtain their visa in person in either the capital, Islamabad, or in Peshawar. A new e-visa system was recently introduced as well, but that wasn’t yet an option during my visit in 2025.
As the consulate in Peshawar was said to be the most lenient – not just in Pakistan but worldwide – I decided to obtain my visa there just a few days before crossing the Torkham Border.
With some crisp USD notes in hand (surprisingly hard to obtain in Pakistan, but try Islamabad’s Blue Area), I took a taxi to the Afghan consulate. Though I’d read online about needing to go to a special office in a shopping mall to obtain a particular application form, this turned out to be outdated information.
While, as expected, there were lots of security procedures to get in the compound, I wasn’t asked to leave my phone with the guards as I’d read about in other accounts online. A guard then accompanied me to the office and told me where to wait in line.
Once it was my turn, I was asked to pay $100 USD in cash (plus 500 PKR for copying and scanning fees), a copy of my Pakistani visa, and one passport photo. (I’d brought two just in case). And that was it.
I was never asked any questions about my trip, nor was I asked to fill out an application form. Apparently, the staff handled that for me behind the scenes, which is perhaps why I had to wait around for over an hour.
Eventually, I got my passport back with a full-page Afghan visa in it. For those wondering, between obtaining the visa and the time of writing, I’ve used the same passport to enter eight or nine different countries, and no border agent has ever brought it up.
Getting to The Torkham Border via The Khyber Pass
Just getting to the Torkham Border is a large part of the adventure. And a big part of the stress.
The journey involves traversing the Khyber Pass, a scenic mountainous region with a tumultuous past. It’s long served as a natural border between Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent, and for thousands of years, it’s been largely controlled by various Pashtun tribes.
Today, the region is under heavy security, and foreign travelers aren’t really allowed to visit the Khyber Pass unless they’re on their way to the Torkham Border. And that’s a shame, as the region is home to numerous historical sites, including ancient Buddhist stupas and historical forts.
Not sure what the day would entail – but knowing that I wanted to get all the way to Kabul by sunset – I woke up at 6:00. As is somewhat common, the power was out in Peshawar that morning, and I had to get ready in the dark. Fortunately, I’d handled most of my packing the night before.
Getting to Torkham requires a taxi ride from a place called Karkhano Market. I first used the InDrive app to get there and paid 1000 PKR for the journey from the eastern outskirts of Peshawar.
The destination is not the actual market, but a little transport terminal in a parking lot shortly before it. As soon as I exited the car, a driver approached me and offered to take me to Torkham.
I asked how much, and he said 4000 PKR. But after having checked various online sources, most people were saying you should pay 2000 max. (At the time of writing, 2000 PKR is about $7 USD).
Looking back, I think most writers mentioning that price were splitting the fare with other foreign travelers. But I was the only Western foreigner there at the time.
If I could’ve done things over again, I would’ve just agreed to go with the driver who first approached me, even if it was a bit more than expected.
I told him that I was looking for a shared taxi rather than private, but he said that I wasn’t allowed to take any. I now realize that this is actually true.
The driver, however, was acting rather pushy and aggressive and kept making physical contact with me. So it wasn’t just the price, but his demeanor that encouraged me to keep scouting.
At the other end of the parking lot, a shared taxi was waiting with space for one more passenger. The driver saw me and eagerly encouraged me to get in for a fraction of the price.
I had a gut feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but I put my luggage in, sat in the back seat and decided to go with the flow. The driver was a local and must have experience taking all sorts of people to Torkham, I figured. So maybe sharing a taxi with locals would be fine.
But my mistake became clear as soon as we got to the first police checkpoint of four. Once there, an officer glanced inside the taxi and was confused as to why a Westerner was sitting amongst Pakistanis and Afghans.
He asked me to get out of the car and fill out a form with my info as he also took my photo. This seems to be standard procedure for Western tourists regardless of what kind of vehicle they come in.
But according to the official rules, officers need to accompany Westerners in their taxis through the Khyber Pass until reaching Torkham. It then became clear that our driver was taking a Westerner for the first time, as he seemed shocked.
