Spring 2027 Trekking in Nepal: When to Book and Which Treks to Plan Now

The short answer: if you want to trek in Nepal in spring 2027, decide on your trek by the end of this year and your dates by January. Spring runs from about mid-March to the end of May, with late March and April the best of it. It is as busy as autumn, the flights to Lukla move to a different airport for most of it, and the restricted-area treks need permits that take time. Our prices for 2027 are the same as for 2026 on every trek except Kailash and Tibet, so waiting does not save you money. It only narrows your choice of dates and rooms.

This post is the planning calendar: when to book, which treks fit spring, what the weather data shows month by month, and what to do first. It is not a replacement for our trek-by-trek pages. For the month-by-month weather on the two most popular routes, see Everest Base Camp in spring and Annapurna Base Camp in spring.

When should you book a spring 2027 trek in Nepal?

I cannot give you an official occupancy figure, because none exists that I could find. Nepal does not publish lodge bookings by month, and I will not invent one. What I can show is how many visitors arrive. Nepal Tourism Board figures for 2024, as shown on Wikipedia's Tourism in Nepal page, give these international arrivals by month, in thousands. They count every visitor, not only trekkers, and the figures are read from a chart, so treat them as close, not exact.

Month (2024)	International arrivals (thousands)	Season
January	79	Winter
February	97	Winter
March	128	Spring
April	111	Spring
May	90	Spring, then pre-monsoon
June	76	Monsoon
July	64	Monsoon
August	72	Monsoon
September	96	Late monsoon
October	124	Autumn
November	114	Autumn
December	92	Winter

March was the busiest month of 2024 and April was close behind October and November. So spring is not the quiet alternative to autumn. It is the second peak. On our own pages, we tell guests that Kathmandu hotels and flights into Nepal are at their most booked and most expensive in October and April (see our best-time guide for Everest Base Camp), and that for October we suggest booking at least three months ahead (our month-by-month guide).

Here is how I would plan it. This is our guidance from running these trips, not a published rule.

If you want to go	Choose your trek by	Confirm dates by	Why
Late March or April 2027	End of 2026	January 2027	Second-busiest season; hotels and flights to Nepal fill first
May 2027	January 2027	February or March 2027	Quieter, but weather turns wetter (see the data below)
Any restricted-area trek (Manaslu, Tsum, Upper Mustang and others)	At least a month before travel	Same	Permits and a registered guide are needed, and the minimum lead time is 48 hours counted in government working days

The 10 per cent deposit holds your dates, and you pay the balance in Kathmandu. You do not need to pay in full to reserve.

What does the weather data show for March, April and May?

I pulled ten years of daily data (2015 to 2024) from Open-Meteo, a free weather archive, for four points on the Everest Base Camp trail and compared the spring months with October and November. Two cautions. This is a computer model of the weather, not readings from a thermometer at a lodge. And it counts any day with 1 mm of rain or more as a wet day, which over-counts light drizzle, so use it to compare months, not to predict a particular day.

Place and altitude	Month	Day high (°C)	Night low (°C)	Wet days	Precipitation (mm)
Lukla, 2,860 m	March	9.1	0.9	19	106
Lukla, 2,860 m	April	12.5	3.8	20	117
Lukla, 2,860 m	May	14.2	7.5	28	254
Lukla, 2,860 m	October	13.0	6.8	19	146
Lukla, 2,860 m	November	10.0	2.7	9	35
Namche, 3,440 m	March	3.4	-3.0	21	247
Namche, 3,440 m	April	6.8	0.4	22	224
Namche, 3,440 m	May	9.6	3.4	27	353
Namche, 3,440 m	October	9.3	1.6	23	252
Namche, 3,440 m	November	6.0	-1.9	18	241
Dingboche, 4,410 m	March	-0.3	-7.9	12	65
Dingboche, 4,410 m	April	1.9	-5.4	13	55
Dingboche, 4,410 m	May	4.7	-1.5	17	98
Dingboche, 4,410 m	October	5.2	-1.9	11	65
Dingboche, 4,410 m	November	3.4	-5.7	5	17
Gorak Shep, 5,164 m	March	-7.0	-14.7	5	36
Gorak Shep, 5,164 m	April	-4.4	-12.8	3	20
Gorak Shep, 5,164 m	May	-1.3	-8.4	9	47
Gorak Shep, 5,164 m	October	-1.9	-8.4	5	29
Gorak Shep, 5,164 m	November	-4.4	-11.6	1	6

