How To Budget Your Everest Base Camp Trek

Nepal’s trekking infrastructure makes it an attractive destination for independent trekkers. The trails are well laid and marked in most places. Almost all big treks have a network of tea houses, where you can stay and get fresh cooked meals. So, if you are fit and confident about directions, you can trek solo on a lot of trails, without a guide or a porter.

If you are planning a solo trek to Everest Base Camp, you need to plan your expenses carefully. The ease of access comes with the disadvantage of a lot of temptations, when it comes to food, beverages and facilities – usually at inflated costs.

This guide demystifies the expenses for this trek. We have broken down the expenses into these subheadings for each trek – travel, accommodation, food, drinking water, wifi and charging, SIM cards, guides/porters and trek permits.

Planning your travel

Lukla is the starting point for the Everest Base Camp trek. To get here, you first need to reach Kathmandu. During the trekking season, the traditional way of taking a flight to Lukla directly is not available.

You need to go to Ramechhap on road, and then take a flight to Lukla.

Start your travel at 12 AM. It takes approximately 5-6 hours to reach Ramechhap. Aim to reach the airport there at 6 AM.

It will cost you NPR 3,200 per person for the cab. It is usually a van type vehicle that can seat 8-9 people.

It is very normal for flights between Ramechhap and Lukla to be be cancelled or rescheduled. So make sure you keep a couple of days as buffer before booking your onward journey.

Book your return flight from Lukla to Ramechhap as well.

Tip: Do not hesitate to reschedule your return flight to Ramechhap if you finish your trek earlier than planned. Given the unpredictability of weather there, airlines do not charge for a reschedule.

Accommodation

You stay in tea houses on the Everest Base Camp trek. These are small lodges that can accommodate 20-30 trekkers. Fresh food is available in all tea houses.

A room in a tea house costs NPR 1500 per day (1 NPR is approximately 0.63 Indian rupees) . At higher altitudes, it can even go up to NPR 2,000 if the demand is very high. As you can see, room rates are not very high. However, you are obliged to have your meals at the same place that you are staying, especially dinner on the night you arrive and breakfast on the following morning.

Tip: Request the owner of the tea house from where you are starting to book a room for you at your next stop. Share a room to bring down the cost.

Food

Food is perhaps the most expensive component of your trek in Nepal. You get everything from sandwiches to dal-bhaat to pizzas and desserts in the tea houses. But they all come at a cost.

Here is a comparison of the costs of meals in different places:

At Lukla, expect to pay NPR 600 per meal; taking the food cost per day to about NPR 1,800.

At Namche Bazaar, expect to pay NPR 750 per meal; taking the food cost to NPR 2,300.

However, at Gorakshep, you will pay NPR 1,200-1,400 per meal; taking the cost to NPR 4,100.

The meals described here are simple dal-bhat. If you want to eat other items, the cost will go up accordingly. These tea houses serve a wide variety of food.

Tip: Stick to dal-bhaat for your main meals. The food is wholesome and the servings are unlimited. Carry plenty of nuts and dry fruits to avoid buying overpriced snacks.

Drinking Water

Tap water is safe to drink at all tea houses. However, this is not the case at Gorakshep. Here, you need to buy drinking water at NPR 500 a litre. The water here is otherwise dirty.

Tip: If you have a water purifying bottle, use it at Gorakshep to avoid paying for drinking water.

Wifi and charging

Tea houses start charging you money from Phakding onwards. Use of charging points costs NPR 300-600 according to the device that you are charging. It will cost you NPR 300 to charge your mobile, NPR 500 to fully charge a powerbank. Each tea house will have a chart that will display the rates. These costs will go up as you go higher.

Tea houses also charge for wifi. At Lobuche, it costs NPR 1,200 to purchase wifi for the whole day. And NPR 1,800 for 2 days.

Tip: Namche Bazaar has restaurants that provide free wifi if you eat there. Finish all your calls and messages before starting from here.

SIM Cards

You can purchase a local NCell SIM card for NPR 500 and recharge it for making telephone calls. Around 30 minutes talk time to India will cost you around NPR 50. Network is available up to Dole. Trekkers usually reach Dole on the fourth day of trekking.

Tip: The call costs less if you add 0124 to the Indian number that you dial.

Trek permits

You need two permits to trek to Everest Base Camp.

• Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality Entry Permit: This local permit is required to enter the Khumbu region. You can refer to this as trek permit. It will cost you NPR 2,000.

The second permit is

• Sagarmatha National Park Entry Permit: You will be trekking inside this National Part which is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cost of entering the park is NPR is NPR 1,500.

This is the cost of permits for SAARC Nationals.

Citizens of SAARC countries can collect this from Monjo. This is close to the entrance of Sagarmatha National Park. You can go here after you reach Phakding from Lukla. Other citizens can get this at Kathmandu.

Guide and Porter

It is possible to hire a guide and a porter before you begin the trek. You can do this either in Kathmandu or in Lukla. Guides charge NPR 1,700 per day and porters charge NPR 1,500-1,600 per day. If they are local guides and not hired through a company, you will need to pay them in cash.

If you decide to hire a guide or a porter after reaching Lukla, ask around in hotels to find them.

Tip: It is possible to do the entire trek on your own and avoid this cost altogether. It is more expensive to hire guides and porters through a company than on your own.

However, if you have hire guides and porters, they will expect you to tip them generously at the end of the trek. Tipping is a huge culture in this region.

How much cash should you carry on the Everest Base Camp trek?

Most places in bigger cities such as Kathmandu accept Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards. However, once you begin your trek, you will have to make all payments in cash. Tea houses do not accept cards.

Indian and international debit cards work in Nepal in select ATMs. Visa, Visa Electron, Plus, MasterCard, Maestro and Cirrus international debit cards work at SBI ATMs. Plus, Visa, Cirrus and Union Pay debit cards work at Siddhartha Bank ATMs. SCT and Visa cards work at Everest Bank ATMs.

The charge for withdrawing cash varies depending the bank. Withdrawing money from an SBI Nepal ATM using an SBI debit card from India has a transaction fee of Rs.35. You can also use your credit card to withdraw money from ATMs. However, this is quite expensive as there is a charge of NPR 500 for every transaction. So, it is best you carry sufficient cash with you.

So for EBC Classic Trek of 12 days, you will need at least NPR 4,000 per day on average just on food for the trek. If you add on other charges like sim card, electronic charging, drinking water, etc, this cost might even go up. If you factor in the charges for trek permit and additional cash for emergency use, you will need to take at least NPR 50,000 - 60,000 in cash with you. This amount will be higher if you decide to hire a guide or a porter so plan accordingly.

If you are going with Indiahikes, stay, permits, guides charges are taken care of by Indiahikes.

Keep in mind that in addition to this amount, you will also need to budget for at least 2 days to account for bad weather.

We hope these budgeting tips come in handy when you plan for your trek. Do comment below with some of your own tips that could help others.

Points in this article were shared by Faizan Devdi and Rishivar Mukherji who lead EBC batches in the year 2024.

This article has been last updated by the Indiahikes Information team on 26th December 2024.

Cover Image of Chola Pass taken by Abhirup Paul.

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