Booking

Every booking starts with an inquiry through the contact form or a direct email to the CEO. Within 4 hours (during Nepal operating hours, 8 AM–8 PM, 7 days a week in trekking season), a real person from the LHJ team replies.

From there: 1) A call or email to confirm the trek, the tier, the dates, and anything specific to you. We verify that your travel insurance covers helicopter evacuation in Nepal this is a hard requirement. 2) Once everything is clear, we send a Stripe invoice for a 25% deposit. The deposit holds your spot and starts the pre-trek communication sequence. 3) The remaining balance is due 14 days before the trek start date. 4) On arrival in Kathmandu, we handle airport pickup in a private vehicle and deliver the LHJ Welcome Kit. The half-day Kathmandu Pre-Trek Altitude Preparation Session happens the day before the trek begins.

There is no booking engine, no automated confirmation email, and no chatbot. The manual process is deliberate it is the only way to know whether we are the right fit for what you are trying to do.

The deposit is 25% of the trek price, paid via Stripe after we have confirmed the trek, the tier, and the dates with you. The remaining 75% is due 14 days before the trek start date.

Refund terms: More than 60 days before departure full refund minus a $150 administrative fee. 60 to 30 days 50% of the deposit is refundable; the rest credits to a future departure within 12 months. Less than 30 days deposit is non-refundable but credits to a future departure within 12 months. Less than 14 days full balance is non-refundable except in cases documented by your travel insurance.

The full cancellation policy is in the booking confirmation email and the Terms page. If your situation is unusual, write to the CEO directly we do not hide behind fine print for a case we can reasonably accommodate.

Yes. Private group departures are included by default on The Journey and The Transformation tiers you choose the dates and walk at your own group's pace with no other trekkers in the group. The maximum group size remains 8 participants (the Small Group Promise).

On The Trail, departures are fixed dates shared with other trekkers (also max 8). If you have your own group of 2 or more and want private dates on The Trail tier, ask us directly in practice, we quote this as a hybrid engagement rather than a Trail booking, because private dates are the defining feature of The Journey.

Groups larger than 8 are not possible on any tier. The cap is operational, not marketing Silent Hiking, genuine guide attention, and the altitude protocol break down in groups of sixteen.

On The Trail (fixed-date departures), no you will typically be joined by other solo travelers and small groups of 2 or 3. The maximum is 8 per departure, and the mix varies by date and season.

On The Journey (private departures), yes you would be the only trekker in your group unless you choose to invite others. Some solo travelers love this (complete privacy, full guide attention, a pace that is entirely yours). Others find the per-person cost higher because the fixed logistical costs (guide, permits, lodges booked-out) are not shared. We are honest about that in the quote.

If you are a solo trekker weighing The Trail vs. The Journey, write to us and we will give you a straight comparison based on your dates and the current The Trail departure schedule.

For a peak-season departure (spring, March to May; autumn, September to November), three to six months ahead is the realistic window. Those are the seasons when lodges fill, and on a private departure we are holding specific lodges on specific nights for your group alone.

But the honest reason to book early has less to do with lodge availability than with your legs. Our baseline training recommendation is three months for a trek like Mardi Himal or Langtang Valley, and six months for Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna Circuit, or Gokyo Lakes. If you book eight weeks out for an EBC departure, the constraint is not our calendar. It is that you arrive undertrained, and undertrained trekkers have a harder time at 5,000m.

Shorter notice is possible. If you are already fit and already own your gear, a five-week booking can work. What we will not do is tell you that a four-week booking is comfortable for a first-time high-altitude trekker when it is not.

Upper Mustang is the one route where the paperwork itself wants more lead time, because it sits inside a restricted area and the permit is arranged in Kathmandu before you travel.

The 25% deposit does two things: it holds your dates, and it starts the pre-trek sequence. That sequence is where most of the work happens.

Pre-trek documentation. We send a medical questionnaire that asks direct questions about cardiovascular history, respiratory conditions, and any previous experience with altitude. This is not a formality. If something in your answers needs a doctor's clearance, we would rather find it now than at 4,500m.

