Responsible trekking
Guests in someone's home
Every trek we run crosses villages, pastures and shrines that belong to the people who live there. These are the commitments we make — and what we ask of you.
Why it matters
Commitments, not slogans
Responsible trekking has become a brochure word, so here is what we mean by it: written commitments, specific numbers, and practices you can watch happening on the trail — the scale at the morning porter weigh-in, the insurance papers in the office, the refill bottles on the dinner table.
This page is the standard we ask to be held to. If we fall short of it anywhere on a trek, tell your guide or write to us directly — it goes to the managing director, not a mailbox.
Hold us to it
Ask the porters about their loads and pay — they know we encourage the question. Or write to info@nepaltrekkingroutes.com and it lands with the founder.
Our commitments
What we hold ourselves to
01 · Porter welfare
The people who carry the trip
No trek of ours works without its porters, and none of them should ever pay for it with their health.
20 kg load limit
Five kilograms under the industry norm, and weighed in front of the group each morning — guests are welcome to watch the scale.
Insured, every departure
Accident and medical cover for every porter on every trip — trekking or climbing, high season or low.
Equipped for altitude
Windproof jackets, real boots and UV glasses issued for high routes, replaced each season rather than patched for one more year.
Same food, same roof
Porters eat the meals and sleep under the roofs the rest of the crew does. We follow International Porter Protection Group guidelines and welcome questions about it.
02 · Fair guide pay
Careers, not seasons
A guide who is paid fairly, trained yearly and employed through the monsoon has no reason to cut a corner — and every reason to stay.
Above-standard wages
Daily rates above the TAAN-recommended scale, reviewed every autumn and published inside the company.
Paid training
NMA courses, avalanche-awareness modules and wilderness first-aid recertification every three years, all on company time.
Monsoon retainers
Senior guides are paid through the off-season — which is when itineraries get rewritten and rope work gets rehearsed.
A ladder people climb
Eleven of our 28 licensed guides started with us as porters. The route from carrying a load to leading a group is real, funded and walked.
03 · Community
Money that stays in the valley
A trek can be a week of wages for a valley or a convoy that sweeps through it. We plan for the former.
Family-run lodges
We book locally owned teahouses over chain lodges wherever both exist, and we pay lodge rates — not bulk-discount squeezes.
Bought where we walk
Food, mule hire and casual labour are sourced in the villages along the route, not trucked past them.
Quieter routes, deliberately
Each season we schedule departures on less-walked trails — Helambu, Makalu, the eastern hills — so spending reaches valleys the honeypot routes skip.
04 · Leave no trace
Pack it in, pack it out
The rule is old, simple and non-negotiable: the trail should not remember us.
Waste walks out
Non-burnable waste is carried down and disposed of in Kathmandu; on camping routes we carry out other groups' litter when loads allow.
Refills, not bottles
Filtered and boiled refills replace single-use plastic bottles above the trailhead on every trek we run.
No wood fires
Crews cook on gas or kerosene carried in — firewood stays in the forests, which grow slowly at 3,000 metres.
Camp sanitation done properly
On tented routes, latrines are dug, screened and closed correctly, and campsites are swept before the group moves on.
For our guests
What we ask of you
None of it is complicated, and your guide will show you all of it on day one. Arriving with these six habits already packed makes you the guest every village hopes for.
Dress with the village in mind
Shoulders and knees covered in villages, monasteries and hot springs — save the shorts for the high trail.
Ask before you photograph people
A smile and a gesture with the camera is enough. If the answer is no, it's no — and monastery interiors are usually off-limits.
Pass the old way
Keep stupas, mani walls and prayer wheels on your right as you pass — walking clockwise, the way the valley does.
Haggle gently
Bargaining is normal in Thamel; on the trail, the difference of a dollar means far more to the seller than to you.
Keep your own wrappers
Whatever you carry up, you can carry down — bins are rare above the road, and burning plastic poisons the village air.
Learn ten words of Nepali
Namaste and dhanyabad open more doors than any tip. Your guide will happily teach you the next eight.
Keep reading
Trek with care
Plan a lighter footprint
Tell us your dates and the valleys on your mind — we'll shape a route that treads well and pays fairly, without asking you to rough it.