On my recent trip to Bhutan, I felt like I’d happened across the lost land of Shangri-La. It’s stunningly beautiful, no, even that doesn’t do it justice, I believe the correct superlative is “otherworldly” because I just couldn’t believe a place like this still exists on modern, polluted, over-populated, social media saturated planet Earth. Sitting on the bus going between destinations, I’d look up from my book and just be floored, over and over again. The little hikes through the mountains and villages, I’d stop to process the sights and realise that there was no unnatural noise whatsoever, no cars, no bikes, no machines, no sirens or horns, just the breeze and the birds and the river. Its pure.
But what are the practicalities of visiting such a place? How do you get to the lost land of Shangri-la? How much does it cost? How fit do you need to be to enjoy it to the fullest? Keep reading for a full report.
Sustainability & Development Fee
Bhutan is an expensive destination to visit and the reason for this is the $100 USD fee per day the country charges all tourists in the form of its Sustainability & Development fee. The fee is set to preserve Bhutan’s heritage and is invested in many sustainable programs and projects. But let’s get real here, it’s to keep the riff raff out. It’s to stop Bhutan from turning into the next Bali or Phuket style destination….and to be honest it’s achieved that. Bhutan is a paradise, it’s the closest thing to the lost land of Shangri-La on Earth. As you travel around the country you constantly wonder how this place still exists on planet Earth.
HOWEVER, one can’t help but wonder if the fee is doing more than keeping the bogans at bay. Let’s face it a $25 USD per day fee would probably do that. It’s also keeping out mid-range travellers who represent around 31% of the market. With Bhutan currently doing everything in its power to entice travellers to visit, I can’t help but ask, “wouldn’t it be easier just to decrease the fee & perhaps keep the limit on the number of travellers who can visit?” When Bhutan officially reopened to travellers after the pandemic, the fee was originally increased to $200 USD per day (up from $50 USD per day prior to the pandemic) it was then lowered to $100 USD per day for a trial period of 18 months to entice travellers to visit. Agent & tour operator incentives are being thrown around like nobody’s business, with a huge focus on getting those who sell travel to the destination.
Now there is talk of increasing the fee again to $200 USD per day, an act which would negate all the effort made in the last 18 months on promoting the destination.
One can’t help wondering if the person/s setting the fee has any real idea how much western travellers actually earn.
Visa
When you travel to Bhutan your visa should be included in the cost of your tour and obtained by the tour operator you’ve chosen to travel with.
The operator will ask you for a copy of your passport and then they will take it from there. As it is not possible to go to Bhutan and travel around independently this is currently the only way to obtain a visa for tourism purposes. You must book your travel through a travel company or tour operator.
After all the paperwork is complete you will be sent an electronic copy of your visa. You must print this out and have it handy when you check in for your flight to Bhutan. You will need to show it again to immigration on arrival in Paro and a stamp will be placed in your passport. Visas are usually issued for the duration of stay. For example, if you are in Bhutan from 2-6 June, the visa will show as only valid for those dates.
Touring
With travelling independently not possible, by the far the best way to visit Bhutan is on an organised tour. When choosing your tour, you might be tempted to opt for a short tour largely because of the $100 USD per day fee. Let’s face it, with Bhutan cost is a factor and it will be a factor for most people who want to visit this destination.
If you can, I implore you to choose a tour with a longer duration. This isn’t just so that you can visit some of the more remote destinations in Bhutan but also due to the stresses a shorter tour can place on your body.
A shorter tour will likely have lots more crammed into each day to help you make the most of your trip, while this sounds great in theory, in practice it’s a bit different and means you will have no downtime. Downtime when visiting a place like Bhutan is a must. Bhutan is at altitude the capital Thimphu is already roughly 1600m above sea level and if you’re planning on doing the Tiger’s nest that takes you even further upwards. It’s also no picnic to get to Bhutan, especially from Australia or the US because there are no interline flights so some kind of recovery period should be taken into account on arrival. While excellent, the roads in the Himalayan Kingdom are very windy meaning is takes quite a while to get between places and often there are further changes in altitude, which also means changes in temperature. For example, when visiting the Dochula Pass between Thimphu and Punakha in June it was so cold that I needed to break into my bag and get my cold weather jacket, while in Thimphu it had been warm enough to wear shorts. Changes in weather and altitude can also affect your health, especially when combined with jetlag, no rest and a rushed itinerary.
