Your second visit to Nepal, and where to go next
You've done Annapurna Base Camp or Everest and the classics are behind you. We live here, and these are the places we'd send you next.
By the Lakeshore team · 6 min read · Updated 5 October 2026
A surprising share of our clients are on their second or third trip. They've done the famous trek, they know how teahouses work, and they want something the first visit didn't give them.
The usual mistake is to do the next most famous thing. If you've walked to Annapurna Base Camp, walking to Everest Base Camp gets you a similar trek with more people and a flight risk on top.
These are the trips we'd send you on instead.
Go where the permits are restricted
Upper Mustang and Nar Phu need special permits, an agency and a minimum group, and that's why they're quiet. The barrier is doing you a favour.
Nar Phu means medieval Tibetan villages up a gorge, with a 5,320 m pass at the end that brings you onto the Annapurna Circuit at its best point. Upper Mustang is a walled city in a rain-shadow desert, and it works in the monsoon. Both cost more than a teahouse trek because of the permit, and in our view both are better trips than the classics.
Go where few operators sell trips
Kori Danda and Kapuche start from Sikles, east of the usual corridors. Kori is a high ridge at 3,800 m and Kapuche a glacier lake at 2,546 m, both within four days of Lakeside. Of the twenty-five Nepali operators we surveyed, only two sell Kori and four sell Kapuche.
Khayer Lake is a sacred lake at about 4,660 m beyond Khopra ridge. Two of the twenty-five operators we surveyed list it at all.
These are our home trails, and they're why a second visit to the Annapurnas doesn't have to be a repeat.
Go harder
The Dhaulagiri Circuit is the hardest thing we run. It takes sixteen days and crosses two passes above 5,200 m, with glacier travel, full camping and no teahouses at all. It sits in a different category from anything on the teahouse network.
Adding Tilicho to the Circuit gives you the best three extra days in the region.
Peak climbing is the natural next step for anyone who reached a base camp and wanted to keep going. That's a specialist arrangement, not a trek, and we'd refer you to people who do it.
Or go slower, the answer people overlook
Plenty of returning visitors don't want a harder trek. They want the thing they rushed past the first time.
That could be a week in a village on a homestay, or Bandipur and Begnas with no itinerary. It could be the Kathmandu valley done properly, over four days instead of one, including Bhaktapur. Or it could be monsoon Nepal, which hardly any repeat visitor considers and which feels like another country: green, empty and cheap, with Mustang open in the rain shadow.
What to skip the second time
Leave out Everest Base Camp if you've done Annapurna Base Camp and you're choosing on merit, not on the name. Every operator in Nepal sells it, October is crowded, and the flight risk is real.
Skip Poon Hill too, unless you're bringing someone new.
And the standard one-day Kathmandu heritage tour, which you've already had.
Walk it with us
Private departures on your dates, guided by the people who wrote this page.
Questions we get asked
Is Everest Base Camp worth doing if I've done ABC?
It's a great trek, and it's also the most crowded and most flight-dependent one in the country. If the name matters to you, go. If you want the best trip, Nar Phu or Upper Mustang will give you more.
What is the quietest good trek you run?
Kori Danda if you have four days, Nar Phu if you have a fortnight. On both you can walk for a day without meeting another group.
I want to go higher. What is next after a base camp?
Either a restricted-area trek with a 5,000 m pass, or peak climbing, which is a different discipline with its own equipment and training. We'll tell you straight which you're ready for.
Can you build something custom for a return visit?
That's most of what we do for repeat clients. Send us your dates and what the first trip lacked, and we'll build around that instead of sending a package.
Still deciding?
Tell us your dates, and we'll tell you whether Upper Mustang, Lo Manthang is right for you. If it isn't, we'll say so.
Nothing to pay online. We confirm your dates first.
Or call the office +977 61-457830