You have more leave than almost anyone who books this trek
I write one of these pages for every market we sell to, and each country has a different obstacle. From Saudi Arabia the problem is the flight. From Australia it is the two days you lose getting home. From Kuwait there is no obstacle worth the name, and I want to start there because most people from Kuwait who write to me assume there is one.
Kuwaiti labour law gives private sector staff thirty calendar days of paid annual leave after a year of service, and the public holidays sit on top of that rather than eating into it. This trek needs fifteen days from Kuwait, door to door. That is half your allowance for the biggest thing most people ever walk. My British clients are fighting for twenty-eight days a year and my American clients are often working with fourteen in total, so if you have been putting this off because of the time, you have been solving a problem you do not have.
The flights are the other easy part. Kuwait to Kathmandu is flown nonstop by Jazeera Airways and Kuwait Airways, around eleven departures a week between them, and the flight is under five hours. Our twelve-day Everest Base Camp trek is the package every number on this page is built on, and if you would rather just ask me, my WhatsApp is at the bottom and I answer it myself.
What does the trek itself cost?
Our Everest Base Camp trek runs twelve days, Kathmandu to Kathmandu, in three tiers. Budget is US$1,399, which is KWD 429. Standard is US$2,499, which is KWD 767. Luxury is US$4,999, which is KWD 1,534.
Those prices hold for 2027 departures as well as 2026. We took that decision deliberately: our costs will rise next year and our margin will absorb it, because I would rather you booked early with a number you can trust than played a guessing game with next season's list. The one exception across our whole range is Kailash and Tibet, which we cannot price until our partners on the Chinese side confirm their 2027 rates.
The tiers are not marketing. Budget means you carry your own bag and buy your own meals. Standard means one porter shared between two trekkers, every meal included, and a private room. Luxury means a porter each, the better lodges, and a helicopter in and out of Lukla instead of the fixed-wing flight. The gap between budget and standard is mostly food and a porter, and for most people the standard tier is the honest recommendation.
One thing that is not in any of those numbers, ours or anybody else's worth trusting: hotels in Kathmandu. Trek packages start when you leave the city and end when you come back to it. Anyone who folds the hotel in is either charging you for it somewhere else or booking you somewhere you would not choose.
The short answer, all in
A standard twelve-day trek from Kuwait, everything included, lands at about KWD 1,240. That is roughly US$4,040. Budget comes in near KWD 940 and luxury near KWD 2,000. The line-by-line table is further down this page, and every figure in it is one you can check.
If a quote lands well under the bottom of that range for the same twelve days, something has been removed. Usually it is a guide's wage, an acclimatisation day, or the insurance the company should be carrying on its own staff.
A note on the dinar, because it is not a hard peg
This matters more for you than for my clients in Doha or Riyadh, and nobody writing about Nepal bothers to explain it. The Qatari riyal and the Saudi riyal are pegged directly to the US dollar at a fixed number that has not moved in decades. The Kuwaiti dinar is not. Since 2007 the Central Bank of Kuwait has managed it against an undisclosed basket of currencies, and although the dollar dominates that basket, the rate does drift by small amounts through the year.
The practical effect is minor but real. I have used 0.3068 dinars to the dollar on this page, which was the official rate in August 2026, and the dinar has sat close to that for a long time. If it moves a fraction before you pay, your dinar total moves a fraction with it. Our prices are set in dollars, so the dollar column is the one that is fixed and the dinar column is the one that converts.
How much are the flights, really?
Return fares on the Kuwait route have been running around KWD 110 to KWD 190, depending on how far ahead you book and which carrier you take. Kuwait Airways sits towards the top of that band, Jazeera towards the bottom. Himalaya Airlines, a Nepali carrier, has also served Kathmandu to Kuwait since 2024. I am giving you a band rather than one number because fares move weekly and a page that quotes a single figure is wrong by the time you read it.
Two things worth knowing. October is the peak month and the fares know it, so book that month early. And several of the Kuwait departures are late at night, arriving in Kathmandu in the morning, which is the one you want: arriving in daylight makes the first day far less disorientating than landing at midnight into a city you do not know.
Is Gulf airspace still a problem for these flights?
