Why Italian Trekkers Book Direct with a Nepali Family Company
There is an Italian building at 5,050 metres on the flanks of Everest. It is called the Pyramid, a glass and steel research station run by Ev-K2-CNR with Italy's National Research Council, and scientists have been measuring the air, the ice and the human body up there for decades. Most Italians who write to me have never heard of it. I mention it first because it says something true about the relationship between our two countries: Italy has been serious about these mountains for a long time, quietly, without much noise about it. That is roughly how we like to work as well.
What almost nobody arrives with is a straight answer on what a trek actually costs in euros when you book it from Italy. Most of what you find online is an agency in Europe reselling a Nepali operator like us with their margin added on top. We are the Nepali operator. The Everest Holiday is family run out of Kathmandu, registered here in 2016, and we are the people who run your trek on the ground, not a name on a website. Book direct and you pay our price, not our price plus somebody's commission. This guide gives you the real euro figures, how you actually fly here from Italy, and what an Italian walker needs to know before committing. Read it, then write to us if it suits you.
Trek Prices for Italian Trekkers
These are our published prices converted to euros at 1 US dollar to 0.87 euro, the rate on 19 September 2026. The rate moves, and we quote and charge in US dollars, so treat the euro column as a close guide rather than a fixed number. Every trek comes in three levels and the difference between them is real, not cosmetic. Budget means you carry your own bag and your meals on the trail are not included. Standard adds a shared porter and all your meals. Luxury adds a porter of your own, better lodges, all meals, and on Everest a return helicopter to Lukla instead of the fixed-wing flight.
| Trek | Budget (€) | Standard (€) | Luxury (€) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everest Base Camp, 12 days | 1,219 | 2,177 | 4,355 |
| Annapurna Base Camp, 9 days | 435 | 696 | 1,220 |
| Ghorepani Poon Hill, 6 days | 435 | 653 | 968 |
| Langtang Valley, 8 days | 318 | 566 | 871 |
| Manaslu Circuit, 12 days | 696 | 1,393 | 1,829 |
| Mardi Himal, 7 days | 396 | 740 | 968 |
In dollars, which is what you will actually be charged, those same treks are 1,399, 2,499 and 4,999 for Everest Base Camp; 499, 799 and 1,400 for Annapurna Base Camp; 499, 749 and 1,111 for Poon Hill; 365, 650 and 1,000 for Langtang; 799, 1,599 and 2,099 for Manaslu; and 454, 849 and 1,111 for Mardi Himal.
It is 10 per cent to hold your dates and you pay the balance in Kathmandu when you arrive, in US dollars cash or by card. A card payment carries 3.5 per cent, cash carries nothing. We cannot take Nepali rupees from foreign clients, so bring dollars or plan to pay by card. The price you see holds for both 2026 and 2027 departures.
What Booking Direct Actually Gets You
The same trek, run by the family whose name is on it, at the ground price. We provide the down jacket, the four-season sleeping bag and the duffel free, made to our own specification, so you are not buying high-altitude kit in Milan for one trip. Your guide is one of ours, licensed and government-trained and insured, and on Standard and Luxury a porter carries the heavy bag. And every booking helps fund our Nagarjun Learning Center, which I will come back to at the end.
How Do You Get to Kathmandu from Italy?
There is no nonstop flight between Italy and Nepal, and there never has been. You will change planes once. I want to be precise about this, because the internet is full of airline names that no longer fly here at all.
The three routings that genuinely work from Italy are Doha with Qatar Airways, Istanbul with Turkish Airlines, and Delhi with Air India. All three of those airlines serve both Italy and Kathmandu, so you can hold one ticket the whole way, which matters if something goes wrong. Doha and Istanbul are the two I would look at first from Rome or Milan. Qatar Airways and Turkish both run wide networks into northern Italy, so if you are coming from Venice, Bologna or Naples rather than the two big airports, you will usually still find a single-ticket routing.
Two Nepali carriers, Himalaya Airlines and Nepal Airlines, also fly the Gulf into Kathmandu from Doha and Dubai, which sometimes gives you a cheaper final leg if you are willing to buy two separate tickets. I would only do that with a long layover, because a missed connection on separate tickets is your problem, not the airline's.
Total travel time is usually somewhere between thirteen and eighteen hours with the stop, depending on how the connection falls. We do not sell your international flights and we make nothing on them, so take that as honest advice rather than a sales line. Fares climb for the October window and again for spring, so book early if you are coming in either season.
What Does an Italian Walker Need to Know Before Booking?
Visa
Italian passport holders get a tourist visa on arrival at Kathmandu airport. Bring a passport valid for at least six months, a passport photograph, and the fee in US dollars cash. A 30-day visa covers every trek in the table above with room to spare. It is a queue at the airport, not paperwork you arrange in Italy beforehand.
Permits
Permits are inside the price we quote, so there is nothing extra for you to buy before you leave. For the record, national park entry in Nepal is a flat fee of 3,000 rupees per person with no tax added on top, and the restricted-area treks such as Manaslu carry their own permit which we arrange for you. You do not handle any of this yourself. We have every permit in hand before you reach the trailhead.
