Travelling in Bhutan: a country that sets the price of entry

Why Bhutan opened to tourists so late

For most of its history Bhutan kept foreigners out. Britannica records that the country's rulers banned them until well into the 20th century, reinforcing an isolation the mountains already imposed. The government opened the country in 1974, to raise revenue and to present its culture abroad, and 287 tourists came that year. Britannica describes the tourism of the following years as limited and closely controlled by the government.

The state ran the trade itself until it privatised the Bhutan Tourism Corporation in October 1991. Private operators followed, more than 75 of them licensed by 2018, and Britannica describes visitor numbers and income as rising enormously from the early 1990s. Until recently every tourist had to travel on a prepaid, guided package booked through an approved operator.

The figures come from different counts and are not strictly comparable. The pandemic closed the border; Wikipedia's article on Bhutan records that the economy contracted by 10% as tourism collapsed, and that the country reopened to tourists in September 2022. The World Bank described arrivals in the 2024/25 fiscal year as reviving but still below their level before the pandemic.

How the daily fee decides who comes

The policy has had several names. It began as "high value, low volume" and in 2008 was renamed "high value, low impact". A strategy document of 2005 aimed to raise numbers by presenting the country to wealthy visitors as a niche destination. The tool has always been a charge per day. Britannica records a government-imposed daily tariff in the early 21st century that ensured a large share of each visitor's spending stayed in the economy. Wikipedia's article on Bhutan describes an older arrangement of about US$250 a day, paid through a Bhutanese tour operator, which covered most travel, lodging and meals.

In June 2022 the structure changed. The charge became a Sustainable Development Fee of US$200 a night, required to obtain a visa, and travellers were allowed to arrange their own accommodation and itinerary. In August 2023 the fee was cut to US$100. Indian nationals pay 1,200 rupees a day for a permit instead; Wikipedia's article on Bhutan put that at about US$14 in 2024. Nationals of Bangladesh and the Maldives are exempt. Almost every nationality must arrange a visa or permit in advance.

The Department of Tourism has also tried to widen what tourism does for the country. On 28 December 2024 it launched a "Friends of Tourism" initiative to bring people and organisations into partnership with the industry, and it began publishing a monthly bulletin of arrivals, the source of the November 2024 figures below.

The fee has its critics. Wikipedia's tourism article records the argument that a "high value" visitor in practice means a wealthy one, since what keeps people out is the price rather than any lack of interest or care.

How visitors get into the country

There are two main routes in, and the Department of Tourism's bulletin for November 2024 shows how evenly they split: 7,986 visitors arrived through Paro airport and 8,018 by road through the Phuentsholing crossing, with 41 entering at Samdrup Jongkhar and 16 at Gelephu. The same month's total of 15,990 divided into 8,956 visitors from India and 7,034 from everywhere else, so that the market which pays no daily fee was the larger of the two. Indian citizens need no passport to cross, only a national identity card.

Paro is the only international airport. Druk Air, founded in 1981, was the only airline until Bhutan Airlines began flying in December 2011, and Britannica lists international routes to India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Thailand. Druk Air also flies weekly from Paro to three domestic airports: Bathpalathang at Jakar in Bumthang, Gelephu in the south and Yongphulla in the east.

The road from the Indian border at Phuentsholing to Thimphu runs about 200 kilometres. Britannica records that the trip once took six days by mule and now takes a few hours by car, along a winding mountain road. There is no railway; India has agreed to build an 18-kilometre line from Hasimara in West Bengal to Gelephu.

Which months suit a visit

The calendar follows the monsoon described in the geography article. Spring, from early March to mid-April, is dry, and autumn, from late September or early October to late November, brings bright days and early snow on the high ground. The monsoon, from late June to late September, brings heavy rain, landslides and overcast days. Winter, from late November to March, brings frost to most of the country and snow above 3,000 metres, which closes or slows the high passes.

The festival calendar runs on the lunar year, so its dates move. Each district holds its tshechu on the tenth day of a lunar month, the month depending on the place, and the Thimphu and Paro festivals draw the largest crowds. The masked dances, the market that gathers around them and the unrolling of a giant thangka before dawn on the last day draw large crowds; the culture article describes what the dances are. Public holidays such as Losar, the lunar new year in February or March, move the same way.

Two national days fall in the dry seasons. National Day on 17 December, the anniversary of the first king's accession in 1907, is marked at Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu, and the Blessed Rainy Day in September marks the end of the monsoon with bathing, feasting and traditional sports. A four-day tshechu follows a set order of dances: the Black Hat dance on the second day, the dances of the terrifying deities on the third, and on the last the Dance of the Eight Manifestations of Padmasambhava, after the thongdrel, about 30 by 45 metres, has been shown at dawn.