It is a fair question in 2026 and I am not going to skip it. The European aviation safety agency has kept a conflict zone bulletin over the Gulf in force through the autumn, and the Kuwait flight information region is named in it along with Bahrain, Qatar and the Emirates. What the current guidance actually says is narrower than the headlines: flights over land to and from those airports are fine with normal caution, and the advice to avoid the Gulf waters does not apply to aircraft arriving at or departing from the airports on that coast.
In practice Kuwait airport is operating, schedules have been largely restored, and our clients have been flying in and out all season. My advice is the same as it would be in any uncertain period. Build one spare day into your plan before the trek starts, do not book a connection with less than three hours in it, and if your flight is cancelled you have a buffer rather than a crisis. That spare day doubles as your Lukla weather day, so it costs you nothing you were not already spending.
Visa, permits and insurance
Your visa depends on your passport, not on your Kuwaiti residency, and that trips up a lot of expatriate readers. Most nationalities pay US$50 for a thirty-day visa on arrival at Kathmandu airport, about KWD 15, in cash or by card. Indian passport holders need no visa at all. You can fill the arrival form online up to fifteen days before you fly and skip the kiosk queue, and the visa on arrival guide walks through it step by step. If you hold a passport that is not on the on-arrival list, ask me before you book flights rather than after.
Two permits are needed for this trek. The Sagarmatha National Park permit is NPR 3,000, about KWD 6.5. The Khumbu Pasang Lhamu municipality permit is NPR 2,000, about KWD 4.3. Indian and other SAARC passport holders pay half the park fee. On any decent package, ours included, both are bought for you and sit inside the price. I list them so you can see where the money goes.
Insurance is the one item you must buy yourself and the one item not to economise on. Your Kuwaiti employer's health plan almost certainly excludes adventure activity abroad and will pay nothing towards a helicopter, and a helicopter from Gorak Shep to Kathmandu is billed in thousands of dollars. Buy a policy that names trekking to 6,000 metres in the wording. It has to be higher than Kala Patthar at 5,545 metres, not equal to it, because a rescue helicopter has to be able to fly above you to reach you. Many policies sold in the Gulf stop at 3,000 or 4,000 metres unless you add the adventure rider, and a few exclude helicopter evacuation outright, so read the exclusions rather than the brochure. Budget KWD 35 to 80 for two to three weeks. Send me the wording before you fly and I will tell you honestly whether it has a hole in it.
How do you train for this in a country with no hills at all?
Kuwait is flat in a way that even Qatar is not. Mutla Ridge, the one piece of high ground most people can name, tops out around 142 metres, and the highest ground in the country is an unnamed rise near the Saudi border at roughly 306 metres. You are going to walk to 5,545 metres. So the question is a real one and it deserves a real answer.
Here is what actually matters. Altitude tolerance is mostly genetic and mostly unknowable until you are up there, which is why our itinerary builds in acclimatisation days rather than leaving it to your fitness. What you can train is your legs and your patience, and the thing that breaks people on this trek is not the thin air, it is six hours of downhill on day nine with tired knees.
So train descent. Stairs in your building, down as well as up, and do not take the lift down. Load a rucksack with ten kilos and walk long and slow rather than short and hard, because the trek is five to seven hours a day at a pace that will feel insultingly gentle for the first three days. If you have access to a treadmill, put it on an incline and walk for two hours rather than running for thirty minutes. And the Kuwaiti summer is not your enemy here. Training through that heat builds a tolerance for sustained discomfort that transfers better than people expect to a cold morning at 4,900 metres.
What you cannot fix by training is going too fast in the first week, and that is a decision, not a fitness level.
What will I spend on the trail?
On a standard or luxury package with meals included, trail spending is small: hot showers, which run NPR 500 to 800 higher up, wifi, battery charging, snacks, and a bakery stop in Namche that everybody makes. KWD 5 to 8 a day covers it comfortably. On the budget package you buy your own meals, and prices climb with altitude because everything above Namche arrives on a porter's back or a yak. Plan KWD 12 to 16 a day for three lodge meals and tea, so roughly KWD 145 to 190 across the trek.
Add two or three Kathmandu hotel nights. A clean tourist class double in Thamel runs KWD 21 to 31 a night, and a five star runs KWD 60 and up, which by Kuwaiti standards is not much at all. Carry your trail money in Nepali rupees from Kathmandu. Dinars change easily in Thamel and the Kathmandu cash machines are fine, but do not count on the trail: the only machines on the route are in Namche and they are often empty.
