Gear & Tech
Trail shoes or hiking boots, and what the ankle-support research actually found
Most teahouse trekkers wear more boot than the walk needs, and the ankle-support argument holding that up is thinner than the shops suggest.
From the ground in Nepal · Updated daily
Nepal Travel & Trekking News
Permits, trail conditions, flights, festivals and safety — what's changing on the trails, and what it means for your trip. By our guides in Pokhara.
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Gear & Tech
Merino or synthetic base layers, and what a lab found when it measured the smell
Merino wins the week-long wear, synthetic wins the overnight dry, and the lab reason merino stays fresh is not the bacteria story you have been told.
Safety & Advisories
If someone you know is missing in the Nepal flood, you don't have to fly to Kathmandu
Nepal Police have identified 95 of more than 1,200 bodies recovered. Families abroad can be DNA-profiled at home and send the result in. Here is how it works.
Records & People
Mount Everest's Official Height Was Wrong for 65 Years, Until Nepal and China Finally Agreed in 2020
The number on every map, 8,848.86 metres, only became official on 8 December 2020, after two countries spent over a decade measuring the same mountain and getting two different answers.
Records & People
Nobody Tells You Nepal's National Flower Turns Whole Mountainsides Crimson Every Spring
Nepal's national flower isn't grown in a garden bed — it's a forest tree that turns entire hillsides red for about six weeks a year, and the bloom climbs the mountain in a predictable wave.
Records & People
Nepal's Gokyo Lakes Turn an Impossible Turquoise Every Autumn, and Rock Dust Is Why
Six sacred glacial lakes above Everest sit higher than almost any freshwater on Earth, and the colour that makes trekkers stop mid-stride comes down to stone ground fine enough to float.
Gear & Tech
Waterproof jackets fail in a way the label never warns you about
A jacket can be sold as waterproof at 1,500 mm. What the ratings actually measure, why yours feels like it leaks, and the details worth more than the number.
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Money & Insurance
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Money & Insurance
Travel Money Mistakes to Avoid in 2026: The Quiet Fees That Drain Your Trip
From the "pay in your home currency" trap to airport exchange kiosks and telling no one at your bank you’ve left the country — the small, repeated money mistakes that cost real cash, and the free fix for each.
Money & Insurance
How Much Travel Insurance Cover Do You Actually Need in 2026? Sizing Every Limit
Medical and repatriation is the limit that can bankrupt you, cancellation should match your non-refundable spend, and a headline "£10m medical" is worthless if an exclusion applies. Here is how to right-size cover to your trip.
Money & Insurance
Honeymoon & Destination-Wedding Travel Insurance in 2026: The Extras Couples Overlook
Booking a destination wedding or honeymoon in 2026? Standard cover misses the extras that matter — a bigger single-item limit for rings, dresses and gifts, the wedding event itself, both names on one policy, supplier failure, and the activity and altitude cover an adventure honeymoon needs.
Visas & Entry
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Visas & Entry
ETA vs eVisa vs Visa vs Visa-Free in 2026: What the Difference Actually Is
An ETA is a pre-screen, not a visa. An eVisa is a real visa applied for online. A visa on arrival is granted at the border. And none of them guarantees entry — the officer does. Here is the plain-English taxonomy, and where Nepal fits.
Visas & Entry
Do You Need an Onward or Return Ticket to Enter a Country in 2026? The Rule That Catches One-Way Travellers
Many countries — and the airlines that face the fines — want proof of onward travel before you board. Here is who it bites, why it is enforced at check-in, and how to satisfy it.
Visas & Entry
Overstaying a Visa in 2026: The Fines, Deportation and Entry Bans Travellers Underestimate
A day past your visa still counts as an overstay — and the penalties run from daily fines to deportation and multi-year entry bans. Here is what really happens, and how to stay clear of it.
Gear & Tech
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Gear & Tech
New hiking boots ruin more trips than bad weather does
Buying boots the week before you fly is the most common gear mistake there is. What needs breaking in, what does not, and why socks matter more.
