Ethnic Community Homestays in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Bangladesh's only hill country Home to the Jumma peoples of the CHT.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts—spanning Rangamati, Bandarban, and Khagrachhari—is the only part of Bangladesh where the landscape itself is defined by hills rather than delta, and it is home to eleven distinct indigenous ethnic groups, including the Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Tanchangya, Mro, Bawm, and others, who collectively identify as the Jumma people. Each community carries its own language, dress, cuisine, and belief system—predominantly Buddhist, alongside Hindu and Christian traditions—layered across a single, dramatic highland landscape of forested peaks, waterfalls, and the vast Kaptai Lake.

In recent years, the Bangladesh Tourism Board has piloted community-based tourism programs across the CHT, training local families in hospitality, hygiene, and basic guest communication so that homestays genuinely benefit the households hosting them rather than outside operators. Travelers who stay in these homestays report something rare in conventional tourism: help preparing meals, participation in local festivals, and informal lessons in traditional weaving from families who treat guests less as customers and more as visiting relatives. It's community tourism in its most literal sense—an invitation into someone's home and daily life, not a staged performance of one.