The other reason we recommend a longer tour is, how many times are you going to go to Bhutan? Unless you’re a one percenter, Bhutan is most likely a once in a lifetime destination – so make the most of it!
Getting there
Getting to Bhutan presents another set of issues with no interline agreements with Bhutan’s two airlines (Druk Air & Bhutan Airlines) with any carriers that fly to western countries. This means you need to fly somewhere else first and then pick up a flight with a Bhutanese carrier. This is due to the fact that pilots need special training to be able to safely land a Paro airport which sits in a valley, meaning the pilot must fly between the mountains to actually land here. It’s quite spectacular as a passenger.
My experience included flying to Paro with Bhutan Airlines from Bangkok. The flight left at 6:30am meaning I had to at least overnight in Bangkok (the Druk Air flight leaves an hour earlier!) You might choose to fly into Bangkok and try and connect in the airport, but it’s not a good idea to risk it. Due to there being no interline agreement with any airline flying in from western countries, you will need to clear immigration and collect your baggage in Bangkok. It also means that if your incoming flight is late and you miss the onward flight to Bhutan, neither airline is actually responsible for accommodating you in this scenario. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t risk my expensive holiday to Bhutan because I didn’t want to spend any time in Thailand.
I opted to spend 3-nights in Bangkok to try and get over the long-haul flight from Australia. In saying that, I spent two nights at a nice hotel in the city and the third night I spent at an airport hotel because the flight was so early. When I say night, I mean I spent all of seven hours in this hotel, because I had to get up at 2:30am to be ready by 3am to get to the airport.
The flight was great, Bhutan airlines feels a little dated, but I was upgraded to business class so I did have lounge access at Bangkok. The flight made a touchdown in Kolkata which I’m sure they do to make up numbers, it did make the flight longer than it needed to be, but it does provide an opportunity for a stopover in India on the way/way back.
I flew back to Bangkok with Druk Air which is a bit more modern and on the day I flew makes a touchdown in Bagdogra, India which is the gateway airport for the regions of West Bengal and Sikkim. I decided to jump off here for a week as Sikkim makes a nice addition to Bhutan and I wanted to investigate. I resumed my journey back to Bangkok a week later. After Bhutan I visited Tibet, again due to the Druk Air flight arrival time and there being no interline agreement, I was forced to take a flight to China which left the following day, meaning I spent the night at the hotel with in Bangkok airport. This was both expensive and uncomfortable.
As you can see getting to and from Bhutan is quite an exercise in itself and is another reason, I recommend a longer, slower paced tour.
While I flew from Bangkok, you could also fly through another gateway city like Kolkata, Bagdogra, Kathmandu, Singapore, Bangalore or Mumbai, you can also enter overland from India. This is great reason to combine Bhutan with Sikkim and/or West Bengal. Flights in/out of Bhutan are also incredibly expensive. It’s likely that your trip in West Bengal/Sikkim will cost a similar amount as a one-way flight to Bhutan from Bangkok, meaning you would only need to purchase a one way flight to a gateway city to either arrive or depart from Bhutan.
Bangkok is a good option for Australians, there are many direct flights from major cities and Australian’s do not need a visa for Thailand, while we most certainly do for India and Nepal. It’s also the cheapest of all the options for accommodation, meaning you can spend a couple of days resting after your flight by the pool in a lovely hotel. The same can’t be said for Singapore. I visited Singapore on the way home and stayed in a capsule “space pod” hotel (akin to dormitory style accommodation) and paid more to stay there than I did to stay at a central 3-star hotel with a lovely pool and breakfast included in Bangkok.
Budgeting
It’s always hard to give advice to travellers about how much they should budget for their trip, because everyone has different spending habits.