Insurance
You need travel insurance that covers trekking to the altitude of your chosen trek and, above everything else, helicopter evacuation. Ordinary European holiday policies usually stop well below Himalayan heights, so read the altitude limit in the wording rather than the summary page, and confirm that mountain rescue by helicopter is included. This is the one thing I will not let a client skip. A rescue you have to pay for yourself runs into thousands of euros. Buy the policy at home in Italy. Do not buy insurance here in Nepal, because the helicopter operators and the hospitals frequently refuse the local policies at exactly the moment you need them to work.
Altitude, Not Gradient, Is the Difficulty
If you walk in the Dolomites or the Alps you already have the legs for our teahouse treks. What you will not have met is the air. Everest Base Camp sits at 5,364 metres and Kala Patthar above it at 5,545, which is higher than Monte Bianco, and you reach it by walking rather than climbing. That sounds easy and it is the exact reason people get into trouble. Altitude has no respect for fitness, and strong walkers are often the ones who go up too fast. This is why our Everest and higher treks build in acclimatisation days, why the pace is deliberately slow, and why your guide carries an oximeter and checks you every day. Our guides do not carry bottled oxygen, and on a properly paced trek you do not need it.
Food, Money and Language
Teahouse food on the trail is simple and filling rather than refined: dal bhat, the rice and lentil plate our guides quietly rely on because you can eat it twice a day and keep walking, plus noodles, potatoes, eggs and Tibetan bread. You will not find good coffee above Namche and I would rather tell you that now than have you discover it on day four. Bring what you need. You change euros or dollars for rupees in Kathmandu, or draw rupees from a cash machine, for your own spending on the trail. Your balance to us is in dollars, as above. A local SIM is cheap in Kathmandu, most lodges have some form of wifi, and every one of our guides speaks English, so there is no language barrier on the trail. If you would prefer an Italian-speaking guide, ask us when you enquire and I will tell you honestly whether we can arrange one for your dates rather than promise and improvise.
Which Trek Should an Italian First-Timer Choose?
If you want the famous one and you have the time, the Everest Base Camp trek is the classic, and our full Everest cost breakdown takes it apart day by day and dollar by dollar. If you have less time, or you would rather build up to altitude gently, the Annapurna Base Camp trek puts you inside a true high-mountain amphitheatre in nine days, and the shorter Ghorepani Poon Hill trek is the gentlest way in, six days with one of the finest sunrise viewpoints in the country.
For something quieter, the Langtang Valley trek sits close to Kathmandu and carries a fraction of the Everest traffic, and the Mardi Himal trek is a short, steep and beautiful ridge walk. If you have real mountain days behind you and you want wilderness rather than a trail with other people on it, the Manaslu Circuit crosses a 5,000 metre pass through country far emptier than the main routes. Manaslu sits in a restricted area, which means a licensed guide and an agency permit are compulsory, and your guide has to stay with you. That is not our rule, it is enforced at the army and police posts along the way.
When Is the Best Time to Trek from Italy?
Two windows stand out. October into mid-November is the most reliable, with clear skies and settled weather after the monsoon, and it is also the busiest, so book early. March and April are the second season, warmer, with the rhododendron forests in flower. December to February is clear, very cold and very quiet, which some people love. Avoid June to mid-September, the monsoon, when the trails are wet and the mountains are behind cloud. One honest caveat about late October: the tail end of Bay of Bengal cyclones has disrupted two recent autumns, so if you are coming in the last week of the month, build a spare day into your flights home.
For Italian walkers there is a practical point here. Ferragosto falls in the middle of the monsoon, so August is the worst month to come and it is also the month most of Italy is free. If you can only travel in August, tell me and I will be straight with you about what you would actually see. Usually I suggest waiting for October.
About The Everest Holiday
We are a family company in Kathmandu, three generations of Himalayan guides, registered in 2016 and a member of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal, number 1586. When you book with us you deal with the family, not a call centre, and the guide who meets you at the airport works for the same people who answered your first message. That is the whole point of booking direct.
Our Charity, the Nagarjun Learning Center
Every booking helps fund our Nagarjun Learning Center. We fully run the centre at Saldum, where 70 children learn with a teacher I pay for personally, and we have helped build and still support other community learning centres. It is not a line bolted on to the price. It is where a real part of what you pay ends up.
Frequently Asked Questions: Italian Trekkers
Do Italian citizens need a visa for Nepal?
You get a tourist visa on arrival at Kathmandu airport with a valid passport, a photograph and the fee in US dollars cash. There is no advance application for a normal trekking holiday.
Is there a direct flight from Rome or Milan to Kathmandu?
No. There is no nonstop service between Italy and Nepal. You change once, and the three routings that work on a single ticket are Doha with Qatar Airways, Istanbul with Turkish Airlines, and Delhi with Air India.
How fit do I need to be?
If you can walk a long day in the Alps with a day pack, you have the fitness for our teahouse treks. Altitude rather than distance is the real difficulty, which is why we walk slowly and build in rest days. There is a trek in the table above for every level.
Can I pay in euros?
No. We quote and charge in US dollars, and the balance is paid in Kathmandu in dollars cash or by card, with 3.5 per cent added on card payments. We cannot accept Nepali rupees from foreign clients. The euro figures in the table are a guide to help you plan, not the amount you will be charged.
Will my guide speak Italian?
English, always. Italian sometimes, depending on the dates and who is free. Ask when you enquire and I will give you a straight yes or no rather than a maybe.
Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586.
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