With our taxi already full, the officer had no choice but to share the front seat with the passenger already there! I felt bad for inconveniencing everyone, and offered repeatedly to switch seats with the front seat passenger. But he kept declining, saying everything was alright.
We’d actually end up becoming friends, as we’d exchange contact info and get together with his brother in Kabul. Like many Afghans, he frequently travels back and forth between the two countries for his father’s medical treatment. Sadly, this is an all too common reality given Afghanistan’s inadequate healthcare system.
As mentioned, there are four different checkpoints. And each one, I had to get out (yes, just me), fill out my info and get my photo taken. And then a new officer would join us in the vehicle until the next checkpoint. (With so many officers on duty in the Khyber Pass, I wondered why they couldn’t just assign one person to Karkhano Market.)
After what seemed like ages, we arrived at the border, and I was able to get out of the cramped vehicle for good. But things were only just getting started.
Crossing The Torkham Border: The Pakistani Side
Chaos seemed to strike from the moment I got out of the car. But come to think of it, chaos is probably Torkham’s default state. (As long as it’s open, that is.)
I was approached by multiple strangers immediately, and some of them started grabbing my suitcase! While none of them spoke English, it seemed like they were working as porters. But most of them didn’t take no for an answer, and I had to repeatedly grab my suitcase back from random people throughout the crossing.
All the while, I had to follow the officer who’d last been in the car with me, as he had my passport. Fortunately, he was very tall, and he wasn’t hard to spot amidst the throngs of people. He moved rapidly through the crowds, but I had no choice but to keep up with him.
We traverse what seemed to be a labyrinth of twisting and turning narrow passageways. But it was filled with people – most of them Afghans trying to get home. And it was sweltering hot on this sunny day in June.
To keep up with the officer, I repeatedly had to cut people in line, who naturally complained. Honestly, I couldn’t blame them, but I had to keep moving.
Close to the actual border, I was asked by a group of officers how much money I was bringing out. I said $200 USD, though I had more money in my bag that they fortunately didn’t check. They did, however, check my wallet to confirm.
While the official limit is $5,000, for whatever reason, Pakistan only allows travelers to bring several hundred dollars out of the country at Torkham. This may or may not be an official rule, but it is enforced in practice.
We walked through more densely crowded, narrow pathways. And eventually, we finally made it to immigration control. But in a rare first, I actually found myself standing behind the immigration desk together with the officers.
It was a clear example of foreigner privilege, but I couldn’t complain. Looking out through the officer’s window, I could see countless Afghans on the other side waiting to get their document stamped. Many of them were shouting with their arms outstretched.
There was no semblance of organization – just pure chaos. It looked less like an immigration queue and more like a crowd of people trying to get close to the stage at a music festival.
And when the Pakistani officers were finished stamping a passport, they’d often just chuck it right into the crowd! One would think it might make the officers’ lives easier to implement an organized queuing system, but they didn’t seem too bothered.
The police officer I’d been following the whole time handed my passport to one of the immigration officials and I finally got my exit stamp. But I wasn’t allowed to walk over the border just yet.
Shortly before the official boundary of Pakistan ended, I was told to wait in a little hut with a different officer, or perhaps soldier. Then another officer arrived, along with two men in plain clothes. I hadn’t been anticipating an exit interview, but I was soon bombarded with questions.
They asked where I’d been in Pakistan, and I answered them honestly. For whatever reason, they were very curious about where I stayed in both Islamabad and Peshawar. Though I tried to be vague about my Peshawar Airbnb, they kept persisting until I provided my host’s phone number. Who knows what they were planning on doing with the information.
Given how friendly I found the people of Pakistan overall, this final encounter was rather jarring, to say the least. But they eventually let me go, and a few seconds later, I was officially in Afghanistan.
The Torkham Border: The Afghan Side
As soon as I entered Afghan territory, a guard approached me and asked me why I was visiting. I said because I’d heard the scenery was beautiful and that the people were nice. He seemed pleased, but I’d have a lot more questioning ahead of me.
