Umrah preparation checklist for Pakistani pilgrims

The short answer. In order: check the passport expiry, start the vaccination that has a waiting period, choose and verify the agency that will file your visa, get the hotel name and the excluded list in writing, then deal with money, clothes and the household. Only the first three have a clock attached. Everything else can be done in a week.

Umrah needs far less preparation than Hajj, which is exactly why people leave the two time-dependent items until it is too late. This list is in order for that reason.

As soon as you decide

1. Check the passport expiry. Today. A renewal in a hurry is the most common reason a file stalls, and it is entirely avoidable.

2. Start the vaccinations. Two are mandatory and one of them has a waiting period before you may travel. No agency can shorten it. This is the single most common reason somebody loses the dates they wanted.

3. Pick your dates knowing what they mean. Ramadan is extraordinary, extremely crowded and the most expensive. School holidays are busy. A quiet month is a different experience of the same place at a much lower price, and the hotel you can afford will be closer.

4. Make the documents agree. Passport, CNIC and NADRA records carrying the same spelling of the same name. Two spellings in two places will stop a file.

Choosing who takes you

5. Understand why the agency matters. A Pakistani passport holder cannot lodge an Umrah visa alone; it goes through an operator attested by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Nusuk will not take an individual application. You are choosing who files your visa, not only who books your hotel.

6. Verify the company before any money. The registered name, the bank account in that name, the Department of Tourist Services registration, and a straight answer about who lodges the visa. The steps are in how to verify an Umrah travel agency.

7. Ask for the hotel by name, and the distance. Then look at the map yourself and picture the walk at two in the morning with the people actually travelling with you. This is the number that decides the trip.

8. Ask for the excluded list in writing. More useful than the included list. Internal transport, the Makkah to Madinah journey, Ziyarat and some meals are the usual omissions.

9. Tell them who is travelling. Ages, mobility, small children. Before the package is chosen, because the hotel distance cannot be changed afterwards.

10. Pay the registered company, against a receipt. Never a personal account. The fraud patterns are in how to avoid Umrah scams.

The weeks before

11. See your doctor if you have a long term condition, and get enough medicine for the journey plus a margin, with the generic names written down.

12. Learn the rites from your scholar. Umrah is short and much of it happens in a few hours; knowing the order beforehand is worth more than any item in a suitcase.

13. Walk a little. Umrah is not Hajj, but it is more walking than most people do at home, often in heat.

14. Sort the money. Change at home rather than at the airport, which is the worst rate of the journey. Budget for the things no package includes: gifts, which are nearly always the largest unplanned spend, and taxis taken when somebody is tired.

The week before

15. Buy the unscented things in Pakistan. Soap, toothpaste, shampoo, wet wipes. A fraction of the price beside the Haram.

16. Pack light. The list is in what to pack for Umrah. You will carry it further than you expect and you will bring things back.

17. Prepare the paper. Passport copies kept separately from the original, the hotel name and address in Arabic, and a small card in each person's pocket with the group leader's number and the office number in Pakistan.

18. Confirm the flight, the meeting point and the time you are expected, which is not the time the aircraft leaves.

19. Settle what you leave behind. Bills, the business, who holds a key.

20. Make your arrangements with people. The one item on this list that has nothing to do with us, and the one pilgrims are most glad they did.

On arrival

Decide in advance whether you are going straight to the Haram or sleeping first. Many flights from Pakistan land in the small hours, and the people who do not decide lose the next day to exhaustion.

Then note your gate number and photograph the hotel entrance. Everything around the Haram looks alike at night.

If you want this done with you

Send us your dates, how many of you there are and the ages, and we will go through this list with you, including the parts where the answer is that your dates are too tight for the vaccination rule. Our departures, with what each one includes and excludes, are on the Umrah packages page.