Halal food, prayer and Ramadan on the trail
The trail runs through Sherpa Buddhist villages, so there is no halal certification anywhere above Lukla and I will not pretend otherwise. What there is, in practice, is a menu that solves the problem by accident. Lodge food at altitude is overwhelmingly vegetarian: dal bhat, potatoes, noodles, soups, eggs, rice and vegetables. Most trekkers, of every religion, stop eating meat above Namche anyway, because it has been carried uphill unrefrigerated for two or three days. Your guide will tell you the same thing on day two.
Alcohol is not served in our lodges by arrangement and is a bad idea at altitude regardless. Prayer is straightforward: the lodges are quiet, the rooms are private on the standard tier, and nobody will remark on it. Bring a compass or an app that works offline, because signal comes and goes above Namche.
On Ramadan, my honest advice is do not trek during it. Fasting through five hours of walking at altitude, with dehydration already the main risk factor for altitude sickness, is genuinely dangerous rather than merely hard. Trek before or after. There is a detail in the 2027 calendar worth planning around, and I have put it in the leave section below.
How much should I tip?
Tipping matters more here than on an ordinary holiday, and it matters to a crew who very likely have a relative working in Kuwait. There are around 186,000 Nepalis in the country, something close to four per cent of the population, and a large share of them are in construction, cleaning, security and domestic work. You know what the dinar buys and what it is worth to a family in Nepal, which puts you ahead of most of my clients.
A fair guideline is about ten per cent of the trek price, pooled. For a standard trek, think KWD 45 to 60 for the guide and KWD 33 to 45 for the porter, adjusted for group size and how well the team looked after you. Hand it over on the last trekking day, in rupees or dollars.
The full arithmetic, from Kuwait
Standard package, one trekker sharing rooms:
| Item | KWD | USD |
|---|---|---|
| Trek package, standard tier | 767 | 2,499 |
| Return flights to Kathmandu | 150 | 489 |
| Nepal visa, 30 days | 15 | 50 |
| Insurance with 6,000 m cover | 46 | 150 |
| 3 Kathmandu hotel nights | 75 | 245 |
| Trail extras, 12 days | 67 | 220 |
| Tips for guide and porter | 126 | 410 |
| Total | about 1,246 | about 4,063 |
The same arithmetic puts the budget route at about KWD 940 once you add roughly KWD 165 of trail meals and tip the guide alone, and the luxury route at about KWD 2,000. The fuller breakdown of what sits underneath every operator's pricing is in what Everest Base Camp really costs, and if you are weighing the cheapest way to do it properly, the budget guide is the honest version.
Does it get cheaper as a group?
Yes, and the discount is by group size only, never by whether you book privately. Our price is the same either way, because we never add strangers to your group. On the standard tier, one to four trekkers pay US$2,499 each, five to eight pay US$2,449, nine to twelve pay US$2,399, and thirteen to twenty pay US$2,349. In dinars that is KWD 767 down to KWD 721.
The budget tier moves much further, from US$1,399 for one to four down to US$999 at thirteen or more, which is KWD 429 down to KWD 307. If you are pulling together a group from a Kuwait company, a diwaniya or a walking club, the budget tier at scale is where the real saving sits. Send me a number of people and I will send you the exact figure rather than a band.
How many days off do I need, and when?
Fifteen is the honest answer from Kuwait. Twelve for the trek, a travel day each way because the flight is short, and one spare day for Lukla weather. You do not need the extra day that my Australian or Brazilian clients need for the journey home.
Now the calendar, because 2027 has a wrinkle worth knowing early. Ramadan in 2027 runs through most of February and into the first days of March, and Eid al-Fitr falls around 10 March. That means Kuwait's National Day and Liberation Day on 25 and 26 February 2027 sit inside Ramadan, so the usual trick of hanging leave off those two days is not the one I would use next year. Eid al-Fitr is the better window by a distance: it opens directly into the spring trekking season, the weather is warming, the rhododendrons come out in the weeks that follow, and you are flying in the second half of March rather than the crowded end of October. Eid al-Adha falls around 17 May 2027, which is late for spring and just ahead of the monsoon, so I would not build a Base Camp trek around it.
Both Eid dates move with the moon, and the private sector in Kuwait usually gets three working days rather than the longer public sector break, so check your own company calendar before you book anything.
