Straight version
01
Above 3,000 metres you sleep no more than about 500 metres higher than the night before, and there is a genuine rest day every third or fourth day — not a shorter walk relabelled as one. On Everest Base Camp that means acclimatisation days at Namche (3,440 m) and Dingboche (4,410 m). Compressing those two nights is the most common way a fortnight in the Khumbu gets ruined, and it is usually done to save a lodge night.
02
A five-day trip at $580 and a fourteen-day trip at $1,450 are not comparable on headline price, and the industry knows it. We print cost per person per day next to the total on every single card, so a short trip cannot hide behind a small number and a long one cannot look expensive when it is actually good value.
03
Lukla flights depart from Ramechhap after a four-hour pre-dawn drive in peak season. Teahouse rooms above 4,000 metres are unheated. Hot showers, charging and wifi are metered. Gulmarg's gondola shuts in high wind. Every one of these is in the itinerary, not discovered at the counter — and where a cost is weather-dependent we exclude it rather than bundling it into the headline and keeping the money.
04
You can put three of our itineraries side by side and see exactly where they differ on price, altitude, grade, inclusions and pace. Most operators avoid this because it makes weaker products obvious. We would rather you picked the right trip than the expensive one.
05
You get a person rather than a ticket queue, and their direct number for the duration. When a flight is cancelled at Ramechhap at six in the morning, a support inbox is not what you need.
06
Every guide carries a pulse oximeter and a first-aid kit, and every guide has the standing authority to descend with a client without calling the office first. Nobody has to weigh a customer complaint against someone's cerebral oedema. We also pay guide and porter insurance ourselves and enforce a fair-load policy.
Fair questions
Including the one where the honest answer is that somebody else might be cheaper.
Not always, and we will not pretend otherwise. Walk-in agencies in Thamel can undercut us on a simple Poon Hill trek. Where we are consistently better value is anything with permits, restricted areas, internal flights or an acclimatisation plan that matters — and on anything that goes wrong, because that is what the office is for.
Every Everest itinerary carries buffer days for exactly this. If the delay eats them, we rebook onto the next available flight at no charge, or arrange a helicopter transfer at cost, or restructure the trek to a lower route. Weather is not something either of us controls; how it is handled is.
We employ our Nepal guides directly and run every trekking departure ourselves. International packages use ground handlers we have worked with for years, and we name them on request. We do not white-label another operator's trek and sell it as ours.
Deposits are refundable in full up to 45 days before departure on most products. Inside that, refunds step down and depend on what we have already committed on your behalf — permits, internal flights and restricted-area fees are non-refundable once filed. The exact schedule is in the booking conditions, and we walk you through it before taking any money.
Sometimes, but ask us to compare the inclusions first rather than the number. The difference is usually in the acclimatisation schedule, the guide-to-guest ratio, or whether permits and the Lukla flight are inside the price. If a competitor is genuinely cheaper for the same product, we will tell you to take it.
Send us your dates and see what comes back. If it reads like a brochure rather than a plan, we have failed our own pitch.
