Find a trek
Find a trek
Where to next
Twelve regions of Nepal, and nowhere else. The Valley’s heritage squares, the Khumbu and Annapurna trails, the Terai jungles and the pilgrimage towns of the plains.
01 · Bagmati
Seven UNESCO monument zones inside twenty kilometres: the Durbar Squares of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, the stupas at Boudhanath and Swayambhunath, and the Hindu complexes at Pashupatinath and Changu Narayan. It is the densest concentration of monuments in the Himalaya, and it is where every journey we run begins.
02 · Gandaki
Phewa Lake with Machhapuchhre standing behind it, the sunrise ridge at Sarangkot, and the launch site that makes this one of the best paragliding towns in the world. Pokhara is also the gateway to every Annapurna trail — the Poon Hill and ABC trailheads are both an hour’s drive away.
03 · Solukhumbu
Sagarmatha National Park: Lukla, Namche Bazaar, Tengboche monastery and the moraine walk to Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier. Ama Dablam is arguably the finer mountain, and you walk beneath it for four days. Kala Patthar at 5,545 m is the highest ground on any teahouse route we run.
04 · Gandaki
The most walked region in Nepal, and still the most varied: the Sanctuary at ABC, the sunrise at Poon Hill, Tilicho Lake at 4,919 m and the full circuit over the Thorong La. Gurung and Magar villages, rhododendron forest, and a conservation area that funds itself from the permits we file for you.
05 · Mustang
Beyond the Himalayan rain shadow the country turns to desert. Kagbeni is a mud-brick fortress village at the gate; Muktinath at 3,760 m is one of the very few sites sacred to Hindus and Buddhists alike. North of the checkpoint lies Upper Mustang and the walled city of Lo Manthang, on a restricted permit.
06 · Rasuwa
The closest big mountain valley to Kathmandu — a drive, not a flight. Langtang was hit harder than anywhere in Nepal in 2015 and rebuilt by the families who survived it; the lodges on this trail are theirs. Above it sit the Gosaikunda lakes at 4,380 m, a Shaivite pilgrimage and a fine high crossing.
07 · Gorkha
A restricted area, which is why it stays quiet: a full circuit of the eighth-highest mountain on earth, from the Budhi Gandaki gorge into the Tibetan-speaking villages of Nubri and over the Larke La at 5,106 m into the Annapurna region. The finest village trekking in Nepal, on a permit we file for you.
08 · Terai
Nepal’s first national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site: 950 square kilometres of sal forest, elephant grass and river floodplain holding around 700 greater one-horned rhino. Jeep safari, dugout canoe on the Rapti at dawn, and a Tharu village on the park edge. We do not book elephant riding.
09 · Lumbini
The birthplace of the Buddha in 623 BCE, marked by the Maya Devi Temple, the marker stone and the Ashoka pillar of 249 BCE. Around it a monastic zone laid out by Kenzō Tange, where Thailand, Myanmar, Korea, Germany and China have each built a monastery. Kapilvastu, where he grew up, is an hour west.
10 · Madhesh
Where Sita was born and married Ram. The Janaki Mandir is marble and rose stucco, built in 1910 by a queen of Tikamgarh, and it is the centre of a town where Maithili, not Nepali, is the language of the market. Mithila painting is still made in the villages around it, on walls as often as on paper.
11 · Mugu
The largest lake in Nepal — ten square kilometres at 2,990 m — inside the least-visited national park in the country. Around a thousand trekkers a year come here, against thirty thousand on the Annapurna Circuit. Blue pine, juniper, the Kanjiroba snows behind, and usually nobody else on the trail.
12 · Koshi
Tea gardens on the eastern hills, planted in the 1860s and still the reason most of Nepal’s orthodox tea leaves the country through Darjeeling. Mist, terraced ridges, Antu Danda for the sunrise over Kanchenjunga, and a cardamom and orange belt that smells like nowhere else in the country.
13 · Dolakha
The closest snow to Kathmandu: a ridge at 3,842 m about six hours east by road, with a cable car from Kuri village to the Bhagawati shrine on the summit. From December the ridge holds snow, and on a clear January morning the Himalaya runs from Gauri Shankar round to Langtang.
Ready to go