In Pakistan, with the exception of undercover officers, people in positions of authority immediately stand out thanks to their uniforms. But Afghanistan is different. Most Taliban officials don’t wear standardized uniforms, so it’s not always clear at first who you’re dealing with.
As on the Pakistani side, I encountered more unsolicited porters here, and I needed to hold firmly onto my suitcase. But thankfully, the Afghan side of Torkham seemed to have just a fraction of the crowds.
Nevertheless, there are still some dubious characters you need to watch out for. I’d read about child pickpockets in advance, and I came prepared by securing all my backpack compartments with locks.
And as I was wearing a traditional Shalwar Kameez – with deep pockets attached to the top and not the pants – my wallet and passport were also out of reach. If you plan on crossing this border, make sure to take similar precautions.
In one particularly crowded section, I witnessed a guard using some kind of whip for crowd control! People scurried away as he struck them. And upon seeing me out of the corner of his eye, he raised his arm to strike me next. But upon seeing a Westerner, he stopped and let me pass.
I was unsure of exactly where to go, but a man approached me and pointed in the distance, indicating that I needed to go there to check in. As he was wearing no uniform, I had no clue who this man really was.
I was led to an office, but this wasn’t for getting my passport stamped. As I’d soon discover, this was the interrogation room.
A bearded man soon joined us and greeted me with a smile. The mood was warm and casual at first. He asked me how I was doing, followed by some basic questions. But then without warning, the mood instantly turned tense, and I realized that the interrogation had started.
First, he wanted to know if I knew anyone in Afghanistan. I told him no. ‘Oh really, are you sure?’ he asked me. He asked to search through my phone to confirm.
He spent a while looking through my WhatsApp contacts and chat history, though he wouldn’t let me see exactly what he was doing. ‘I can see that you really don’t know anyone in Afghanistan,’ he said to me. But then he flipped the script.
‘Why are you coming to Afghanistan if you don’t know anybody?’ he asked. ‘Just traveling,’ I said. The whole point of this, of course, was for them to determine whether or not I was a spy. While I was indeed just a regular tourist, I had to remind myself to keep calm and carefully answer each question so as not to arouse suspicion.
Nevertheless, throughout the long conversation, occasional images of me trapped alone in a Taliban detention center flashed in my mind. I tried my best to ignore them.
While I have no evidence of this, the interrogator appeared to be swiping my home screen to see what apps I had installed. This may have been to search for some kind of crypto wallet, as I’ve heard that spies might receive crypto payments upon arrival. Luckily, I didn’t have any such apps.
The Taliban interrogator then asked where I was going in Afghanistan, and I showed him the itinerary I had saved in a notes app. He took pics of it, in addition to pictures of all the previous drafts I’d made in the past.
I also happen to be a legal resident of another country, and that ID card was in the same case as my passport. He was very intrigued by this, and asked me why I’d ever want to live somewhere that wasn’t my home. I just gave vague, simple answers, and he took pictures of the ID before moving on.
The subject then turned to work. While I do various things for money, when traveling, I usually just tell authorities who ask that I’m a graphic designer.
He seemed to understand what that meant and said that he was a designer too. But he then showed me some images of technical drawing on his phone – clearly an entirely different line of work.
He seemed suspicious that I didn’t have many examples of my work on my phone. ‘I know!’ he said. ‘I bet you have photos of your work in your locked folder, don’t you?’
‘No, there’s nothing there,’ I said, a bit panicked. ‘But here, I brought my computer. I have some of my work on there.’ And so I turned it on and showed him some things. He then asked me a very simple question that threw me off guard.
‘Why do you travel with a computer?’ he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was legitimately wondering, or if it was a question intended to make me slip up.
In this part of the world, of course, ordinary people don’t really own computers of any kind. The average person has gone from using pen and paper straight to owning a smartphone.
‘I just brought my computer in case I want to edit photos,’ I told him. ‘Look, I can show you my photo editing software.’
