Wrapping up a great ten day trip to Bhutan through Snow White Treks & Tours
 

We’re just wrapping up a great ten day tour of Bhutan. Our itinerary had a few unique requests and we selected Snow White Treks and Tours as our tour operator. Kencho, the owner, was great from the start. She was super communicative and responsive with detailed answers to my questions (not canned replies). Our guide and driver, Chado and Tenzin, were amazing also (informative, safe driving and an always clean car - not a small feat in Bhutan given the roads). They always had ideas on how to tailor our preliminary itinerary depending how we were feeling (Kencho gave us options in the original itinerary also). Highly recommending using them. Now on to our itinerary and standouts.

We wanted to do a a brief trek / camp but also see a festival and some unique spots beyond Paro and Punakha. We also did not want to have to repeat stays in Paro as we don’t like moving hotels too much. Kencho helped us work out an itinerary where we landed and went straight to Punakha and finished our trip in Paro. Detailed itinerary:

Driving:
Landed at Paro and went straight to Punakha
2 nights Uma Punakha - villa (hiked and sightseeing)
2 nights Gangtey Lodge (hiked and spa and sightseeing)
3 nights Amankora in Bumthang (festival and sightseeing)
Flew from Bumthang to Paro
1 night Uma Paro
1 night Bumdra Luxury Camp
1 night Uma Paro

We loved our itinerary and the mix. Gangtey valley and the Lodge itself were our favorites. Great spa, AMAZING food and friendly service in an amazing setting. Uma Punakha (villa and food) were great along with the hikes. Uma Paro and Amankora (favorite room of the trip) were great spots also and it was cool to see a festival. We were equally thrilled that Kencho worked her magic and squeezed us onto a fully booked charter flight from Bumthang to Paro to avoid the ten plus hour return drive on rough roads (some others we met with other operators were not so lucky and had to drive both ways).

The two day Bumdra trek (overnight camp at the luxury camp) was incredibly challenging where you cover about 12 miles and climb about 2,100 feet at high altitude (camp at 12,500 feet and it was freezing). The camp does a nice job making it as comfortable as possible with beds in the tent and Marmot sleeping bags. You then hike down to Tigers Nest in he morning.

Highly recommend Bhutan given the amazing scenery, friendly people and frankly great accommodations (just prepare yourself for the legendary scary flight into Paro 😜).