Bhutan measures itself in Gross National Happiness, bans tourism it doesn’t want, and hangs its most famous monastery — Tiger’s Nest — off a cliff 900 metres above the Paro valley. It is the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, and it is not a cheap country by design: the daily fee is the wall that keeps it intact.
Bhutan Druk Path Trek » 9-Day Himalayan Ridge Walk is a 9-day private tour of Bhutan, run on your own dates with a private guide and driver. You stay in government-approved 3–4 star hotels on full board, with a licensed Bhutanese guide and driver — and the $100/night Sustainable Development Fee is included in your price.
Prices are per person and drop as your group grows — from $3910 per person for two travellers down to $2910 for a group of seven. Every departure is private: you never share the vehicle or the guide.
9-day Bhutan itinerary
Landing at Paro is an event in itself — the approach threads between mountains and only a handful of pilots in the world are certified to fly it. Paro sits at 2,200 metres in a broad green valley of terraced rice and traditional painted houses. An easy first afternoon on foot: Bhutan measures itself in Gross National Happiness rather than GDP, which sounds like a slogan until you spend a day here.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
Acclimatisation day in Paro. Rinpung Dzong and the round National Museum above it; then Drukgyel Dzong at the head of the valley — the fortress built in 1649 to celebrate the defeat of a Tibetan invasion, burned down in 1951, and now being rebuilt. On a clear day Jomolhari stands directly behind it. In the evening, the trek briefing and a kit check.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
The Druk Path begins: a short drive and then a steady two-hour climb through blue pine and rhododendron to Jele Dzong, a half-ruined mountain fortress on the ridge at 3,480 metres. You camp beside it, and if the cloud lifts the whole Paro valley is laid out below you with Jomolhari beyond.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
A ridge day: alpine meadow, dwarf rhododendron, yak herders' camps and, above 3,500 metres, the first views north to the snow line. Blood pheasant and monal are common up here, and you will hear them before you see them.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
Up to Jimilang Tsho, a lake at 4,340 metres known for its enormous trout — stocked, improbably, in the 1970s. You camp on the shore. It gets very cold after sunset and the stars at this altitude, with no light within fifty kilometres, are the reason people do this walk.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
The trail past a string of high sacred lakes — Janetsho, Simkotha — through rhododendron that flowers scarlet in April and May, with snow peaks holding the northern horizon all day. There are herders' camps but no roads and no villages.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
The last high camp is Phajoding, a hermitage complex hanging on the mountainside above Thimphu at 3,600 metres, where monks have meditated in retreat for centuries. Then the long descent through forest into the capital — and the walk ends, abruptly, at a road.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
A soft day after the trek: the 51-metre Buddha Dordenma with its 125,000 smaller Buddhas, the Memorial Chorten where the old men circle all day, and the craft market for hand-woven kira and hand-made paper. Then back over the pass to Paro.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
A transfer to Paro airport for your flight out. End of our services.
