Lodge Accommodation on Trek in Nepal
The lodges are comfortable and warm and very well appointed, but they do become more basic as you go higher. Rooms are twin bed with two beds per room and do not have a bathroom attached unless you wish to purchase an upgrade during the trek and only in some lodges. The rooms are wooden, and not insulated so noise travels, it's an important rule
The beds have mattresses and pillows and many now have blankets or duvets to borrow. You could bring your own sleeping bag or you could potentially bring a fleece sleeping bag and borrow blankets. Generally speaking you can assume that the facilities become less comprehensive the higher and more remote you go.
The main living area used for eating and relaxing is heated in the evenings with a pot-bellied stove. Lodges are always sociable places where you can meet many other trekkers. Many will have books to read and there will be a counter to buy snacks and occasionally niknaks and sometimes things like gloves. The lodges near peak base camps will also rent climbing kit.
Meal times - Breakfast will be at 7 to 8am and you will need to pack your bags ready for the porters to leave early. Dinner is generally at 7pm and we recommend getting your order in early. Lunches in particular can take a long time to cook and prepare if everyone arrives and orders separate meals. Therefore, we do recommend all eating the same lunch and asking the guide to send a porter ahead and pre-ordering your meal. This will save you an hour to an hour and a half which can be frustrating when you want to start walking again.
Hot and cold drinks are available in all the lodges. Beer in bottles or cans, soft drinks like Coke and Fanta, and all manner of hot drinks including coffee, tea, chai masala and hot juices. If there is a group of you it's more economical to order a flask of tea or coffee rather than by the cup.
Wifi is available in the lodges most of the popular trekking areas of Nepal but it is all mobile wifi, so best to ensure all background updates and apps are turned off as it's sold by the MB and a background app can quickly use up your credit. You will be able to email and message and potentially call but very unlikely you can make a video call. We would recommend using an eSIM like Airalo, or buying a local SIM card in Kathmandu.
Hot showers are available in most lodges now and are mostly gas heated.
Charging electronics is available in most lodges in Nepal now but not always in the bedrooms, so you may have to share an extension gang in the living area. We recommend also bringing a power pack.
There is no television in the Nepalese lodges but you could pre-load your tablet with movies, podcasts and so on to have something to watch and listen to while on trek.
Typical lodge in Khumbu, many of which are still hand made with dressed stone.
Below is a list of the expected costs for facilities at various lodges on the Everest trail but the figures apply as an average elsewhere.
Location | Snacks |
Wi-fi |
Charging |
Hot shower | Soft drinks | Boiled water per litre |
Hot drink per cup |
Beer |
Phakding | 200 | 300 | 350 | 400 | 300 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
Namche Bazaar | 200 | 300 | 250 | 500 | 300 | 150 | 200 | 250 |
Tengboche | 200 | 500 | 300 | 600 | 400 | 200 | 200 | 300 |
Dingboche | 150 | 500 | 600 | 500 | 300 | 250 | 250 | 300 |
Pheriche | 200 | 500 | 350 | 500 | 450 | 200 | 300 | 300 |
Lobuche | 300 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 400 | 300 | 300 | 450 |
Gorak Shep | 500 | 500 | 500 | 700 | 400 | 400 | 300 | 450 |
Payment is made in Nepali rupees. In Namche Bazaar and Lukla there are forex bureaux to change money.
Room upgrade or single room
If you wish to have either an upgrade to a room with an attached bathroom/shower or you would like to have your own room then arrange this with your guide first thing in the morning. He will send a porter ahead to change the booking. You can pay him the extra money directly in cash, but it does depend on availability. An average cost for a room upgrade in Namche Bazaar is around 750 rupees and to have a normal single room would cost an additional 1000 rupees.
Typical room in a lodge in Nepal. Some of the lodges have ensuite rooms but normally there is a communal toilet place with a sink, and a hot gas shower which you have to pay separately for.
What are the toilets like on the trail?
In some of the lower lodges you will find clean western-style flush toilets but as you go higher you will find more commonly long drop toilets which are a hole in the ground. Some are better than others. You are advised to have some toilet paper on you at all times, although every lodge will sell it. On the trek, it is fine to use any of the other lodges or shops along the way if you need to use a toilet. Do not go behind bushes or drop used toilet paper outside. Most indoor toilets have a bucket for putting in used toilet paper and it's important to do this because all waste ends up in large pits underground and unfortunately many seep into the river system. Paper is usually burnt.
Typical long drop toilet in a lodge in Nepal
What about rubbish on the trek?
There is no recycling on the trails in Nepal as yet, although there is now a recycling unit in Namche Bazaar. Currently around 20,000 people per year go on the Everest Base Camp Trek so this obviously creates a huge amount of waste. Many people just drop it on the ground, some people use the bins in the lodges or they burn it in the stoves, but recycling is not yet a real option.
Obviously we do not want people to drop rubbish at all, but our preference is that all our clients keep their rubbish in a container or bag and pack it out back to Kathmandu. One person probably generates less than 1 kg of waste from sweet wrappers and so on during a trek so it would not be a burden. Please help us with our policy of packing out your own waste. If you can, bring a waste bag and take it all the way home.
Litter on the Annapurna Trail mostly caused by tourists. Note the number of throwaway water bottles. This is what we want to avoid contributing to on our treks, so please take a Nalgene water bottle and treat your water, and pack out your waste!