When should I go, in 2026 or 2027?
October is the most reliable month and the busiest, in both years. Know one thing most sites will not tell you: from late September to the end of November, Lukla flights leave from Manthali airstrip, four to five hours by road from Kathmandu, with a one or two in the morning pickup. We tell every client this before they book, because finding out at the hotel reception the night before is not a good start. Helicopters are exempt and fly Kathmandu to Lukla direct all year.
Mid-November into early December is quieter, colder and often better value, and that holds for December 2026 and December 2027 alike. Late March into April is the warm alternative with the rhododendrons out, and for a Kuwait-based trekker in 2027 it pairs neatly with the Eid al-Fitr window. Two recent autumns have seen the tail of a Bay of Bengal cyclone clip the last week of October, so if your dates are flexible, the first half of November has become my honest recommendation for both seasons. The month-by-month guide covers what each one actually feels like.
Which Everest trek should a Kuwait-based trekker book?
If you have fifteen days, the twelve-day Everest Base Camp trek is the right one and the one this page prices. With thirty days of leave you also have room for the options most of my clients cannot consider: the Gokyo lakes added on, or the three passes, which turns it into a much bigger trip. Ask me and I will tell you which one suits the time you actually have.
If your leave is genuinely capped at ten days, do not squeeze this trek, because the days you would cut are the acclimatisation days and that is the part keeping you safe. If the budget stretches and the time does not, the Everest helicopter tour puts you at Kala Patthar and back in a morning. It is a different experience from walking there and I would not pretend otherwise, but for someone with four days in Nepal it is a real option rather than a consolation.
How do I pay from Kuwait?
Ten per cent confirms the booking and holds your guide and your Lukla seats. The balance is paid in Kathmandu. One practical warning that costs people an evening: KNET is a domestic network and your KNET debit card will usually not go through on an international payment page. Use a Visa or Mastercard credit card for the deposit, or ask your bank to enable international online transactions first. If the card is refused, message me rather than trying it repeatedly, because repeated attempts are what triggers a block.
If you pay the balance by card there is a 3.5 per cent charge, which is the gateway's, not ours. Cash in Kathmandu carries none, and plenty of clients bring dollars and settle at the briefing.
Be clear on the terms before you pay. The deposit is not refundable and we do not offer free cancellation. What we do offer is free rescheduling, to any date within a year, with seventy-two hours notice. If we are the ones who cancel, you are refunded less the bank and card charges and the tax on them, and if you paid cash you are refunded in full. I would rather write that plainly here than have you discover it in a terms page.
Check us before you pay
You are sending money from Kuwait to a company in Kathmandu you have never visited, and you should verify us before you do. We are The Everest Holiday Pvt. Ltd., registered in Kathmandu on 8 April 2016, company registration 147653/072/073, trekking licence 2090/072, and TAAN member number 1586. Every one of those is checkable against a public register, and I will send scans on request.
Ask every operator you are comparing for the same four things. Then ask something the paperwork cannot answer: get them on a video call. I should be honest with you that registration proves a company is legitimate, it does not prove it is good, and fully licensed operators in Nepal have been involved in bad episodes. Ten minutes on a call tells you more about who is going to look after you at 5,000 metres than any certificate will.
The questions Kuwait clients always ask me
Is the water safe? Boiled water is included on the standard tier, two litres a day, and it is the right answer both for your stomach and for the mountain, which does not need another few hundred plastic bottles. Do not drink from streams, however clean they look.
Will my phone work? A local SIM is arranged for you on arrival on the standard tier. Data is unreliable above Namche. Lodges sell wifi by the day. Tell your family in advance that two silent days are normal and not a cause for alarm.
Can my teenager come? Yes, and Gulf families do this trek. The limiting factor is not age but the willingness to walk slowly for twelve days. The youngest client we have taken to Base Camp was eleven.
What if I cannot make it? Then you turn round, and it is not a failure. Your guide has the authority to send any one of you down without asking me first, and I back that decision every time. Descent is the treatment for altitude sickness and there is no other one.
Is Nepal safe right now? Yes for the Everest region, which has been running normally all season. Conditions elsewhere in the country change with the weather and I will tell you before you book if anything affects your route.
If you want the same arithmetic in riyals or dirhams for a colleague, the Qatar version, the Saudi version and the UAE version of this page work the same way.
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Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586.
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