Nepal’s tourism minister is asking you not to cancel your trek

Nepal’s tourism minister has asked international travellers not to cancel their trips. In a video message posted on 2 September, Khadak Raj Paudel — Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation — said the flood damage is confined to specific places and does not describe the country as a whole, and that airports, hotels and the main tourist destinations are open and operating.

“Our mountain trails, trekking routes are still waiting for you. Please do not take Nepal off your travel list if you have already planned a trip. Your visit will help sustain our tourism industry. It’ll help our guides, hoteliers and all the workers whose livelihoods depend on tourism.”

Is he right? Mostly, and we would say so even if he were not

He is right, and we have been saying the same thing here for a week without being asked to. The 26 August flood came down the Lhende and Bhote Koshi into northern Rasuwa and along a stretch of the Trishuli. That is one corridor. It is a catastrophic one — NDRRMA counts 903 dead and 4,247 missing — but it is a corridor, not a country.

Where we would add a caveat: “Nepal is open” is true at the national level and not true everywhere. Langtang and the Rasuwa routes are genuinely disrupted and we are not selling them. The Kathmandu–Pokhara highway is cut at Krishnabhir, which is a real inconvenience you should plan around by flying. Anyone telling you the whole country is unaffected is overselling it, and that costs more trust than it gains.

Why a tourism minister asking this is not just PR

Tourism is roughly a tenth of Nepal’s economy and it employs people who have no second industry to fall back on — guides, porters, lodge owners, jeep drivers, kitchen staff in villages with one road. A cancelled October trek does not hurt a government; it hurts a household in Ghandruk that budgeted the season around it.

That is the honest case for coming, and it is stronger than the marketing version. Autumn is the clearest trekking window of the year, it starts in a few weeks, and the regions that carry most of the trekking economy were not touched. The people who need the season are the people who were not flooded.

If you have a trip booked

Check which region it is in, not which country. If it is Everest, Annapurna, Manaslu, Pokhara or Chitwan, nothing about your trip has changed except possibly how you get from Kathmandu to the trailhead. If it is Langtang or anything routed through Rasuwa, talk to your operator about moving region rather than moving dates — that valley is not going to be ready this season.

Our region-by-region status page is updated as roads reopen, and the live tracker carries the official figures. If you want a straight answer about your specific dates, ask us — we will tell you to postpone if that is the right call.