Tours of Bhutan

Cover more miles and explore more of the world's extraordinary landscapes and cultures on one of our Road Cycling or Mountain Biking holidays. Whether you fancy a Himalayan mountain bike challenge or an Alpine road riding blast in preparation for your next sportive, you will find what you are looking for amongst our global selection of biking adventures. With a track record that stretches back almost 30 years, KE Adventure Travel has more accumulated experience of adventure cycling holidays than any other tour operator. Our range of popular biking adventures now includes holidays as different as Jordan's Dead 2 Red ride, Lake Titicaca to Machu Picchu in Peru, the Rajasthan Road Cycling Tour in India and the classic trans-Alp Geneva to Nice road biking adventure. Our biking holidays are separated into 3 types (Fat Tyre, Semi-Slick and Road Cycling) on the basis of the terrain involved and the type of bike and tyres required. Additionally, each of our holidays is graded on a scale of 1 to 12, with 12 being the most challenging. Please refer to our grading system, which identifies each holiday's level of difficulty and enables you to compare the difficulty of two or more cycling holidays of the same type.

Bhutan Thunder Dragon Ride

The classic bike ride across Bhutan is one of the world's most challenging cycle holidays. At the eastern end of the Himalaya, sandwiched between India and Tibet, the 'Shangri La' kingdom of Bhutan is renowned for its colourful Buddhist culture and for the beauty of its unspoiled mountain scenery. A single spectacular road runs west to east across the country, traversing a succession of steep-sided and heavily wooded ridges. Presenting long climbs on easy-angled switchbacks, as well as mind-blowing descents that seem to last for hours, this largely deserted single-track highway provides the basis for one of the worlds' great bike journeys. Starting out from Paro and crossing several high passes, we accumulate a total of 15,500 metres of ascent and a staggering 18,200 metres of descent, en route to the eastern land border with India at Sandrup Jongkhar. Staying primarily in characterful lodges and with plenty of opportunity to meet the Bhutanese people, this is an unmissable adventure biking holiday. A sparsely populated country, Bhutan is often likened to Switzerland because of its small size, jealously guarded isolation and stunning mountain scenery. More than 90% of the population are hill farmers who live in small villages spread over rugged mountain country. Buddhist teachings and philosophy are influential throughout the kingdom, as they have been since the 7th century and a deep and traditional reverence for nature has led to Bhutan imposing some of the strictest standards of environmental preservation in the world. More than 65% of the land is still under forest cover and some of the rarest of Himalayan wildlife, such as the blue sheep, takin and golden langur, are quite common. It is generally reckoned that even the most experienced traveller will find Bhutan to be a revelation and we cannot disagree. In this country known as Druk Yul, the 'Land of the Thunder Dragon', the fortunate visitor will find a rare combination of harmony and accord, amongst incredible natural beauty. The air is clean and unpolluted, the mountains are magnificent and the architecture is inspiring. Bhutan is the least visited of all the Himalayan countries, as a direct result of a deliberate government policy that restricts the number of tourists allowed into the country. Please note that we run this holiday in conjunction with our friends at Hauser, the German adventure specialists. This enables us to gather together sufficient numbers of like-minded adventurers to get the trip up and running quickly. The cosmopolitan nature of the groups will be an important part of the experience! The holiday will be led by an English-speaking guide.