Food on Trek in Nepal
Food is of a very good quality, and we recommend you try local foods such as dal bhat (lentil stew with rice and curried potatoes or meat), boiled potatoes with chilli sauce, Sherpa stew (meat, potatoes, vegetables in a rich sauce) or curry with rice. These are the staple foods for Sherpa people but every lodge will also offer a wide range of western meals:
Breakfast – Eggs (fried, boiled), omelettes, toast, pancakes, Tibetan bread, muesli, porridge, tea, coffee, chocolate.
Lunch/dinner – Soups (tomato, garlic, vegetable, mushrooms etc), veg fried rice, dal bhat, curry w/rice, noodles (mix fried, veg, egg, w/cheese), macaroni, spring rolls (veg, egg, cheese, mixed), momo (boiled or fried mini pasties with either veg or meat), pizza (all types), fried potatoes (w/veg or cheese), chips, buff steak (water buffalo, occasionally yak), lasagne.
Dessert – apple pie, fruit cocktail, chocolate cake, rice pudding, snickers pie!
Meals In Kathmandu –
Breakfast at a hotel in Thamel ~ 600 Rs
Meal in town ~ 1200 Rs
1 litre of mineral water in hotel 150 Rs
Beer/soft drinks 350 Rs (more in the hotels ~ 500 Rs)
Please be careful of deep fried food in the restaurants in and around Thamel. Most cases of gastro-enteritis on trek are actually caused by eating food in the city which has been fried in old oil, or eating salads and fruit that has been washed in untreated water.
Dal bhat is the national dish of Nepal and very tasty, full of slow energy for a day or trekking.
Is the water safe to drink trekking in Nepal?
'Tap' water in Nepalese trekking lodges has generally come from streams and is stored in large plastic water tanks. Higher up this water is pretty clean but any water can be contaminated with animal urine so it's not advisable to drink it without treatment.
Bottled water is for sale but we do not recommend the purchase of the single use plastic bottles. We have Adventure Alternative Nalgene bottles which you can buy or bring your own on the trek. Please note that cheap Nalgene water bottles bought in Nepal are not real Nalgene and they easily split when filled with hot water! Also be aware that the sealed bottled water is not necessarily 'pure' water, there are plenty of cases of bottling plants not treating water properly.
You can order boiled water from the lodge kitchen or you can treat the tap water yourself. Boiling is the best way of killing bacteria but the lodge owner will charge per litre.
Be aware that bottle filters and tablets and drops don't kill everything. Steripens use UV and these are also very good, but none of these filter out silt and grit so you'd need to also bring a strainer. Iodine drops (3 per litre) can still be bought in Kathmandu (known locally as Lugols solution, available in the supermarkets in Thamel) and flavour it with Tang powder which can be bought locally.You can also try the chlorine based tablets but they do leave a taste in the water. Our favourite is Aquaprove, which is a water purification tablet using the latest technology. It's light, easy to use and has to after taste and most importantly it works against all pathogens in impure water.
Bottled water in Nepal is a very lucrative business but takes no account of the environmental impact of all that plastic being left. We prefer using a proper Nalgene bottle and either paying for boiled water in the lodges or treating the water with products like Aquaprove.
How is gear carried on trek in Nepal?
Big expeditions use yaks to carry all the climbing equipment to the base camp of a mountain and that is a traditional image of how things are carried in the Himalayas. But for the shorter trekking peak trips and the treks, all the equipment and trekkers clothing is carried by people. In fact as you trek in Nepal you will see that pretty much everything is carried by people, from wood and stone to all the items for selling in shops, mattresses, beer, water, and even elderly people.
Yaks approaching Everest Base Camp for an expedition to climb Mount Everest. They can carry 60 - 80 kgs typically.
Nowadays you won't see so many Sherpas carrying loads on their backs, they will normally be guiding or running the teahouses and lodges. Other castes are used to carry bags, for example the Rai people who commonly live in harmony with the Sherpas. They carry the bags using a tumpline across their forehead and the accepted weight of a bag should be about 15kgs.
Local people still carry large loads for their own needs, using a tumpline across the top of the head and a wooden frame on which the items are strapped. The wooden stick is for leaning on when they take a rest. On the right is a trekking porter carrying a trekkers bags and still using a tumpline.
Different trekking areas in Nepal
In Nepal some areas are more regularly walked than others. The Everest Base Camp trek in the Khumbu region, and the Annapurna Circuit are the most popular and there you will find lots of lodges with good facilities throughout. Waste management is not that advanced, most rubbish is put into large pits or burnt, so we really stress the importance of packing your rubbish out.
Other treks in the Khumbu region visit some of the same towns and villages as the Everest trek, for example the Gokyo Lakes Trek. Gokyo itself is a community high up in the mountains with amazing views and some turquoise lakes which are beautiful, and the lodges there are well appointed with everything you will find on the main trail.
The Annapurna Sanctuary Trek is a little more off the beaten track with a combination of lodges and campsites at the actual base camps of Annapurna, and then there are the much more remote treks like Manaslu Circuit and Kanchenjunga Base Camp Trek and the Upper Mustang Trek where you will see far fewer people and the facilities will be more basic. Toilets are more likely to be long drops in all the lodges, food will be more local and it is more important than ever to pack your own rubbish out. These are fragile mountain environments that need protecting from the effects of tourism.
If you are going on a climbing trip to the likes of Island Peak then the trek in is through the Khumbu region, while Mera Peak is in the Barun district which is a little more remote but you can cross the Zetra La and drop into the Khumbu valley, so once again this section is busy with tourism.
Nearest to Kathmandu is the Langtang Valley trek and the Yala Peak climb, a popular area which attracts a few thousand trekkers every year. The food and accommodation in this region will be more basic and local, and again no waste management to speak of.