Trail guides
What the trail is actually like.
Everything below is written by the people who guide these routes — no borrowed brochure copy, no promises the mountain cannot keep. If a trek is harder than it looks on paper, we say so here before you book it.
29 guides — trekking guides.
Trekking guides
What the Annapurna Sanctuary is really like
A week from our office to a glacial amphitheatre ringed by six thousand metres of ice. Here is the honest version — the stairs, the weather window, and why we start you at Jhinu.
Read the guide →8 min readMardi Himal, the ridge walk that ruins other treks for you
Five days on a high grassy spine with Machhapuchhre filling the sky. Newer, quieter and steeper than the classics — and the best short trek we run.
Read the guide →7 min readPoon Hill in three days: the honest beginner's trek
Three thousand stone steps, a village full of rhododendron, and a sunrise that has been photographed a million times and still works. Who it suits, and who should skip it.
Read the guide →10 min readThe Annapurna Circuit today: what the road changed, and what it didn't
Thorong La is still 5,416 m and still the best pass day in Nepal. But the trek that gets you there is not the one your guidebook from 2009 describes.
Read the guide →8 min readTilicho Lake, and the path that scares people
A turquoise sheet of water at 4,919 m in a valley with no trees, no villages and no colour but rock. Plus the landslide traverse everyone asks about.
Read the guide →9 min readUpper Mustang is the one trek that works in monsoon
A restricted Tibetan kingdom behind the Himalaya, in a rain shadow so complete you can walk it in July. Red cliffs, cave monasteries and Lo Manthang.
Read the guide →7 min readKhopra Ridge beats Poon Hill at its own game
A 3,660 m ridge with Dhaulagiri directly across the valley, lodges owned by the villages themselves, and a fraction of the crowd.
Read the guide →8 min readLangtang Valley — a trek through a village that rebuilt itself
The closest big trek to Kathmandu, a glacial valley under 7,000 m peaks, and a community that lost almost everything in 2015 and chose to come back.
Read the guide →11 min readWhy Kala Patthar matters more than Everest Base Camp
Nepal's most famous trek, described without the marketing. Including the thing nobody tells you — you cannot see Everest from Everest Base Camp.
Read the guide →8 min readNar and Phu — two medieval villages behind a gorge nobody walks into
A restricted valley off the Annapurna Circuit where the architecture, the language and the Buddhism are essentially Tibetan, and you may not see another trekking group for days.
Read the guide →6 min readKapuche — a glacier lake at 2,546 m, four days from Lakeside
Glacial lakes normally sit above 4,000 m and cost you a week of acclimatising. This one does not, and almost nobody has heard of it.
Read the guide →6 min readKori Danda — 3,800 m in four days, and no one else up there
A grass ridge above Sikles with Annapurna II, Annapurna IV, Lamjung Himal and Manaslu across the skyline. Two of the twenty-five operators we surveyed list it at all.
Read the guide →6 min readKhumai Danda gives you the Mardi view without the Mardi traffic
A parallel ridge at 3,682 m looking at the same Machhapuchhre face, four days from Lakeside, and still almost empty.
Read the guide →6 min readMuldai has Poon Hill's panorama, 400 metres higher
3,637 m, one ridge east of the famous viewpoint, with Dhaulagiri and Annapurna I on the same skyline and perhaps a dozen people at dawn.
Read the guide →5 min readSikles: four days in one of the largest Gurung villages in Nepal
A working farming village of slate and stone on the quiet eastern side of the Annapurnas, where the trek is the place rather than the viewpoint.
Read the guide →5 min readThe Royal Trek — the ridge Prince Charles walked in 1980
Four low, warm days east of Pokhara through farming villages, finishing at Begnas Lake. No altitude, no crowds, and no other trekkers at all.
Read the guide →6 min readThe Machhapuchhre Model Trek — a trail the villages built themselves
Five days out of Ghachok on a community-run route through tea gardens and ridge villages, designed so the money stays where you walk.
Read the guide →7 min readKhayer Lake, sacred, high, and walked by almost nobody
Eight days past Khopra Ridge to a glacial lake under the Annapurna south wall, where pilgrims come once a year and trekkers almost never.
Read the guide →6 min readThree days to Ghandruk, the handsomest village in the Annapurnas
Slate roofs, stone lanes and Annapurna South closing the end of the street. The gentlest way to see a Gurung village properly.
Read the guide →6 min readMohare Danda has Poon Hill's panorama and none of the queue
Five days on eco-lodges owned outright by the villages, at 3,300 m, with the same Dhaulagiri-to-Annapurna sweep and none of the queue.
Read the guide →7 min readJomsom and Muktinath — walking the deepest gorge on earth
Eight days from apple orchards into Tibetan high desert, to a temple sacred to Hindus and Buddhists alike — and one of the few treks that works in monsoon.
Read the guide →8 min readHow many days have you got? A straight answer for every length
Most trekking sites sort trips by mountain. You do not arrive with a mountain, you arrive with a number of free days. Here is what each number actually buys.
Read the guide →7 min readMonsoon and winter, the two seasons everyone tells you to avoid
Eight months of the year are 'the season'. The other four are cheaper, emptier and — on the right route — better. Here is which routes.
Read the guide →8 min readThe Dhaulagiri Circuit is the hardest thing we run
Sixteen days around the seventh-highest mountain on earth. Two passes above 5,200 m, glacier travel, full camping support, and no teahouses anywhere.
Read the guide →8 min readTrekking Nepal alone, and trekking it alone as a woman
It is the question we are asked most and the one almost nobody writes about honestly. What the risks actually are, what they are not, and how to arrange it.
Read the guide →7 min readWhat a teahouse is actually like: food, rooms, showers and the stove
Where you sleep for two weeks, what you eat every night, why the dining room is warm and your bedroom is not, and how much of it costs extra.
Read the guide →8 min readAltitude sickness: what it feels like, and the three rules that matter
The thing most likely to end your trek is not fitness or weather. It is going up faster than your body will allow — and it does not care how strong you are.
Read the guide →7 min readAnnapurna Base Camp or Mardi Himal? An honest comparison
The two treks people email us about most, side by side. They are not competing for the same trekker, and choosing wrong is the most common mistake we see.
Read the guide →7 min readThe people carrying your bag: porter welfare and how to trek well here
Trekking money reaches Nepali households more directly than almost any other tourism. It also, sometimes, gets people hurt. What to ask before you book.
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