Overland Tours

Nepal sat on the trade route between India and Tibet for centuries: yaks carried salt south and rice north, and traders crossed the Himalayan passes for about nine months of the year. Those routes are roads now. The Friendship Highway runs 816 km from Kathmandu to Lhasa over the Gyatso La pass at 5,200 m. Thimphu is 520 km away via Phuentsholing, and the same network carries on to Delhi, Varanasi and eventually Bangkok.

An overland tour is the slow, low-altitude way to see the Himalaya, from the seat of a 4WD or a coach rather than a trekking trail. It suits travellers who want the culture and the mountains without the 5,000 m nights, and it is one of the few ways to cross the range itself by land. The three-country Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet circuit takes 18 to 21 days; Nepal combined with the Indian Golden Triangle runs 12 to 14.

Four countries mean four permit regimes, and that paperwork, not the driving, is what makes an overland trip complicated. Nepal issues a visa on arrival, India wants an e-visa before you fly, Bhutan charges a nightly Sustainable Development Fee and requires a licensed operator, and Tibet needs a Chinese visa plus a separate Tibet Travel Permit that no individual can apply for alone. Swotah arranges all of it as one package. See the Tibet and Bhutan pages for what each leg actually involves.