WHY BHUTAN

Bhutan, closed off to tourism since 1974, as a sleeping beauty of sorts. Travelers began to visit the country only after 1991 and only from the year 2000 we have started seeing steady number of guests visiting us. After all, television was not introduced in Bhutan until 1999.

Starbucks and McDonald’s have yet to invade and traffic lights still don’t exist. Even in Thimphu, the capital, a white-gloved traffic officer directs cars from a quaint booth in an intersection. But change is afoot in this isolated kingdom hemmed between China and India.

Bhutan has thus far avoided the fate of other fragile cultures thanks to our tourism policy of high value, low-impact tourism model. The government all but forbids independent travel, a rule that gives independent travelers to pause. You can avoid prepackaged tours, but in Bhutan you are required to travel with our driver and guide who will shepherd you around a cookie-cutter tourist circuit of temples and treks.

By the end of your trip, You will be convinced Bhutan may be one of the world’s best all-inclusive deals.
You may start to believe that maybe this place is as close to a utopia as you’ll find in modern times.

Bhutan isn’t just carbon neutral, it’s carbon negative. Forests cover more than 70 percent of the Switzerland-size nation. Those mountains you admire here are off-limits to climbers, assuring that Gangkhar Puensum, Bhutan’s highest peak at almost 25,000 feet, never becomes the next Everest.

Bhutan is the land, you had envisioned, a land of prayer-flag draped bridges spread over gin-clear water, lazing yaks, and tourist-free trails so silent you can hear the swoosh of rock doves flying up above. Bhutan is a lesson on sustainable tourism, a concept of giving back more to both the people and the land.

In an era when most people travel only to discover how closely countries on the opposite end of the world resemble their own, Bhutan is that unusual journey that proves there remains a land not quite trapped in time but refreshingly unique.