Somehow, that seemed to be a magic phrase that made him totally lose interest in me. He gave me a smile and said ‘It’s okay, you can go. By the way, I hope you’re not offended or upset by any of this. It’s just my job.’
But the ordeal wasn’t quite yet over.
The interrogator then wanted to know how I’d get to Kabul. It turned out that the guy who had guided me to this room – and who had been sitting there with us in silence the whole time – was actually just a taxi driver. But the two did seem to know each other.
Normally, foreign travelers don’t need permits for provinces they’re just passing through. But the interrogator insisted I’d need to check in at Jalalabad’s government office en route to Kabul. I wasn’t sure if this was a new rule or part of a scheme, as going to Jalalabad would require hiring a private driver rather than sharing a taxi.
In any case, since it was late morning on a Thursday, the government offices were all about to close anyway. And so I was given permission to go straight to Kabul. I was also allowed to take a shared taxi with locals.
Most online sources I’d read said that a shared taxi from Torkham to Kabul should cost around 800 AFN per person. But here I was pretty much forced to agree on a price in the interrogation room, and we worked out 2000 AFN (about $32 USD) with a drop-off directly at my hotel.
I certainly wouldn’t be shocked if the interrogator was getting some kind of kickback from the officer. Did I feel scammed? Yes, somewhat. But thankfully, throughout the rest of my time in Afghanistan, no other Taliban official would ever try to get any money out of me.
Finally out of the interrogation room, the driver continued accompanying me. He then led me to another office where I officially got my passport stamped. Compared to everything else up to that point, this was a quick and straightforward process.
Next, I encountered a money changer where I exchanged some USD and PKR to Afghanis for a decent rate.
I then passed a health inspection booth where I was forced to take an oral polio vaccine. I kept trying to refuse, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Just wanting to get away from the border already, I let them put two drops on my tongue, after which I quickly spit it out on the ground.
I then bought a bottle of water from a nearby vendor – both to rinse the taste of the vaccine from my mouth, and also to quench my thirst in this oppressive heat.
Getting From Torkham to Kabul
Out of the border control area, I arrived with my driver at a large parking area. He led me to his car and I loaded my belongings. But then to my surprise, he handed me the car keys!
He didn’t speak English, but I guessed he needed time to find other passengers, which turned out to be true. And he gave me the keys so that I could sit and eat lunch without worrying about my stuff.
He led me to a restaurant where I ordered a simple meal of chicken and potatoes that came with bread and tea. The cost was just 150 AFN.
This was a traditional Afghan eatery where all patrons sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor. And next to me was an officer with the Afghan version of the DEA who spoke a bit of English. He was friendly and welcoming, but it still hadn’t quite sunk in yet that I was really in Afghanistan.
Finally, my driver returned, but he almost got into a fight with one of the other customers. I had no idea what was going on, and nobody would translate for me.
In any case, my driver had found enough other passengers to fill up the car, and we finally set off at around 11:00.
I would end up spending just under a month in Afghanistan. But this drive from Torkham to Kabul was one of the most stunningly gorgeous drives I witnessed in the country.
The 130-kilometer journey took 4-5 hours, cutting through arid mountains, snaking through narrow gorges, and overlooking lush, fertile plains.
Had I known this, I would’ve gladly paid extra for a private driver on the condition that he stop at different points on the way for me to take photos.
Finally near Kabul, for whatever reason, we switched cars and drivers on the outskirts of the capital. The original driver indicated that the new driver would take me right to my hotel and that I wouldn’t have to pay any extra. Fortunately, I made it there with no issues.
Would I recommend crossing the border for the average traveler? Definitely not. Then again, Afghanistan isn’t exactly a destination for the ‘average traveler’ to begin with.
But unless you’re actively looking for something extreme, flying into the country – or entering via a land border with Uzbekistan or Tajikistan – is advised for most.
A couple of months later, I’d have another nerve-wracking experience trying to cross into Xinjiang, China from Kazakhstan. But crossing the Torkham Border into Afghanistan still ranks up there as one of the wildest experiences of my long land journey between Mumbai and Beijing.
