Everest Base Camp takes a fortnight. Mount Batur takes one morning.
How high the trail goes, how fit you need to be for it, what a permit and a porter add to the price, and which weeks the passes are open.
Four treks that settle the shape of a trip: a crater at dawn, a volcano, a glacier, a base camp.
One morning, one long day, or fourteen days above the treeline. What each costs, and what the people who walked it say.
01The dawn startMount Batur Sunrise Trek With Guide and BreakfastUp the crater rim by head torch, breakfast at the top, back down before the heat. The trek almost everyone does first.
02The volcano dayMount Etna: Trek to 3000m with cable car and 4×4Cable car, then a 4x4, then your own legs to 3,000m on a cone that is still venting. Take a fleece; the summit is cold in August.
03The ice dayIce Cave Tour and Glacier HikeCrampons on the glacier tongue, then down into a blue cave underneath it. A winter shape only, and the slots go early.
04The fortnightEverest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysLukla, Namche, Dingboche, base camp and back down. Two weeks of teahouses, and the altitude decides the pace, not you.
In Nepal you choose the route before you choose the dates.
Three ways into the Khumbu and Annapurna valleys, what it costs to join each one, and how many days it takes off the calendar. Teahouse nights, a porter if you want one, and one flight into a hillside runway.
Six countries that carry most trekking calendars.
Teahouse trails under the Khumbu, volcano rims you climb in the dark, terraced valleys walked between homestays, glacier tongues, limestone via ferrata and one flat-topped 5,895m giant. Six places to start, and the best walk in each.
Ice, ash and jungle: on a trek the ground decides more than the mountain.
Crampons on a glacier tongue, a cone that is still warm underfoot, or a canopy trail where the guide carries the machete. Three kinds of trekking day, and the walks that lead each of them.
A morning, a long weekend, or a fortnight above the treeline.
Days are the real constraint on a trek, not fitness. Every guided walk here, grouped by how much of the trip it takes.
Crater rims, gorge walks and glacier tongues you are back from in time for dinner. No kit list beyond boots and a jacket.
- 1Glacier Hike, South Coast and Waterfalls Day Trip
- 21-Day Guided Trek to Lao Chai & Ta Van with Lunchfrom $34
- 3Sapa 1 Day Long Trek: Trek to Hau Thao and Sa Seng Villagesfrom $24
A homestay in a terraced valley, or a hut below a summit you leave for at two in the morning. The cheapest way to sleep on a mountain.
- 1Mt Toubkal Ascent Express Trek 2 Days 1 Nightsfrom $147
- 2Sapa 2 Days 1 Night Overnight At Homestayfrom $89
- 32-Day Jungle Trek with Elephant Farm & Raft Ridefrom $97
Permits, porters and a route profile. Base camps, Kilimanjaro and the Andean passes all live up here, and altitude sets the pace.
- 1Annapurna base camp trek 5 Daysfrom $699
- 2Kathmandu to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) 5-Day Trekfrom $99
- 3Machu Picchu: 5-Day Salkantay Trek with Panoramic Trainfrom $655
The treks more people walk than anything else.
Every trek review →An Italian summit crater, a Balinese cone at first light, a gorge in the heat and a blue cave under an ice cap. These carry more walkers than anything else on the site.
1
Mount Etna: Trek to 3000m with cable car and 4×4
Ride from Rifugio Sapienza to 2800 meters by cable car and 4x4, then walk to 3000 meters with guides such as Antonio, Giuseppe, or Michele. Expect black volcanic sand, lateral craters, a 2002 lava vent, a lava channel, thin air, and changing mountain weather.
From · $65
Read our review →
2
Mount Batur Sunrise Trek With Guide and Breakfast
from $27
3
Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & Guide
from $41
4
Mount Etna: Summit Crater Trek with Cable Car
from $77
5
La Palma: Tajogaite Volcano Guided Trek
from $45
6
Ice Cave Tour and Glacier Hike
from $165
7
Etna: summit craters trekking with volcano guide 3350mt
from $77
8
Samaria Gorge Full-Day Trek, Pickup & Guide
from $37
What a guided trek actually costs.
Every trek on the site, grouped by price. The cheap end is not the easy end: some of the hardest walking here costs less than the taxi from the airport.
Dawn crater climbs, terraced-valley days and jungle walks with a local guide.
Full days on ice, volcano summits, and the two-day treks with a night in a village house.
Permits, porters and a fortnight of teahouses: base camps, Kilimanjaro, the Inca Trail.
- 1Ice Cave Tour and Glacier Hikefrom $165
- 2Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 3Glacier Hike, Waterfalls and Black Sand Beachfrom $186
Three treks people cross the world to walk.
Plenty of mountains have a path up them. Three of them run on permits, porters and a fortnight of your life, and every trekker keeps a list with these on it.
Everest Base Camp
Two flights and a fortnight. The second lands at Lukla on a runway built into a hillside, and from there it is north up the Dudh Koshi to Namche, where everybody stops two nights to let their blood catch up. Base camp itself is a rubble field on the glacier at 5,364m; the view people actually remember is from Kala Patthar, an hour higher, before dawn.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,499 reviews
- 2Everest Base Camp Trek★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 842 reviews
- 3Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotel★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 668 reviews
Kilimanjaro
The highest free-standing mountain on earth, and the only 5,895m summit most walkers will ever stand on, because it is a walk rather than a climb. Routes differ mainly in how many nights they buy you: Marangu takes five, Lemosho seven or eight, and those extra days are the difference between the crater rim and turning back above Barafu.
- 1Kilimanjaro climb by Lemosho Route (7-day)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 651 reviews
- 2Kilimanjaro climb, Machame Route (7-day)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 262 reviews
- 38-Day Small-group Lemosho Kilimanjaro Summit Trekking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 186 reviews
The Inca Trail
Forty-three kilometres, four days, three passes, and a permit capped at 500 people a day including every porter and guide on the mountain. High-season dates go months ahead and the permit carries your name, so it cannot be resold. Salkantay needs no permit and climbs higher; both finish at the same gate above Machu Picchu.
- 14-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with Accommodation★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 432 reviews
- 2Machu Picchu 2-Day Inca Trail with Panoramic Train★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 260 reviews
- 32-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 244 reviews
Four treks with a queue at the trailhead.
Most of this site can be arranged the night before, over dinner, in the town at the bottom. These four run on permit quotas, park calendars and one departure a day, and none of them care when your flight lands.
- 014-Day Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with AccommodationPeru caps the trail at 500 permits a day, porters and guides counted in that number. Dates in the dry season go months ahead, and the permit carries your name.
- 02Kilimanjaro climb by Lemosho Route (7-day)Every climb is a park package bought in advance: gate fees, camping fees and a rescue fee, charged per person per day. Nobody sells you a place at the gate on the morning.
- 033 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaA gorilla permit is a dated document for one hour with one family, and the daily number is fixed by the park. Rwanda and Uganda both run out in the dry months.
- 04Ice Cave Tour and Glacier HikeThe caves are a winter shape. Guides only take people in while the glacier is frozen hard, roughly November to March, and the good slots are gone by autumn.
Monsoon on the Himalayan passes in July, ice caves only in the cold.
The Himalaya does its best work in October and April, and spends the summer under rain. That is not a dead season, it is a different map: terraces are greenest in the wet, equatorial cones are climbable every month of the year, and a glacier cave only exists while the ice is frozen hard.
By country - where the trailhead is
By kind of trek - route, terrain or altitude
From terraces at 1,500m to a crater rim at 5,895m.
Height is what makes a trek hard, not distance. Six rungs of the same ladder, in the order your lungs meet them.
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