Ask us about your Everest Base Camp trek

Three things, in this order. None of them costs you anything.

• The message lands in our office in Kathmandu and the screen gives you a reference. It looks like EBC, then the date, then eight characters. Keep it. It is how we find your inquiry again if an email goes astray.
• A person reads it. Usually one of the team who has walked this route. Not an automatic reply, and not a form letter with your month pasted into it.
• You get an email back with an itinerary shaped around your month and the number of you, and a cost breakdown that names what is not included as clearly as what is.

After that it is a back and forth. Most people ask two or three more questions before anything is decided, and that is normal and expected. We will also tell you when the trip you have in mind is the wrong one for you, and name the one that fits instead. That happens more often than you would think, and it is nearly always about the number of days.

We reply within 24 hours. Our office is in Kathmandu, so the reply may land during your night rather than your working day. If that time passes and you have heard nothing, write again with your reference and we will find you.

Four things. None of them has to be exact, and a rough answer to all four beats a precise answer to one.

• A month, or a rough window. A month is enough. A season is enough if you are planning a long way out. If your dates are fixed by leave from work, give us the exact days, because fixed dates change which itineraries can be made to fit.
• How many of you are coming. One person, a couple, a family, a group from a club. Group size moves the cost per person more than anything else you control, because a guide and a porter cost the same whether one person or four share them.
• What shape of trip you want. Walk in and walk out. Walk in and fly back by helicopter. Add the Gokyo lakes and a pass. A shorter version if you are short of days. If you do not know yet, say that, and we will lay out the choices. Every version we run is set out on the page about the treks we run to Everest Base Camp, and the classic route is written up day by day on the day by day Everest Base Camp trek itinerary.
• Anything about fitness or health that matters. Base camp sits at 5,364 m (17,598 ft). The walk is long rather than technical, and what decides how it goes is how your body handles thin air, not how strong you are. Tell us the longest walk you have done, whether you have been high before, your age if you want to, and anything a doctor has said about your heart, your lungs, your blood pressure, your diabetes or a medicine you take every day.

Nobody is turned away for being unfit. What health and fitness change is the number of rest days we build in, the pace we plan, and sometimes the route itself. Telling us early is the difference between a plan that suits you and a plan you have to survive. What the walk asks of you physically, in detail, is on the page about what makes this trek hard.

If you do not know some of that yet, send it anyway. The message box is optional and one line is a perfectly good message. A question with no dates in it still gets an answer.

Prices are published on the trip pages, and the written quote confirms yours before you pay anything.

The price of the classic Everest Base Camp trek is 1,295 USD. The classic trek page lists what that price includes and what it does not. Your quote confirms the price for your group and your dates before you pay anything.

Some trips have no single published price yet. For those, the price comes to you in writing, in the quote for your dates, before you pay anything.

Either way, the quote arrives with the list of what is inside the price and the list of what is not. If comparing on price is the whole reason you are writing, say so in the message box and ask for the breakdown. You will get it, with nothing held back for a phone call.

In general terms only, because the exact list depends on which version you choose. No figures here. Every figure belongs in your quote, where it can be tied to your month and your group.

Two of those matter more than the rest, so we say them twice. Travel insurance is not optional. For the Everest Base Camp trek the policy has to cover you to 6,000 m (19,685 ft) and name helicopter evacuation, because a standard travel policy usually does not. Travel insurance for this trek gives the level for every other trip. And the small things you pay for on the trail, the charging, the wifi and the bottled water, add up over two weeks in a way that catches people out. Your quote names both, with figures, so neither one is a surprise in Kathmandu.

There is no deposit at this stage. There is no card field on this form, and there is no payment page anywhere on this site.

Asking does not hold a place, does not put a date in your name and does not create an obligation on either side. You owe us nothing for a quote, and we owe you an honest one.

If you later decide to go ahead, the booking terms come to you in writing first, in full, including what has to be paid and when. Nothing is taken before you have read them and said yes to them. A place is then held with a deposit of 30 percent of the trip price, and what canceling costs you after that is set out on our booking terms.

You are also welcome to ask a question and never book anything. That is a normal use of this form, and those get the same answer as the rest.

everestbasecamp.tours is run by Nepal Unique Treks and Expedition Pvt Ltd, a licensed trekking company in Kathmandu, registered on 21 October 2014 and member 2291 of the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal. It was founded by Dil Bahadur Gurung, who has been guiding in Nepal since 2004, and the company that answers your email is the same company that runs your trek.

That last part is worth saying plainly, because you cannot tell it by looking. Many of the sites answering this search are agents, and your message reaches a Kathmandu operator only after it has passed through them. Here there is nobody between your question and the person who can answer it, which is why the reply can be specific instead of careful.

The people, and how the company came to exist, are on the page about who runs this company. The license numbers, the registration and the public association record that anyone can check them against are on the page listing our licenses and registrations. If you have landed here before reading anything else and want the plain explanation of the walk itself first, start with the Everest Base Camp trek.

We use them to answer you. That is the whole purpose, and there is no second purpose hiding behind it.

Your name, your email, your month, your group size and your message are stored so that the person replying can read them, and so that we can find your inquiry again later by its reference. We do not add you to a mailing list. We do not sell your details. We do not pass them to another operator, in Nepal or anywhere else.

If you want your inquiry deleted, reply with your reference and ask, and we will delete it. The full statement, including how long a record is kept and who inside the company can see it, is on the page about how we handle your details.