Gear & Tech
Luggage Buying Guide 2026: Hard vs Soft, Carry-On vs Checked, and Backpack vs Spinner
A practical buyer’s guide to choosing travel luggage in 2026 — hard shell vs soft, carry-on vs checked, two-wheel vs spinner, and when a backpack or duffel wins. How to match the bag to the trip, weight allowances, and durability vs price.
Gear & Tech
Travel Water Bottles & Purification in 2026: Drink Safely and Skip Single-Use Plastic
Boiling, tablets, UV pens, filters and filter bottles — what each one kills, what it misses (filters don’t stop viruses), when tap water is safe, and why a reusable bottle beats bottled water on the trail.
Deals & Routes
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Deals & Routes
How to Survive a Long Layover in 2026: Lounges, Sleep Pods, Showers and Leaving the Airport
A multi-hour connection can wreck your trip or become the easy part. Here is how to play a long layover in 2026 — when you can leave the airport, lounges and day passes, sleep pods, showers, left-luggage, and staying comfortable.
Deals & Routes
Budget vs Full-Service Airlines in 2026: Which Is Really Cheaper Once You Add It All Up?
The headline low fare rarely tells the truth. Here is how budget and full-service airlines really compare on bags, seats, food, changes and connections in 2026 — and when each one is the smarter buy.
Deals & Routes
Round-the-World Tickets in 2026: How Alliance RTW Fares Work, and When to Build Your Own
Alliance round-the-world fares are priced by mileage or continents, flown one direction on a single upfront-booked ticket with a fixed validity. Here is how they work, how they compare with a DIY string of point-to-point flights, and when each one wins.
World Destinations
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World Destinations
Altitude sickness doesn't need a mountain, just a flight to Cusco
Altitude illness starts around 2,450 m, and Cusco, La Paz and Lhasa all sit above it. Flying straight in is harder on you than walking to Everest Base Camp.
World Destinations
The World’s Best National Parks to Visit in 2026: A Continent-Hopping Bucket List
From Torres del Paine to the Serengeti to Nepal’s own Everest and Chitwan — nine UNESCO-grade parks worth planning a whole trip around, and the season each is best.
World Destinations
Cheapest Countries to Visit in Asia in 2026 (Where Your Money Goes Furthest)
From Nepal’s Himalaya on a backpacker budget to the street-food value of Vietnam, India and Kyrgyzstan — the great-value Asian destinations for 2026, why each is cheap, and when to go.
Trail & Weather
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Trail & Weather
Everest Base Camp or Kilimanjaro: Which Trek Should You Actually Do in 2026?
One is a five-day sprint to 5,895 metres, the other a fourteen-day walk to 5,364 — the honest trade-off between them comes down to acclimatization, not fitness.
Trail & Weather
Nepal trekking news that actually changes your trip, updated for autumn 2026
The permit rules, fines, airfares, flight routes and road closures that changed for Nepal trekkers in 2026 — what to act on for an autumn booking, and what to ignore.
Flights & Access
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Flights & Access
That Tiny Hole in Every Airplane Window Is Not a Manufacturing Flaw
It is a precision pressure valve, and it is the reason your photo of a Himalayan skyline from 35,000 feet doesn't come out fogged over.
Flights & Access
How Many Days Do You Actually Need for Everest Base Camp in 2026? Every Itinerary Length Compared
Ten days is possible, fourteen is what most operators actually recommend, and the flight into Lukla is why you should budget more time than either number, not less.
Flights & Access
Pokhara Just Got Its First Real International Flight, Three Years After the Airport Opened
flydubai starts daily Dubai–Pokhara flights on 23 September 2026, the first scheduled international airline to serve Nepal's trekking capital since its $216 million airport opened in 2023.
Festivals & Events
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Festivals & Events
Dashain 2027 tika is Saturday 9 October, twelve days earlier than this year
Dashain 2027 runs 30 September to 14 October, tika on Saturday the 9th. Bhai Tika is 31 October. Why the early date matters for an autumn trek.
