Of the three former Himalayan kingdoms – Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan – Sikkim is today least visited and known in the West. This is unfortunate as Sikkim’s original inhabitants, the Lepchas, call their land Nyemael , “Paradise,” and though one of the legendary “bayul” or Shangri-la valleys was said to be only behind the mighty Kanchenjunga, Sikkim, now the 22nd state of the Indian Union, has much of the same to offer as Bhutan, its neighbor to the east.

Trip to Sikkim is best combined with a stop in Darjeeling, the Queen of the Hill Stations. The key air access point for the region is the Bagdogra airport in the foothills of Darjeeling. There are direct flights to Bagdogra from Delhi or Kolkata and thus Sikkim can be easily added as a side trip to your India itinerary.

The ideal way to visit Sikkim is to tailor it into Nepal or Bhutan itinerary. You can fly into Bagdogra, tour Darjeeling and Sikkim then enter Bhutan overland via Phuentsholing in the south-western corner of the country. Another alternative is to exit Bhutan by air from Paro to Bagdogra and proceed to Darjeeling and Sikkim from there. Druk airways added the Bagdogra flights recently and the option shortens the journey by two days. There are indeed number of viable options how best to tour and travel Bhutan, where to enter and exit the country.

Sikkim can also be easily visited as a side-trip from Kathmandu. The fastest connection is to fly to from Kathmandu to Bhadrapur, an airport in far Eastern Nepal, practically on Nepal – West Bengal border, and then travel overland from there to Darjeeling.

The Nepal to Sikkim option opens up many possibilities as one can then tour the Indian subcontinent by flying into Delhi first, visit the Golden Triangle, tigers at Ranthambore, then Varanasi and the Ganges region, from there continue to Kathmandu, then proceed to Sikkim, and finish in Bhutan, thus seeing all of the former Himalayan kingdoms on the same trip.