Archery contests are another public occasion. Teams from villages and towns shoot at targets more than 100 metres apart, with food, drink, singing and dancing around the range, and opponents gather by the target to mock the archer.

How Thimphu grew from a cluster of houses

The capital is young as a city. Britannica describes Thimphu in the 1960s as a mere cluster of houses; it became the official seat of government in 1962, before which the seat had moved with the king, and a building programme followed with Indian aid. A hydroelectric plant began work in 1966 and the highway to Phuntsholing opened in 1968. By 2005 Britannica recorded 79,185 inhabitants.

The town keeps its agricultural edge. Terraced fields surround the royal palace, rice, maize and wheat are grown in the valley, and a sawmill works in the city. In summer the Central Monk Body is housed in Thimphu before moving down to Punakha for the winter. Changlimithang Stadium, where the national celebrations are held, was also the ground for Bhutan's football match against Montserrat in 2002.

Where visitors go in the west

Wikipedia's tourism article names Thimphu and Paro as the main centres. Above the Paro valley stands Taktsang, the "Tiger's Nest", a monastery on a cliff built around a cave where, by tradition, the figure who brought Buddhism to Bhutan meditated. Kyichu Lhakhang in the Paro valley is one of the two temples attributed to the 7th-century Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo. The ruin of Drukgyel Dzong has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 2012.

Thimphu sits at about 2,000 to 2,200 metres on the Wang Chhu. Its centre is Tashichho Dzong, the fortress-monastery rebuilt to house the government's offices, which Britannica calls one of the finest examples of traditional Bhutanese architecture. The road east to Punakha crosses the Dochu La, at 3,116 metres, with its 108 chortens built to commemorate the expulsion of Assamese guerrillas, whose camps the army attacked in December 2003. Punakha Dzong, the old winter capital, where the monastic body still spends the winter, is one of five dzongs on the tentative list, with Paro, Wangdue Phodrang, Trongsa and Dagana. Wikipedia's history of Bhutan dates the Punakha dzong to 1527 and the site of Thimphu's to the 13th century, and records that from the 17th century until Thimphu became the capital all year round in 1966, the government spent spring, summer and autumn in Thimphu and the winter in Punakha. West of Paro, the road to the Haa valley crosses the Chele La at 3,780 metres, the highest pass on a Bhutanese highway.

What lies east of the Black Mountains

East of Wangdue Phodrang the Lateral Road, the country's one east to west highway, climbs over the Pele La and a chain of further passes to Trongsa, Bumthang and finally Trashigang. Wikipedia's article on Bhutan describes the road's hazards plainly: poor surfaces, sheer drops, hairpin bends, weather and landslides. Spurs branch off it to Thimphu, Paro and Punakha, so that a visitor based in the west uses the same road for every excursion. A programme of widening began in 2014, with completion expected by the end of 2017, and the same article records that the works themselves deterred visitors from the less accessible east, with roadblocks, slides and dust.

The east holds much of the country's oldest religious history. Bumthang, where the town of Jakar stands, is where Buddhism entered Bhutan, and its Jambay Lhakhang is the second of Songtsen Gampo's temples. Tamzhing Monastery, the sacred sites associated with the Drukpa lama Phajo Drugom Zhigpo, and the Bumdeling and Sakteng wildlife sanctuaries are all on the tentative list, though Bhutan has no inscribed World Heritage site. Trashigang district, at the road's eastern end, is the most populous in the country.

Other towns along the eastern routes have their own roles. Wikipedia's article on Bhutan describes Mongar as the commercial hub of the east and Samdrup Jongkhar as the southeastern town on the Indian border, one of the minor entry points. In the south, Gelephu has a domestic airport and is the site of the planned special economic zone announced in December 2023, with a new international airport and the rail link from India in its plans.

Further south, Royal Manas National Park along the Indian border shelters the golden langur, and Britannica records tigers and elephants along the Manas and Sankosh rivers, and Jigme Dorji National Park in the northwest spans all three of the country's climate zones.

What the country's rules ask of visitors

Several laws touch a visit directly. Plastic bags have been banned since 1 April 2019. Tobacco was banned from sale in 2010 and allowed again under a law of 2021. Proselytising is illegal. The Indian rupee circulates as legal tender beside the ngultrum, which is fixed to it in value.

Dress is regulated for citizens rather than for tourists, but it shapes what a visitor sees. Bhutanese wear national dress in government offices, schools and dzongs, and add a scarf of rank to enter a dzong, and the dzongs a visitor tours are working buildings, the seat of a district's administration and its monastic community at once. Mask dancers at a festival are performing a religious duty, and registered dancers can be fined if they refuse.