Trail guides
What to expect on the trail.
Everything below is written by the people who guide these routes, not copied from brochures. If a trek is harder than it looks on paper, we say so here, before you book it.
20 guides in this section.
Day hikes around Pokhara
Four Pokhara day hikes, ranked by how little effort they need
You don't need a week and a permit to stand in front of the Annapurnas. These are the four walks we send people on when they have one free morning.
Read the guide →5 min readHow to do the Sarangkot sunrise properly
Everyone drives up in the dark and stands on the same tower. There's a better way to spend this morning, and it costs you one afternoon.
Read the guide →5 min readAustralian Camp is the best two hours you can spend near Pokhara
A grassy shoulder at 2,060 m with nothing between you and Annapurna South. And no, it was never Australian.
Read the guide →4 min readThe World Peace Pagoda, a boat and a forest walk to the postcard view
Row across Phewa Lake, walk up for forty minutes, and get the shot of Pokhara that everybody recognises. It's the easiest walk-up viewpoint in the valley.
Read the guide →6 min readPanchase, the quiet forest hill an hour from Lakeside
Five ridges meet at a 2,500 m summit above one of the richest orchid forests in Nepal, and there's a decent chance you won't meet another trekker all day.
Read the guide →7 min readSix more walks around Pokhara, including ones we don't sell
Dhampus, Kalikasthan, Naudanda, the ridge between Begnas and Rupa, Astam and Pumdikot. Most of them need no package and no guide, so just go.
Read the guide →6 min readWalking around Pokhara in the rain
Monsoon and the shoulder weeks aren't a write-off. The mountains hide, but the forest is at its greenest and half the good walking here doesn't need a view.
Read the guide →6 min readBirding around Pokhara, from the lakeshore to the Panchase forest
Kaski district has several hundred species between the wetlands and the forest above them, and the best sites are a taxi ride from Lakeside.
Read the guide →5 min readPokhara viewpoints for sunrise and for sunset
Everyone gets up at half past four for Sarangkot. Half of them would have had a better time going out at five in the afternoon instead.
Read the guide →5 min readTry one day on the trail before you book a long trek
In about six hours from Lakeside you can find out whether multi-day walking in the Himalaya suits you, on the first stretch of the Mardi Himal trail.
Read the guide →6 min readWalking in the Himalaya in your seventies
Altitude, stairs and long days are the three things that stop people, and you can avoid all three without giving up the mountains.
Read the guide →5 min readA day at Begnas and Rupa, the quiet lakes east of Pokhara
Twenty-five minutes east of Lakeside you'll find two more lakes with a wooded ridge between them, and hardly any visitors.
Read the guide →5 min readRunning and walking from your Lakeside hotel
Flat routes along the water, a hill for repeats if you want one, and the two hours of the day when the air is worth breathing.
Read the guide →5 min readDhampus and Pothana, the ridge villages above Pokhara
Twenty minutes past the viewpoint where everyone stops, two working Gurung villages sit on a ridge with the whole Annapurna wall in front of them.
Read the guide →5 min readPeace Pagoda to Pumdikot along the southern ridge
A Japanese stupa at one end, an enormous Shiva at the other, and a forest ridge between them that most visitors never walk.
Read the guide →5 min readKahun Danda, the hill on the wrong side of town
An hour's walk from the middle of Pokhara there is a viewpoint that hardly any foreign visitors see, because it is east of the lake and everyone looks the other way.
Read the guide →5 min readPokhara's old town on foot, the flat walk for tired legs
Two hours, no hills, and the part of Pokhara that was here before the tourists, with carved windows, a hilltop temple and a working market.
Read the guide →5 min readNight skies above Pokhara, and where to walk for the stars
Get an hour above the town lights in winter and the sky fills with stars. Where to go, when to go, and how not to break an ankle getting down.
Read the guide →4 min readTwo hours and no plan, short walks straight from Lakeside
Five walks that start where you're standing, for a morning with a gap in it, no transport arranged and no appetite for a project.
Read the guide →6 min readHow to walk Nepal's hill paths, from pace and poles to the descent
Nepali hill paths climb in stone staircases. Walking them takes a different technique from walking at home, and you can learn it in about a day.
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