Skip to main content

Nepal is open for the autumn season, and glad you are coming.

How to help
Travel Himalaya Nepal
Data-only, no local number
Honest use case

Connected the moment the aircraft door opens

A Nepal eSIM, for the first 24 hours

Data-only, no local number

Worth it for the ride from the airport and for confirming your pickup, and not worth it for the trek itself — you are paying several times the local rate for the convenience of not queueing.

Bought directly from an eSIM provider. We have no affiliate arrangement with any of them.

What you get

  • Working data before you clear immigration
  • No shop, no photocopy, no queue
  • Keeps your home number active

What it costs you

  • Several times the price per gigabyte
  • Data-only — no Nepali number for lodges or guides to ring
  • Roams onto whichever network it has a deal with, not the best one

Do not buy this if: A two-week trek. Buy one for the arrival day if you like, then buy a local SIM.

The alternatives

Everything else we recommend in esim & connectivity, including the ones we think suit a different trekker.

Ncell or Nepal Telecom prepaid, data packs by the weekWhat we actually recommend

The unglamorous answer that costs a tenth of an eSIM

A local Ncell or NTC SIM

A local SIM bought on arrival costs a few dollars, gives more data than any tourist eSIM, and NTC in particular reaches further up the Khumbu and Annapurna valleys — you spend twenty minutes in a queue and need a passport photocopy.

Skip it ifA traveller changing planes with two hours in Kathmandu and no time to queue. That is the case an eSIM genuinely solves.

About USD 3-8 at Kathmandu airport or any Thamel shop. We earn nothing from this.