Bhutan

Bhutan charges visitors a daily fee and makes no apology for it - the logic being that the country's culture, ecology and pace of life are worth protecting from the volume of tourism that price does not filter. What you get for that fee is a country that has made different choices: forests covering seventy percent of the land, carbon negative, constitutional monarchy, the only country to measure Gross National Happiness as a policy metric with apparent sincerity. Paro's Tiger's Nest monastery clings to a cliff at 3,120 metres and is the image most people have seen; the country behind that image is quieter and stranger and more worth the journey.

Our guide is being written from the ground up, with the time this place deserves.

We are still gathering the notes that make a guide worth keeping: festival calendars, Bumthang valley guesthouses, high-altitude trekking routes and the red rice and ema datshi kitchens that feed the country on chilli and cheese with a simplicity that is its own kind of sophistication.