What I read from it. March is the coldest spring month, with a model night low of about -15 °C at Gorak Shep, colder than any night in October. April is the best balance: warmer than March, and at Gorak Shep the driest of the three spring months by this model (3 wet days). May is warmest but is clearly wetter. Lukla goes from 20 wet days in April to 28 in May, and Namche from 224 mm to 353 mm of precipitation. The model is not a statement about rain on any given day, but the direction is plain. May is where the pre-monsoon build-up starts, which our best-time guide also describes as afternoon haze.

Compare spring with October and November. By this model November is the driest of these months at Lukla, Dingboche and Gorak Shep, and the colder of the two autumn months. Namche's figures are wet in every month, which I read as a quirk of the model's grid point, so I would not lean on them. If you choose the clearest skies over warm nights, spring is not your best season. If you choose warmer mornings and flowering forests, it is.

Which treks work best in spring?

Trek	Days	Price per person for one traveller: Budget, Standard, Luxury	Spring fit
Everest Base Camp	12	USD 1,399, 2,499, 4,999	Warm days in April, busy trail, base camp alive with expedition teams. Haze in May.
Manaslu Circuit	12	USD 799, 1,599, 2,099	Restricted area, needs a permit and licensed guide. Government fee is lower from December to August than in autumn.
Annapurna Base Camp	9	USD 499, 799, 1,400	Good spring trek, but the model shows many wet days at Deurali (3,174 m) in March and April, so plan for wet afternoons. Road access must be checked.
Mardi Himal	7	USD 454, 849, 1,111	Shorter alternative to ABC.
Poon Hill	6	USD 499, 749, 1,111	The shortest and lowest of these; good for a first trek or a short break.

All prices are per person for one traveller on our live package pages; larger groups pay less each. Everyone pays the same price whether they travel privately or in a group, and we do not add a peak-season premium (our best-time guide says the same). On Budget, you carry your own bag and meals are not included. On Standard, all meals are included and there is one porter for every two trekkers, with a 10 kg limit each, and a solo Standard trekker has no porter, so the guide carries up to 10 kg. On Luxury, you have your own dedicated porter and private deluxe rooms, and the Everest Base Camp trek uses a helicopter for the Lukla leg. Kathmandu hotels are not included in the trek tiers.

For the other seasons in the same places, see Everest Base Camp in November, and for flowering forests, see our spring pages linked above.

What happens to the flights to Lukla in spring?

This is the part that surprises people. In the busy windows, fixed-wing flights to Lukla do not leave from Kathmandu. They leave from Manthali airport in Ramechhap, a four to five hour drive east of Kathmandu, with a pick-up from your hotel at about 1 or 2 in the morning. We describe the windows as roughly 15 March to 15 May and 25 September to 30 November. The dates are set by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, not by us, and they can shift. I have not seen the official dates for 2027, so I cannot promise them, and we will tell you as soon as we know. Helicopters are not part of the diversion and fly Kathmandu to Lukla direct.

On our tickets, a Kathmandu to Lukla flight is about USD 253 each way and Ramechhap to Lukla about USD 208 (see our domestic flights guide). Flights are part of the package price. Weather delays are normal, not rare. Wikipedia says that Lukla Airport has a very short and steep airstrip, and flights run only when the weather permits. So never book an international flight home for the day after your trek ends. Leave at least a spare day. If you would rather avoid the Lukla flight, there is a road-based Everest Base Camp trek of 15 days.

What permits do you need, and how far ahead?