Insurance verification. You send us your policy and we read it. We are checking for helicopter evacuation in Nepal, an altitude ceiling at or above your trek's maximum, coverage of the evacuation cost itself rather than only the hospital treatment afterwards, and trip interruption cover. If the policy falls short, we tell you exactly what is missing. The trek does not start until the coverage is in place.

Gear list and rental guidance. You get the full packing list plus our vetted list of Kathmandu rental shops with rough prices, so you are not buying a $600 insulated jacket for one trip.

Flights and arrival. We confirm your arrival details for the airport pickup and check that your outbound flight leaves at least two days after the scheduled trek end date.

Balance. The remaining 75% is due 14 days before the start date.

Throughout, you are talking to a person rather than a portal. Questions in between get answered.

Usually, yes. A date change is not the same thing as a cancellation, and we do not treat it as one.

What governs it is the same timeline as the cancellation policy. More than 60 days out, moving dates is generally straightforward. Between 60 and 30 days it depends on whether we can release the lodges we are holding and whether your new dates fall in a season we actually operate that route. Inside 30 days, your deposit credits to a future departure within 12 months, which in practice is how most late date changes get handled.

Two things genuinely constrain us. On a private departure we have committed specific lodges on specific nights, and high-season lodges are not always releasable at short notice. And some routes are seasonal in a hard way: Thorong La and Larkya La close under snow, so a December date change on an Annapurna Circuit booking may mean a different trek rather than just a different week.

Write to the CEO with the dates you are considering before you commit to anything. Any real cost gets quoted to you before it is charged, not after.

Most nationalities can get a tourist visa on arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. The fees are $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30 days, and $125 for 90 days, paid at the airport.

Match the visa length to your whole trip rather than to the trek. A 12-day trek plus your arrival day, the Kathmandu Pre-Trek Session, and the two buffer days we ask you to leave after the trek ends can push a "12-day trek" well past 15 days in the country. The 30-day visa is the safer default for most trekkers, and the difference is $20.

A few nationalities are not eligible for visa on arrival and must apply in advance at a Nepali embassy or consulate. Check your own passport's status before you book flights rather than after.

Bring a passport with at least six months of validity remaining and a passport photo. There are photo booths at the airport, but the queue at 11 PM after a long-haul flight is not where you want to discover you need one.

Nepal's immigration rules and fees do change. Check the current position with Nepal's Department of Immigration before you travel, and if anything has moved we will flag it during the pre-trek documentation.

No. Book flights after we have confirmed your trek, your tier, and your dates in writing.

When you do book, two rules matter. Arrive in Kathmandu at least one full day before the trek start date, because the half-day Kathmandu Pre-Trek Altitude Preparation Session happens the day before the trek begins and it is not optional. And leave at least two buffer days between the scheduled trek end date and your outbound international flight.

The buffer days exist because of Lukla. The Tenzing-Hillary airport has one of the highest weather-cancellation rates of any scheduled airport in the world, and in high season a 48-hour delay is an ordinary event rather than a disaster. Trekkers who book a tight outbound connection are the ones who end up paying for an unplanned helicopter flight to Kathmandu, or missing the flight entirely.

This matters most on Everest-region treks. On routes that do not depend on a mountain airstrip the risk is lower, but road delays in Nepal are real too, and two buffer days are cheap insurance either way.

A person. Every inquiry goes to the LHJ team and gets a reply from a human within about 4 hours during Nepal operating hours, 8 AM to 8 PM, seven days a week in trekking season.

There is no booking engine, no automated confirmation sequence, and no chatbot on this site. That is a deliberate choice and it has a cost: you cannot book a trek at 2 AM without talking to anyone. The trade is that by the time you pay a deposit, someone at LHJ has actually assessed whether this trek is right for you, and you have had the chance to decide whether we are the right operator for you.

We are a six-person team. The CEO and the CSO both publish their email addresses on the contact page, and either will get on a Zoom call with you before you book.

On any question involving your medical history, your fitness baseline, or whether a specific trek is a reasonable fit, ask for the CEO directly. He has twenty years inside Nepal's trekking industry, and he will give you a straight answer, including "not this trek, not this year" when that is the honest one.