Visit Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet

Arrival day in Lhasa is an altitude day and we treat it as one. The city sits at 3,656 m and you have arrived there by aircraft, which means no acclimatisation at all. Our Tibetan guide meets you at Gonggar airport and it is about an hour into the city.

Check in, then do almost nothing. Drink plenty of water, skip alcohol entirely, eat lightly and go to bed early. Mild headache and broken sleep on the first night are normal and usually gone by the second. Your guide will check on you in the evening and again at breakfast.

If you feel well, a short slow walk in the neighbourhood is better than lying down all afternoon, but keep it flat and keep it brief.

Altitude: 2,250 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Begin the day with a scenic hike to the famous Taktsang Monastery (Tiger’s Nest), perched on a cliffside. Afterward, drive to Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu.

Paro sits at 2,280 m in a broad valley of terraced rice fields and is where Bhutan's only international airport is. The Rinpung Dzong, a fortress monastery from 1646, dominates the river, and the National Museum in the old watchtower above it holds an excellent collection of thangkas, textiles and masks.

Taktsang, the Tiger's Nest, clings to a cliff face 900 m above the Paro valley and is the image everyone has of Bhutan. Padmasambhava is said to have flown here on the back of a tigress in the eighth century. The hike up takes two to three hours through blue pine forest, with a cafeteria at the halfway viewpoint and a final flight of steps down and up across a waterfall. Horses can be hired for the lower half. It is the physical high point of most Bhutan itineraries and it is worth every step.

Thimphu is the only national capital in the world without traffic lights, still directed at its main junction by a white-gloved policeman. The Tashichho Dzong houses the government and the central monastic body, the Buddha Dordenma sits 51 m high above the valley, and the weekend market, the textile museum and the takin preserve, home to Bhutan's improbable national animal, fill a comfortable day.

Altitude: 3,180 m  |  Travel: 4 to 5 hours  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Explore Thimphu’s main attractions, including the Memorial Chorten, Tashichho Dzong, and the vibrant markets.

Thimphu is the only national capital in the world without traffic lights, still directed at its main junction by a white-gloved policeman. The Tashichho Dzong houses the government and the central monastic body, the Buddha Dordenma sits 51 m high above the valley, and the weekend market, the textile museum and the takin preserve, home to Bhutan's improbable national animal, fill a comfortable day.

Altitude: 2,320 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Fly to Kathmandu, Nepal. After visa formalities, enjoy a half-day city tour, visiting landmarks like the Boudhanath Stupa and Pashupatinath Temple.

Pashupatinath is the most important Hindu temple in Nepal and one of the great Shiva shrines of the subcontinent, a UNESCO site on the banks of the Bagmati. Non-Hindus cannot enter the main temple but the far bank gives an open view across the ghats, where open-air cremations take place through the day. It is confronting the first time and it is also completely ordinary here, a public part of life rather than something hidden. Sadhus in ochre sit along the terraces, and the evening aarti draws a crowd.

Boudhanath is one of the largest stupas in the world and the centre of Tibetan Buddhist life in Nepal, particularly since 1959 when refugees settled around it. The white dome is 36 m across, ringed by prayer wheels, and surrounded by more than fifty gompas belonging to different lineages. Walk the kora clockwise at dusk with the local crowd and the monks coming out of evening puja: it is the single most atmospheric hour in Kathmandu.

Paro sits at 2,280 m in a broad valley of terraced rice fields and is where Bhutan's only international airport is. The Rinpung Dzong, a fortress monastery from 1646, dominates the river, and the National Museum in the old watchtower above it holds an excellent collection of thangkas, textiles and masks.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

Take a full-day tour of Patan and Bhaktapur, two ancient cities with impressive Durbar Squares, temples, and traditional Newari architecture.

Patan, or Lalitpur, has the finest concentration of Newar architecture in Nepal. The Durbar Square holds the Krishna Mandir, carved from stone in 1637 in a distinctly north Indian shikhara style, the Golden Temple with its gilded facade and resident tortoises, and the Patan Museum, which is widely considered the best museum in the country and is housed in a restored palace wing. The surrounding lanes are still full of working metalworkers and thangka painters.

Bhaktapur is the best preserved of the three medieval cities in the valley and the one where the old town still functions as a town rather than a monument. Brick lanes open into Durbar Square, Taumadhi Square with the five-tiered Nyatapola temple, and Dattatreya Square with the Peacock Window. Pottery Square is genuinely a working pottery, not a display. Give it a full half day rather than an hour, and try the juju dhau, the local king curd served in a clay bowl.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

Fly to Lhasa, the spiritual heart of Tibet. Rest and acclimatize to the altitude

Altitude: 3,650 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Visit the iconic Potala Palace, the former winter residence of the Dalai Lama, followed by a tour of the Norbulingka Palace and the Tibetan Traditional Hospital to learn about ancient healing practices.

The Potala Palace rises thirteen storeys above Lhasa and was the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas from the seventeenth century. Inside are the golden funerary stupas of eight Dalai Lamas, the fifth's alone covered in more than three tonnes of gold, along with chapels, murals and the meditation cells of the earliest kings. Visits are on a timed ticket with a strict one-hour limit inside, and the climb up is at 3,656 m, so take it slowly.

Altitude: 3,650 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Explore Tibet’s major monasteries - Sera and Drepung - before visiting the sacred Jokhang Temple. Wander through the bustling Barkhor Bazaar to shop for local crafts.

The Jokhang is the most sacred temple in Tibetan Buddhism, founded in the seventh century to house the Jowo Rinpoche, a statue of the Buddha as a twelve-year-old brought to Tibet by the Chinese princess Wencheng. Pilgrims prostrate full-length on the flagstones outside from before dawn. The interior is dark, thick with butter lamp smoke, and unlike anywhere else.

The Barkhor is the pilgrim circuit around the Jokhang and the old heart of Lhasa: a clockwise kora walked by thousands of pilgrims a day, lined with stalls selling prayer wheels, turquoise, incense and yak butter. Walking it once with the flow of people tells you more about Tibet than any museum.

Sera Monastery, founded in 1419, is one of the three great Gelugpa university monasteries of Lhasa. The reason to go in the afternoon is the debating courtyard, where monks challenge each other on points of doctrine with a formalised hand clap that punctuates each question. It runs most weekday afternoons and it is genuinely gripping even without the language.

Drepung was once the largest monastery in the world, housing around ten thousand monks, and it climbs the hillside west of Lhasa like a small white city. The Ganden Podrang within it was the seat of the Dalai Lamas before the Potala was built.

Altitude: 3,650 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Transfer to the airport about three hours before your international flight. If you have a late departure we will hold a day room or arrange a final few hours in the city rather than leave you sitting in the terminal.

If you would rather not go home yet, this is the easy point to extend: a few days in Pokhara, a wildlife stay in Chitwan or Bardiya, a short Bhutan add-on, or a rest week somewhere quiet. Tell us before you travel and we will build it in at cost rather than as a late upgrade.

Altitude: 3,650 m  |  Meals: Breakfast