For most routes, the permits are simple, and we buy them. Official fees from our permit table: the Annapurna Conservation Area permit is NPR 3,000 and the TIMS card NPR 2,000. In Everest, the Sagarmatha National Park permit is NPR 3,000, the Khumbu local fee NPR 3,000 and TIMS NPR 2,000, NPR 8,000 in all. Our Everest Base Camp package page lists the Sagarmatha permit, the Khumbu municipality fee and TIMS inside the price. Our Manaslu page lists the Manaslu special permit, the conservation-area permit, ACAP and TIMS inside the price.

Restricted areas are different. Since 31 March 2023, Nepal Tourism Board rules require listed routes (including Manaslu, Tsum, Upper Mustang, Nar Phu and Dolpo) to have a licensed guide and an agency-issued TIMS card. The permit fee for Manaslu is USD 75 per week plus USD 10 a day from December to August, against USD 100 and USD 15 from September to November, so spring is the cheaper side of the fee. The minimum lead time for a restricted-area permit is 48 hours, counted in government working days, so weekends and public holidays do not count. That is the minimum, not a target. Send us your passport details well before the date.

What does it cost, and what is the deposit and rescheduling rule?

Website prices hold for 2027 on everything except Kailash and Tibet, which we will price once our Tibet partners confirm. A 10 per cent deposit holds your dates and the balance is paid in Kathmandu. A balance paid by card carries a 3.5 per cent bank charge, and cash in Kathmandu carries none. We take US dollars in cash or by card, not Nepali rupees from foreign guests.

The deposit is non-refundable. If your plans change, you can reschedule free of charge with at least 72 hours' notice, and for restricted areas with seven days' notice, to any date within one year. If we cannot run your trip, we refund what you paid less taxes, bank and card charges and any money already spent on permits or flights.

Beyond the trek price, plan for your international flights, Kathmandu hotels, travel insurance bought at home with altitude cover and helicopter evacuation, and tips. For country-by-country totals in euros, see Ireland, Italy, Germany and Belgium.

When is spring the wrong choice?

If you want the clearest mountain views, choose November or early October, not spring; the model above shows November as the driest of the months at Lukla, Dingboche and Gorak Shep. If you cannot stand a 1 am start, spring is a poor fit for Everest because of the Ramechhap diversion, though a helicopter on Luxury avoids it. If you need a firm return flight home, spring's flight delays can cost you. If you want to trek in May, accept afternoon cloud and some rain. And if you hate crowds, March and April on the Everest trail will test you.

What should you do first?

Three steps. First, choose the trek and the month; use the table above. Second, tell us your dates and group size on WhatsApp, and we will check the Lukla flight position and the permit timeline for that date. Third, pay the 10 per cent deposit once you are happy, and book your international flights after that.

Notes and sources

Prices, tiers, porter rules, inclusions, deposit and Lukla flight fares: our live package pages and our domestic flights guide, 3 October 2026. Monthly arrivals: Nepal Tourism Board chart as reproduced on Wikipedia, Tourism in Nepal (2024 figures, all international visitors, read from a chart). Weather: Open-Meteo historical archive, ERA5 reanalysis, daily data 2015 to 2024, four points on the Everest trail (Lukla 2,860 m, Namche 3,440 m, Dingboche 4,410 m, Gorak Shep 5,164 m); a model, and it over-counts light rain. Lukla Airport and weather: Wikipedia, Lukla. Manthali windows: our domestic flights guide, citing Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal practice; not confirmed for 2027. Permit fees and the 31 March 2023 rule: Nepal Tourism Board TIMS page and our permit table, which follows the Department of Immigration fee list. Annapurna rain: same Open-Meteo archive at Deurali, 3,174 m (about 20 wet days in March and 26 in April, 2015 to 2024). Booking timeline: our own guidance. I found no source for lodge occupancy.

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.

WhatsApp: +977 9810351300
Email: [email protected]

Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday and third-generation Himalayan guide. TAAN Member #1586.