When I arrived in Bhutan, I thought that the price of activities, souvenirs and on the ground expenses might be similar to India. I thought the expense would end at the payment of the tour and sustainability & development fee.
Buddhist symbolism by a western author were the equivalent of $90 USD! I could probably get this book in a bookstore here in Australia for a quarter of that (and Australia isn’t a cheap country either). Tibetan trinkets are also popular, as they are throughout the region, but they are ten times the price of what you would pay for the same item in Nepal, India, Western China or even Tibet itself. Which leads me to ask, if you’re trying to attract rich travellers, you do realise that said rich travellers probably have already been to other destinations that sell these things and know they’re being blatantly ripped off. Most people are not so rich, that they don’t care that someone is trying to pull one over on them with their pricing. The only conclusion I can come to is that people really have no idea how much a western traveller earns and have been led to believe that we just have unlimited resources. Bhutan is also not a bartering environment and the sticker price, is usually the price (unlike the surrounding countries in the region).
While the majority of souvenirs are very expensive, if you look hard enough there are some bargains to be had. I was interested in purchasing a Bhutanese blazer worn by the ladies as national dress in addition to the Kirin skirt. Almost everywhere I looked these garments were in excess of $100 USD, right up to $5000 USD at a shop we were taken to. I managed to find one in a local shop in Punakha close to the fertility temple for about $15 USD. It served my purpose, and I wore it to dinner that night with a long skirt and one of our guides remarked that this could be the future of fashion for Bhutanese women. High praise indeed. I also managed to grab another two in Paro, one for $20 USD and a really nice quality one for $80 USD. The only other things I bought were fridge magnets for family and friends and I splashed out for a small wall hanging which was about $40 USD – way too much for what it was, but at that stage I was thinking I’d have nothing to bring back from my trip to Bhutan. Even a sticker in one shop we went in was $8 USD.
The good news is that when you book a tour most activities and meals are included so unless you’re planning on stocking up on souvenirs or spa treatments at your hotel, there really isn’t much more to pay.
At Inverted Atlas, all meals on our tour are included in the tour price and the only activities that aren’t included are activities which we acknowledge may not be for everyone, like rafting or a hot stone bath.
Dress code
You could be forgiven for assuming that the dress code in Bhutan for visitors is conservative as it is surrounded by other conservative countries such as India and Nepal. However, this is not the case. You should feel free to wear whatever you like and whatever you believe is respectful dress in your own country – for example, you wouldn’t go walking through your local high street or shopping centre in swim wear – so you wouldn’t in Bhutan.
The only exception to this is in the temples and holy places. In places of worship, you should cover your legs and arms – strangely trousers are preferred for women over long skirts. If you have a temple on your itinerary for the day, just pack some long sleeves in your day pack.
If you are traveling to Bhutan in the summer months, not having to dress conservatively as a woman will come as somewhat of a relief, especially if you are visiting other places in the region which are more conservative. Bhutanese people won’t bat an eye at your shorts – so wear them with confidence.
Fitness
With the Tiger’s Nest Monastery being Bhutan’s number one attraction, you’d be forgiven for thinking that if you cut this out fitness won’t be an issue. Unfortunately, Bhutan is not a great destination for less than able bodied travellers.
Tiger’s Nest aside, Bhutan’s cities and towns sit in valleys in the mountains making it a very hilly destination. In placed like Punakha you will be hard pressed to find a place to stay with out a fair number of stairs. Hotels and resorts are usually spread out and are limited to one or two levels, with rooms scattered around the grounds. This is not the case in places like Thimphu where you can find a modern hotel with an elevator.
The Dzongs and temples which are another main attraction are easy to access, however to enter the main sanctuary of the temple you often need to climb about twenty stairs in an almost vertical placement before entering. Bhutan is also an amazing natural destination, with lots of amazing hikes and treks (not necessarily long ones some can be achieved in a few hours) and other outdoor activities like rafting.
