Bhutan - The Cost of A Visit

Is It Too Expensive To Visit Bhutan?

Bhutan is probably the most expensive place we'll visit on our travels and is not in most "backpacker's" budget, but that certainly doesn't put thousands of people off visiting. Do NOT believe "no-one goes to Bhutan".... they have a population of 826,229 and in 2017 had 274,097 visitors, ie the equivalent of a 33% increase on their population.

Of this 274k, 71,807 were "international" tourists....i.e. people like Chris and me. We are the ones who have to pay the big US Dollars and have a guided tour. The majority of visitors to Bhutan are in fact "regional" visitors - people from India, Bangladesh (neighbouring countries) and the Maldives (where they have bilateral trade agreements). These visitors can self-drive and do not need to pay the large US Dollar daily fee. As I understand it, they do still have to pay some fees and have to apply to self-drive, but certainly their travel costs seem vastly different to ours.

This post is for anyone who is an international tourist and might be interested in coming here and knowing what it costs.

Even if you're on a 'private tour' where the itinerary is your own....you are likely to see a lot of other tourists all doing the same route! We certainly did! I expect the reasons for this are:

• Seasonal - the majority of tourists visit Bhutan in March, April, October and November

• Budget - it is expensive and so the average visit is just 6.6 nights. Given the slow pace of driving (giving tourists a good experience and because the roads are very windy!), this limits where you go and how far off the beaten track you can get in the time

• Tourist sites - many of the main tourist sites are clustered around Thimpu is the capital and is in the centre of both Paro (where Tiger's Nest Monastery) and Punakha (with the Divine Madman fertility temple)....most visitors will want to see these places

Thanks to Kuensel, the Bhutanese newspaper for some of the tourist stats; I found the article on the English language news app Daily Bhutan.

Planning

So, we knew it would be expensive...but you walk this way only once and as we were visiting the North East of India, right on Bhutan's border, we didn't want to miss the opportunity to visit the Dragon Kingdom. When planning our travels we budgeted enough money to visit Bhutan for 7 nights/8 days.

​Most international and many regional tourists fly into Paro Airport. We came overland across the border from India in Jaigaon, West Bengal to Phuentsholing in Bhutan's Eastern border. We were met at our hotel by our guide and driver and then travelled by road to Thimpu - this took about 5 hours including refreshment stop, lots of photo opportunities and a visit to our first (of many!) stupas. The roads we travelled on were mainly excellent .... no travel sickness tablets needed!

All I'd read suggested we should book about 3 months in advance of our visit. We probably booked about 2 months ahead - we'd already started travelling through India at that time. This seemed fine and didn't seem to cause any issues that we saw in terms of getting things booked.

I googled for the best companies for tours and made contact with three. In the end we chose the Bhutan Travel Club (BTC) - they talked about 'responsible travel' and had good responsiveness by email and good English, as did the other companies. What picked them out was how they described what the tour was going to be like in a bit of detail. Rather than just saying 'visit this Dzong' it explained what a Dzong was and why it was on our itinerary. Really simple - but given our complete ignorance of Bhutan and what to do, it brought it to life for us!

What Did It Cost

So....how much did it cost and can you make it cheaper?

There's a limit to how much you can cut your travel costs, but there are a few areas you can add or take a smallish number of US Dollars off.

• All international tourists must pay US$250 per person per day - no pay, no visit, no options!

• If you are travelling solo or in a couple you then need to pay an extra US$40 surcharge per person for those in a group of one/two (we did suggest to our tour company we could join another group, but this didn't eventuate and we didn't push it)

• TIP: Join a tour...rather than travel solo if you are mainly following the core tourist routes

• TIP: Travel Off-Season - the tourist fee drops to US$200 a day from December to February and June to August

• If you're solo or a couple the extra fee during this time is US$30

• All payments needs to be made in US Dollars and transferred to the Bhutanese government when you book - your travel agent will send details

• You need to pay the bank remittance fees (I think ours was about US$16) which your bank will charge to send the funds to Bhutan

Total = USD $4,016 / NZD $6,049

What is Included?

The daily fee is super expensive for anyone on a backpacker budget, but everything is included. The daily fee covers:

• 3* accommodation - as Chris said, this is "about 5* higher than our normal standard!!"

• Transport in Bhutan - we travelled in a really comfortable SUV with a lovely driver, Rinzen

• A guide - Karma was with us all the time and spoke great English - we were picked up after breakfast, looked after all day and dropped off in the evening

• All the food we could eat....and a lot more. Food, food, food. We absolutely never went hungry!

• Entry fees

What Is Extra?

We would have liked to have included biking, kayaking and rafting in our trip but decided not to given the extra costs this would have added to our budget eg mountain bikes costs US $40 per bikes, per day - not a lot if this is your main holiday, but an added expense for us.

Most companies charge extra for a hot-stone bath, but BTC included ours in the cost and it was a lovely way to end our two day Bumdra Trek.

Personal Expenses

We used cash for any expenses. Indian Rupees were accepted everywhere - they are exactly the same rate as the Bhutanese Ngultrum (Nu) and so we didn't need to formally exchange money as change was given in Nu. In fact, in the Indian border town of Jaigaon we often got Bhutanese change before even crossing the border. There were plenty of ATMs in Thimpu, I didn't look elsewhere.

Personal expenses are extra - we didn't buy gifts or souvenirs, but did buy some fruit (450 Nu), beer (50-60 Nu in a supermarket, 100+ Nu in hotels and bars) and postcards (approx 20 Nu each). Chris had a go at darts when we were at the Rhododendron Festival while I was being sick and had his trousers repaired after the dog bites (both stories for another blog!!!)

Total personal expenses = 2,652 Bhutanese Rupees / US $37.78 / NZ $56.89

Tips

The main expense of the week. Tipping. As Kiwi/Brits who aren't used to tipping and backpackers on a budget this caused us lots of angst. We also weren't in a group to have chats with others. Google provided plenty of suggestions which ranged from US $10-25/day for the guide and US $5-15/day for the driver. In the end we gave $80 for our guide and $50 for our driver.

Total tips = US $130 / NZ $196

Grand Total

So, the grand total for our 7 night/8 day trip = USD $4,184 / NZD $6,300

We normally budget per day - so in Bhutan our average daily spend was USD $523 / NZD $788 / Rupees 36,713 (Indian and Bhutan are the same)

....now back to India where we live off < 4,000 Rupees a day!!

I hope this is interesting and useful for anyone thinking of visiting Bhutan. Even as a backpacker I say GO! You may never get a chance to go again and if you budget for it you can have an experience many others won't get. Obviously...if you are a real 'budget' traveller this isn't for you - but if you are a mid-range backpacker, it is definitely worth considering.

In the end, I think it depends on what you think is "worth" it. It's super expensive, especially for a developing country, but that IS the barrier to entry and if you are looking for an experience of a country that is just that bit different, then Bhutan is definitely off the beaten-track for most.... but certainly not a place that no-one goes to!

Check out Chris' videos of our week and I have a blog coming too.