Luxury Tours

Bhutan, slowly,
with every detail
quietly handled.

A short list of itineraries built around the country's premium lodges — Amankora, Six Senses, COMO Uma Paro & Punakha. Private guiding throughout, helicopter transfers where they make sense, and the kind of service that pretends not to be service.

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Bhutan, slowly

The country at
the country's pace.

Seven things to know about luxury travel in Bhutan — the lodges, the helicopter circuit, the wellness threads, the private guiding. Scroll through.

What luxury means in Bhutan

Bhutan has no Marriotts, no Hiltons, no Holiday Inns — international chains aren't licensed here. "Luxury" instead means three groups of small, independent properties: Amankora, Six Senses, and COMO Uma, plus a handful of heritage hotels that punch above their tier.

What you're paying for isn't a brand logo — it's the experience around the room. Private guide and driver assigned to you for the trip; the food cooked for your preferences; the wellness rituals booked into your itinerary before you've thought to ask; helicopter transfers when the drive doesn't make sense.

Rates start around USD 1,200 per night and climb past USD 3,000 for the top suites. Most of our luxury itineraries land in the USD 7,000–15,000 per person range for 8–14 nights, depending on lodge mix and helicopter time.

Amankora

Aman's Bhutan circuit is five lodges across the western and central valleys — Paro, Thimphu, Punakha, Gangtey, and Bumthang. Each lodge holds only 16–24 rooms, all designed by Australian architect Kerry Hill in rammed earth, timber and stone.

Travelling between them is the trip. You drive (or fly) from one valley to the next, and the lodge in the new valley already knows your dietary preferences, your hot-stone-bath schedule, and which yoga teacher you prefer. The handover is invisible.

Most travellers do three or four of the five — typically Paro on arrival, Punakha or Thimphu in the middle, and Bumthang or Gangtey on the way back. The full five-lodge circuit takes 10–12 nights and is the strongest single experience Aman offers anywhere.

Six Senses

Six Senses Bhutan opened in 2018 with five lodges across the same western valleys as Aman — Paro, Thimphu, Punakha, Gangtey, and Bumthang. The architecture is more contemporary, the wellness programme is the central thread of the entire experience.

Each lodge has a different design language tied to its valley — Paro is forest-lodge, Punakha is farmhouse, Gangtey is glacial-bird-watcher's-lounge — but every property runs the same wellness diagnostic on day one, sets a programme, and threads it through your stay.

If your interest in Bhutan is partly about resetting — sleep, breath, traditional medicine — Six Senses is the right circuit. The resident sowa rigpa physician at each property is the single most underrated luxury in Bhutan.

COMO Uma

COMO operates two properties in Bhutan — Uma Paro and Uma Punakha. Smaller than Aman or Six Senses, more like a private country house. Uma Paro is set on a hillside above the Paro valley; Uma Punakha sits on a cliff above the Mo Chhu river.

The COMO style is more family-friendly than the others. Suite layouts work for parents with older children, the kitchens cater to picky eaters, and the spa at Uma Paro is the strongest in Bhutan outside of Six Senses.

Most luxury circuits use Aman or Six Senses end-to-end, but COMO is the right answer when you want a slower, more domestic version of the same five-star experience.

Helicopter transfers

Bhutan's roads are improving but still mountainous; the drive from Gangtey to Bumthang is six to seven hours over two passes, and there's a domestic flight option that takes 25 minutes. Royal Bhutan Helicopter Service runs a private charter circuit that makes the long drives optional.

Helicopter time isn't included in any lodge rate but is straightforward to add — typical legs are Paro to Gangtey, Punakha to Bumthang, and Bumthang to Paro at the end of the trip. Rates run roughly USD 3,800–5,200 per leg, depending on group size and aircraft.

The views over Dochula and the central ridges are genuinely worth the spend on at least one leg. We recommend booking helicopter time three to four months ahead — there's exactly one operator and demand outstrips supply in high season.

Wellness rituals

The hot-stone bath — dotsho — is the iconic Bhutanese wellness ritual. Heated river stones are dropped into a wooden tub of cold mineral water, releasing minerals as they steam. Every lodge offers it; some, like the Aman dotsho house at Punakha, build the entire experience around it.

Beyond dotsho: meditation sessions with resident monks, sound healing with Tibetan singing bowls, butter-lamp lighting at the local lhakhang, traditional sowa rigpa diagnoses, and a steady supply of yoga teachers who run private sessions in your suite.

Most of our luxury itineraries weave in two or three of these per week — enough to feel like part of the trip, never so much that the country itself disappears into the spa.

Private guiding & service

Every luxury trip is private. One licensed guide and one driver, assigned to your group for the duration of the trip, sleeping in nearby staff quarters at each lodge. They know your itinerary, your preferences, and — by day three — your sense of humour.

The relationship is what makes the trip. Guides we work with at this tier have been with us for ten or more years, speak three or four languages, and have personal relationships with the lodge managers — so when you mention something casually at dinner, it's already arranged by the next morning.

If you'd prefer a guide who specialises in a particular interest — photography, Vajrayana Buddhism, birding, textiles, hiking — we can match. Tell us what you care about; we'll send you the right name with the proposal.

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