Licensed Bhutanese tour operator · Thimphu
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The classic west, done at a pace that lets you stop. Four valleys, the Dochula pass at dawn, and two nights in Punakha rather than the usual hurried one.
Western Bhutan holds the country’s two great fortresses, its highest drivable pass with a Himalayan skyline behind it, and a glacial valley where black-necked cranes winter. Most operators run it in six days and spend three of them in a vehicle. We take eight, and the two extra nights go where they matter: a second night in Punakha, and a night in Phobjikha instead of a day trip.
The drive from Thimphu crosses the Dochula at 3,140 metres, where a hundred and eight chortens stand on a knoll and, on a clear winter morning, the eastern Himalaya lines the whole horizon. Beyond it the road drops nearly two vertical kilometres into Punakha — subtropical, warm, and green with rice terraces, with the finest dzong in Bhutan standing on the spit of land between two rivers.
This itinerary suits couples, families with teenagers, and anyone who wants to understand the country rather than photograph it from a windscreen. Every walk is optional and every drive is broken.
This journey is quoted for your dates, your party size, your accommodation preference and anything you want changed. Government fees are shown as separate lines.
Written itinerary and full quotation usually within 24 hours. Nothing to pay to ask.
Written the way we would actually run it — with the drives, the walking hours and the altitude you sleep at, so you can judge the days for yourself. Anything here can be changed before you travel, and most of it can be changed on the morning.
Meet your guide at the terminal and transfer the short distance into town. A slow first afternoon: Kyichu Lhakhang, and a walk along the river below Rinpung Dzong to start adjusting to 2,200 metres.
East along the Wang Chhu, stopping at the iron-chain bridge at Tamchog. In the capital: the Memorial Chorten, the craft school, the takin preserve, and Tashichho Dzong in the late afternoon. If it is a weekend we add the Centenary Farmers’ Market by the river.
We leave early for the pass, because the mountains are usually gone by ten. Coffee at the Druk Wangyal chortens, then the long descent to 1,200 metres. In the afternoon, the twenty-minute walk across the fields to Chimi Lhakhang, the fertility temple of the Divine Madman.
Punakha Dzong at opening time, before the light hardens: the hundred-pillar assembly hall, the jacaranda courtyard, the wooden staircase raised at night for four hundred years. Afterwards, the walk up to Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten through the rice terraces, and the Pho Chhu suspension bridge on the way back.
East and then south, over the Pele La and into the Black Mountains. Phobjikha is a wide, treeless glacial bowl at 3,000 metres — the wintering ground of the black-necked crane, and one of the few valleys in Bhutan that put its power lines underground to keep the flight paths clear. Afternoon at Gangtey Goenpa.
A ninety-minute walk down through pine forest and potato fields to the valley floor — the most pleasant easy walk in the country. Then the long drive back west over the Dochula to Thimphu.
The Tiger’s Nest, deliberately left until you have spent a week above two thousand metres. Early start, five to six hours round trip, and the rest of the day free. A farmhouse dinner and hot stone bath in the evening if you would like one.
Early transfer to the airport for the morning departure.
Photographs from the valleys this itinerary passes through. Ask us for more — we have a great many, and we would rather send you real ones than stock.
If yours is not here, send it — we answer properly and we will tell you if the trip is wrong for you.
On a clear day between late October and February, yes — you are looking at Gangkhar Puensum, widely described as the highest unclimbed mountain on earth, from a pass you can drive to. In summer the cloud usually wins, and we will tell you honestly the night before whether it is worth leaving at six.
Because the dzong is a different building at eight in the morning than at eleven, and because the Khamsum Yulley walk deserves an afternoon rather than a gap between drives. It is the single change that most improves this itinerary.
Yes, and in some festival weeks we do — running Paro to Phobjikha first and finishing in Punakha. Tell us your dates and we will orient the circuit around whatever is happening that week.
Read these before you enquire. Everything here is written so that nothing on the page above reads as a promise we cannot keep.
You sleep between the altitudes shown at the top of this page. Take the first day slowly, drink more than feels necessary, and tell your guide immediately about headache, nausea or unusual breathlessness.
Hot stone baths, farmhouse meals, archery, rafting, meditation sessions and monastery visits are arranged locally and are subject to availability, weather, river conditions and the monastic calendar. Where something cannot run on the day, your guide will offer an alternative.
Hotels are named in your final itinerary and quotation rather than on this page. Properties are certified by the Department of Tourism and are confirmed once your dates are held; if a substitution becomes necessary we will tell you before you travel and will not move you to a lower grade without asking.
International flight routes, frequencies and schedules vary by season and change at short notice. Current connections will be confirmed during trip planning. Leave a night either side of your Paro flights rather than booking a same-day onward connection.
The visa application fee is US$40 per person, one-time and non-refundable, and the Sustainable Development Fee applicable to your dates will be identified as a separate line in your quotation. Comprehensive travel insurance, particularly medical and emergency evacuation cover, is strongly recommended; it is not a government visa requirement.
Roads, weather, monastic calendars and local events can all move a day around. Your guide will discuss any change with you at the time, and the shape of the trip is yours to adjust before you travel and, for most days, on the morning.
Every journey is individually quoted. Tell us your travel dates, the number of travellers, your accommodation preference and anything you would like changed about the Grand Western Circuit itinerary, and we will prepare a detailed quotation for your trip.
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