Six nights, ages 6 to 14
Most Sikkim tours are built for adults with stamina: five sights a day and lunch at three. This six-night journey gives each day one big thing and one small one, and puts meals and naps where children need them.
Photo: Sajal Devnath / Pexels
Day 2, Gangtok
The zoo at Bulbuley opens at 09:00 every day but Thursday, with paths through 205 hectares of forest, and red pandas, Sikkim's state animal, are easiest to find early. Then a home cook teaches the children to pleat momos, and the ropeway carries you over the town.
Photo: Jayanth Muppaneni / Unsplash
Day 3, 3,753 m
Tsomgo is the one fast climb of the week, about 2,700 m (8,860 ft) in two hours, so we stop twice on the way up and stay under an hour. Children can stroke a yak and, when it runs, ride the lake ropeway, about 1 km each way. Oxygen rides in the car.
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Day 4, Temi
From March to October, children pick two leaves and a bud at Temi, the garden Sikkim's last king planted in 1969, then follow them into the factory. From November the factory rests for the cold months, so later dates become a tasting and a slow walk.
Photo: Nithya / Unsplash
Day 4, Ravangla
At 16:00 the family walks into Buddha Park, where the copper Buddha stands 40 m (130 ft) above a small lake; circle it clockwise. The night is at a simple cottage retreat with a bonfire, a Sikkimese thali and the resident dogs.
Photo: Unsplash
Days 5 and 6, Pelling
At Pelling the family duplex faces Kanchenjunga, so first light reaches whoever is awake. Walk the glass skywalk below the Chenrezig statue in its first hour; children under ten go free. Then Singshore Bridge, 100 m above its gorge.
Photo: Neeraj Pramanik / Unsplash
Before you book
Tsomgo permits go only to children over five, so a younger child spends that morning at the resort with one adult. Travel March to May or October to early December, and expect two long road days, the first and the last.
Photo: Pritam Laskar / Unsplash