Nepal Overview - April to May 2025

This was our first trip to Nepal. The travellers were, me, my wife Angela and her sister, Robin. The purpose of the trip is to hike from Lukla to Gokyo Lakes and back with a side trip to the Ama Dablam base camp. Unfortunately, eight days into the trek, I had to go back down to Kathmandu, as I caught some kind of virus that made my breathing very constricted. Angela, Robin and Akash, our guide, all caught this virus a few days later, but made it back before it knocked them out.

The trip was very good and very civilised. You are not walking in the wilderness, you are walking through Nepalese communities and it is lovely. If feels very safe and comfortable. The challenges are all physical with the altitude.

Money

Nepal Rupees are considered a closed currency, which means you cannot easily get them outside Nepal. However, it is easy to get money by exchanging major currencies (like US Dollars, GB Pounds, Euros, etc.) at the airport or in Kathmandu. We just used an ATM and withdrew what we needed. ATMs are widely available in Kathmandu, Lukla and Namche Bazaar for our trip.

Visas

You need a visa to enter and it is checked on exiting Nepal. Since we live in London, it was easy to visit the Nepal Embassy and get one there. However, most people just use the kiosks in the Kathmandu Airport. I don’t think it makes a difference.

Mobile data and WiFi

I used Airalo and purchased an esim. This worked well for most of our trek. Only for the most remote locations, we didn’t have signal. At the tea houses, you can purchase time on a satellite WiFi fairly cheaply, like 500 rupees for 24 hours. There are other sims and esims you can purchase. I was told that NCell is the best one in the mountains.

Hotels & Tea Houses

The hotel in Kathmandu was fantastic. Most are smaller and have excellent restaurants. Our hotel in Kathmandu, Taleju Boutique Hotel, was really pretty, clean and well located in the Thamel area. The Tea Houses are the only style of hotel on the hikes. They generally have small, unheated bedrooms with two twin beds. Most have power, but not all. Often there is an ensuite toilet, but sometimes not. Some are very clean, some are not. All have comfy beds with a pillow and thick blanket. We brought a sleeping bag and silk liner to cover the bed and pillow and stay even warmer.

The Tea Houses all have a large common room with a yak poo/wood burner to keep the room warm. They have power as well to charge phones and anything else, at higher altitudes, they charge for charging. They also serve food, and you are basically required to eat breakfast and dinner here. They also sell boiled water, which I bought just before bed and put in my Nalgen bottle and used it as a hot water bottle.

Food

The menus are large and offer everything from Dal Baht, the Nepalese staple, to fried noodles and rice, burgers, pizzas, momos (dumplings) and more. Generally it isn’t recommended to eat meat above Namche Bazaar. But you can get chicken almost everywhere. Breakfasts are omelets, porridges, pancakes, toasties and Indian style breads and curries.

The quality of the food is really good. As you get higher, there are less fresh vegetables. The only real issue is the repetitiveness of the menus. You don’t even need to look at a menu after about three days, they are all identical.

On the hike, there was only one day that we had to take a pack lunch. You will almost always stop for lunch at a Tea House you aren’t staying in.

Power

Nepal outlets have nearly every single configuration possible. I brought EU and US style chargers. Both worked everywhere; however, the US style fit better. However, I often had to use something to hold the adapter in place, the fit was never tight.

Language

There are dozens of languages in Nepal. Nepalese is the most common one that people use when they don’t share a dialect. However, we found that nearly all younger people spoke English to some degree. Often to a very high degree. We never had any issues.

Costs

This trip is harder to give detailed costings. However, to give you a sense, we had three people hiking for 14 days, additionally, we had one night in Kathmandu at the start, one in Ramechhap before flying to Lukla and two more in Kathmandu at the end, all paid for. Ramechhap and the trek included all meals and drinks. For this we paid USD $5,356 or USD $1,785 each. This included the car to Ramechhap, flights to and from Lukla, a half day tour of Kathmandu, Kathmandu airport pickup and drop off.

Tips were USD $200 for our guide and USD $150 for each of our two porters.

Additional costs where:

I hope this helps someone. If you have questions, please ask.

Read our day by day notes on our 2025 trip to Nepal >