Other bits & pieces
Food
The local food in Bhutan is SPICY! When I say spicy, I really mean it. There’s none of this dialling it down for you automatically because you’re a westerner like they do in India. They love their chili and assume you will too. Western food, as well as Chinese dishes can be found in most upper-class hotels, however many of them will also be full of chili. My mouth is still burning from the hottest chicken noodle soup I’ve ever eaten. That being said, some places do have the ability to cook with out spices. The lovely Pemako hotel in Thimphu cooks one of the best Eggs Benedicts I’ve ever had and those of you who know me, know that I’m very critical when being served my absolute favorite breakfast.
Top tip – if you don’t want chili, tell them “no chili” even if you’ve ordered something that isn’t supposed to be full of chili, like chicken noodle soup.
Accommodation
Bhutan has it all as far as accommodation is concerned. Although I find that a little confusing to be honest. They have some fantastic farm stay properties, offering one or two rooms to travellers, but again, who stays here? With the ability to travel to Bhutan limited only to tour groups, I was confused about how you could arrange to stay at a place like this. What tour group only has a couple of people and if you’re paying for private, surely you’ve got money and would be staying somewhere a bit more upmarket.
If you do manage to stay at a farm stay or Bhutanese house it is a lovely immersive cultural experience, but don’t expect much. The room will likely just be a mattress on the floor of the house with a shared bathroom which is likely to involve a squat toilet.
Bhutan has a raft of beautiful 5-star hotels, which makes sense as this is the type of traveller they are looking to attract. Even if you have the money to stay at these places, a word of caution, they are not close to anything. If you’re content to hang out at the hotel after a day of exploring, great, book with confidence, if you want to go out and do a little independent exploring, these are not the places to stay. Way too far out of town and often perched on the side of mountains. While in Bhutan I visited to Como Uma Paro – absolutely stunning, as well as the Six Senses in Thimphu also a really beautiful place to stay.
My pick would be the four-star properties for a good mix of luxury and convenience. Pemako in Thimphu was a real stand out, beautiful property close to town with all the amenities. This will allow you to get a bit of independence from your guide at the end of the day.
Road safety
Very different to other areas in the region where crossings and sometimes even traffic lights mean nothing. Well, Bhutan doesn’t have traffic lights for starters, the only real intersection in Thimphu has a policeman directing traffic. Crossings and crossing the road in general are perfectly safe, drivers are very safe in comparison with India and Nepal for example.
Photography
Bhutan is a place where your camera will be working overtime, just not in the temples. If you’re looking to get fantastic pictures of temple paintings and of golden Buddha’s best go to India or Tibet. No photos are allowed inside the temple sanctuary.
Who should visit?
I loved Bhutan. Really loved it. I’ve now been to 86 countries, and it’s made my top 5. That’s how much I loved it. The natural beauty is stunning, the people are friendly, the Tiger’s Nest is epic, had a great time rafting, would 100% visit again… but who would I recommend it to? I can’t help but feel a little stumped after my visit to be honest.
Well I loved it, so maybe you’re thinking, well that means it’s a great destination for people in my age bracket? Adventurous people in their 30’s & 40’s – sounds like a good idea… however people in this demographic are usually saddled with a mortgage and with the cost-of-living crisis in full swing here in Australia most people in this demographic aren’t looking for an adventure where they need to pay an additional $100 USD per day for which they get nothing. People in this demographic are looking for value for money, to get the most bang for their buck and if you’re looking for that, Bhutan isn’t the destination for you.
As it’s not a cheap destination, maybe I should be recommending it to self-funded retirees? If you fit into this demographic and are in good physical health, Bhutan is a great destination to consider. A word of warning though, if you have any medical issues which make climbing stairs difficult or difficulty breathing (altitude) I wouldn’t recommend it. If you are unsure, please see your doctor.
To sum up those who can do it can’t afford it and (most of) those who can afford it can’t do it.
The right traveller to Bhutan is someone who really wants to go to Bhutan. Bhutan has been on the top of their bucket list for years. They may be a very fit self-funded retiree or someone in their 30’s or 40’s (or even 20’s) who has saved for years to make a trip to this destination a reality. A traveller to Bhutan, unless they’re in the 1% club, is not someone for whom the destination is just a passing fancy.
