How to choose a trekking guide in Nepal (and what to ask before you pay)
Licence numbers, insurance, acclimatisation schedules and porter wages — the five questions that separate a good guide from an expensive one.
Pemba Sherpa22 Jul 20266 min read
Nepal made licensed guides mandatory for national park trekking in 2023, which removed the worst end of the market but did not make choosing easy. There are thousands of licensed guides. The licence tells you someone passed a course; it does not tell you whether they will turn you around at Dingboche when they should.
Ask for the licence number and check it. Nepal Mountaineering Association and NATHM licences are both verifiable, and any guide worth hiring will send you a photo of the card without hesitation. On CalltoLocal every guide's licence is checked before their profile goes live, and the badge on their card means exactly that — not that they uploaded a picture of one.
Ask what the acclimatisation schedule looks like, specifically. A twelve-day Everest Base Camp itinerary and a fourteen-day one are not the same trek with different pacing; the fourteen-day version has two rest days and the twelve-day version has one. That single extra night at Dingboche is the difference between most groups finishing and a fifth of the group turning back.
Ask whether the guide carries a pulse oximeter and what their turnaround policy is. The right answer is that the guide decides, not you, and that the decision is final. Anyone who tells you the client decides is selling you a summit rather than a safe trek.
Ask what the porters are paid and whether they are insured. Porter insurance is a legal requirement and routinely ignored. The daily rate should be at least NPR 1,800 plus food and lodging, and load limits should be respected. This is not only an ethical question — teams that are treated properly stay with a guide for years, and experience on the trail is what you are ultimately buying.
Finally, ask what happens if the Lukla flight is delayed. The honest answer is that it sometimes is, that flights may reroute through Ramechhap, and that a well-built itinerary has a buffer day. An operator who tells you delays never happen has told you something useful about everything else they have said.
