How Many Days Do You Need for a Nepal Trek?

You can trek in Nepal in as little as four days, and the classic big treks take 12 to 14. The number of days is set less by distance than by altitude, travel and spare time: Poon Hill is a 4-day loop, Annapurna Base Camp 7, Everest Base Camp 12 and the Annapurna and Manaslu circuits 14, and you cannot safely squeeze the high ones. If you have a week, pick a route in the 4 to 8 day range. If you have two weeks, you can do a classic high trek with a margin. If you have less than a week, choose Poon Hill, Mardi Himal or a short Langtang-side trek and enjoy it.

This guide lists the day counts from our route pages, explains what the days are made of, shows how to fit trek length to your holiday and what the extra days cost. All counts include the flights or drives in our plans, and none includes the nights you spend in Kathmandu or Pokhara before or after.

Day counts for the routes we cover

What the days are made of

A trek day count is a sum of four things.

Walking days. On most routes, most days are 4 to 7 hours of walking. The long days are the exception, such as the 8 to 10 hour pass days on the Annapurna and Manaslu circuits.

Rest or acclimatisation days. The Everest Base Camp plan has two, at Namche and Dingboche; the Annapurna Circuit has one at Manang and the Manaslu Circuit two, at Samagaun and Samdo. They are not optional extras. Above 3,000 m, the CDC, citing Wilderness Medical Society guidance, advises a sleeping-altitude gain of no more than 500 m a night and an extra acclimatisation night for every 1,000 m gained, and the NHS suggests a rest day at the same altitude every 3 to 4 days at 3,000 m or more. A plan that drops the rest days to save time is a plan for altitude sickness. See rest days on Everest and the Circuit.

Travel days. Some of the days in our plans are not walking at all. The Langtang Valley plan has a 7 to 8 hour drive on day 1 and day 8. The Everest plans start with the flight to Lukla and the first walk to Phakding on day 1 and end with a flight back. Rara and Dolpo use four flight legs, and our Dolpo page advises an extra day at each end because flights are weather-dependent.

Spare days. Only some plans include one. Our Gokyo plan has a spare day at the end for delayed Lukla flights; most do not, so you add your own. See buffer days and itinerary flexibility.

Fitting a trek to your holiday

Count your days and subtract the nights around the trek: a night in Kathmandu or Pokhara before, and one or two after.

3 to 5 days available. Poon Hill (4 days) is the natural choice, and Mardi Himal (5) works if you like a ridge walk. The Poon Hill loop reaches 3,210 m and finishes at a road, which is why it suits a first trek. Read the Poon Hill itinerary and our guide to Poon Hill versus Mardi Himal.

6 to 8 days. Annapurna Base Camp (7), the Tamang Heritage Trail (7), Gosaikunda (6), Helambu (8), Khopra Ridge (8) and the Langtang Valley (8) fit here. Annapurna Base Camp reaches 4,130 m and Langtang's Kyanjin Ri 4,773 m, so altitude starts to matter.

9 to 12 days. Everest Base Camp and Gokyo (12), Upper Mustang (12), Rara Lake and Phoksundo (10) and Nar Phu (11) are in this range. Everest and Gokyo have two or three rest days built in. Allow a spare day for the Lukla flight.

13 to 16 days. The Annapurna Circuit and Manaslu Circuit (14) and the Tsum Valley (13) need this much time, and Makalu Base Camp is 16.

18 days or more. The Everest Three Passes (18), the Kanchenjunga circuit (21) and Upper Dolpo (22) are for people with serious time, fitness and budgets. They are hard routes, in our route pages, and each uses several rest days and flights.

If you are short of time, resist the temptation to take a long route in fewer days. A shorter route done well is better than a long one cut. The altitude rules and the Lukla flights do not bend for a holiday calendar.

What the days cost

Each day adds lodging and food, a guide and sometimes a permit day, so the total grows with the plan. As a rough guide, our dated cost model, which converts at NPR 134 to the dollar, gives mid-range totals per person, for two sharing, of about USD 170 to 260 for Poon Hill (4 days), USD 310 to 460 for Annapurna Base Camp (7), USD 460 to 750 for Langtang Valley (8), USD 1,100 to 1,550 for Everest Base Camp (12) and USD 730 to 1,100 for the Annapurna Circuit (14), excluding international flights, insurance, hotels and tips. Per day that is roughly USD 40 to 65 on Poon Hill, USD 45 to 65 on Annapurna Base Camp, USD 90 to 130 on Everest and USD 50 to 80 on the Circuit. The Everest figure is higher because the flights are a fixed cost and lodging and food at altitude are dearer, not because the days are longer. See the cost guide for the lines.

An extra day on the trail costs a night of lodging and food plus a share of the guide, which on the Everest route is about NPR 7,000 to 11,000 each for two sharing. Spare days are cheap insurance.

Two sample holidays

A nine-day holiday with a night in Pokhara at each end leaves seven days: enough for Annapurna Base Camp (7 days), or Poon Hill (4 days) plus a spare day and a lakeside rest. If you choose Annapurna Base Camp, you walk to 4,130 m with one night above 3,800 m, and the plan has no rest day, so you rely on the gentle profile and your own pace. Add a night in Pokhara before you start in case of a late arrival.

A 16-day holiday gives you room for a classic: with one night in Kathmandu before the Lukla flight and one after, plus two spare days, you have a 12-day Everest Base Camp trek and a margin, or a 14-day circuit and a little slack. On Everest the rest days at Namche and Dingboche are already in the 12 days, and the two spare days sit at the end, ahead of your international flight. That structure is the same one we describe in buffer days and itinerary flexibility. If the weather delays your Lukla flight, you lose a spare day, not a viewpoint. If everything runs on time, the spare days are a day in Kathmandu to sightsee.

Can you shorten a route?

Sometimes. Jeep roads let you skip walking on the Annapurna Circuit, for example by starting at Dharapani or Besisahar, and the Tsum and Manaslu plans can use a jeep for part of the first or last day. Our Annapurna page notes that jeep roads now reach Dharapani, Chame and Manang. What you cannot do is skip acclimatisation: the nights at altitude set the minimum. If a route is shortened by a road, check that the nights you sleep above 3,000 m still follow the 500 m rule. Our acclimatisation schedule shows how.

Your first trek

For a first trek, the best-value answers are 4 to 8 days. Poon Hill, Annapurna Base Camp and the Langtang Valley give real Himalayan scenery with a road at one end, tea houses every few hours and moderate altitude. A 12-day Everest trek is a fine first long trek if you have walked multi-day before and take the rest days. Our guides to first-time trekking and which trek is right for you help you choose, and what is a teahouse trek explains how the nights work.