Festivals & Events
Nepal Gives Every Dog a Flower Garland and a Tika, Even the Ones on the Street
On the second day of Tihar, Nepal doesn't just tolerate its street dogs — it puts a mark of worship on their foreheads, from the stray on the corner to the police dog on duty.
Festivals & Events
Kathmandu's Biggest Street Festival Has a Stone Demon That Spits Rice Beer Into the Crowd
Indra Jatra runs September 25 to October 2, 2026, and turns Kathmandu Durbar Square into eight days of chariot processions, masked demon dances and a mask that pours alcohol from its mouth.
Safety & Advisories
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Safety & Advisories
Travel Vaccinations by Destination in 2026: The Sensible Overview (Routine Jabs, Regional Extras and Nepal)
A calm, accurate guide to routine and travel vaccines by region — from hepatitis A and typhoid to yellow-fever certificates, and why malaria is pills, not a jab.
Safety & Advisories
Can You Trek to Everest Base Camp at 82? What the Record and the Research Actually Say
There is no legal or medical age cutoff on the trail to Everest Base Camp, and the current record holder just proved it at 82.
Safety & Advisories
The Nepal flood video with 7 million views was AI-generated, and here's how to check the next one
Nepal's Press Council has ordered 72 accounts to take content down. Here are the fakes that travelled furthest, and the three checks that catch nearly all of them.
Records & People
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Records & People
The Gurkha Blood Myth That Even the Falklands War Couldn't Kill
Every campfire story about the kukri insists a Gurkha must draw blood before sheathing it again — actual Gurkhas, and two centuries of British Army history, say otherwise.
Records & People
Everyone Calls This Nepal's Deepest Lake. A Government Survey Says It Isn't.
Phoksundo's turquoise water and no-fishing custom are real, but Nepal's own hydrology surveys put the actual depth record on a different lake entirely.
Records & People
The Kathmandu Valley You're Walking Through Used to Be a 200-Metre-Deep Lake
Geologists say the ground beneath Kathmandu's temples and guesthouses sat underwater for the better part of a million years, and the same soft lakebed sediment is a documented reason the city shakes so hard when an earthquake hits.
Industry & Tourism
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Industry & Tourism
Should you still book Nepal this autumn after the flood, and what happens to the guides if you don't
Four Langtang and Rasuwa treks are paused on our own books, while Everest, Annapurna and Manaslu sit in different river systems and are running normally.
Industry & Tourism
Yarsagumba, the Himalayan Fungus Worth More Than Gold, Is Running Out in Nepal (2026)
Nepal's Rs 2.7-million-a-kilogram caterpillar fungus season just closed in Dolpa, and four collectors didn't come back down.
Popular Nepal treks
All treks →
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 5 Days$580 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 6 Days$695 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 7 Days$800 pp
Annapurna Circuit Trek — 13 Days$1400 pp
World Peace Pagoda Day Hike — Pokhara$130 pp
Sarangkot – Nagdanda Day Hike$95 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 11 Days from Pokhara$1320 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 15 Days from Kathmandu$1600 pp
Annapurna Circuit Trek with Tilicho Lake — 17 Days$1850 pp
Mardi Himal Trek — 4 Days$455 pp
Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek — 3 Days$335 pp
Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek — 4 Days$410 pp
Short Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 4 Days$455 pp
Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek — 2 Days$265 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 5 Days$580 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 6 Days$695 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 7 Days$800 pp
Annapurna Circuit Trek — 13 Days$1400 pp
World Peace Pagoda Day Hike — Pokhara$130 pp
Sarangkot – Nagdanda Day Hike$95 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 11 Days from Pokhara$1320 pp
Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 15 Days from Kathmandu$1600 pp
Annapurna Circuit Trek with Tilicho Lake — 17 Days$1850 pp
Mardi Himal Trek — 4 Days$455 pp
Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek — 3 Days$335 pp
Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek — 4 Days$410 pp
Short Annapurna Base Camp Trek — 4 Days$455 pp
Ghorepani Poon Hill Trek — 2 Days$265 pp
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