Solo Tourist banned in Nepal

Solo tourists banned in Nepal for trek. It will be implemented from the date April 1, 2023.  Solo trekking will no longer be allowed in Nepal’s national parks and conservation areas. The Nepal tourism board announced the decision on 03 March 2023. The decision is made by consulting the various tourism stakeholders of the nations. According to the Boards director Mani R Lamichane, the main aim of the decision is to make Trekking in Nepal safer. He also said that it creates more job opportunities in the county.

The reason behind Solo Tourist banned in Nepal

According to the board, there are many tourists lost and missing in the Fiscal year 2019-20.  In 2019-20 around 390 tourists were lost or missing this is recorded in the data provided by the board. The majority of tourists who were lost or missing were solo and Fit. Fit (free independent travelers) and solo trekkers do not have professional guides which bring this problem. If you look at the earlier data also, we can see the lost and missing are Solo trekkers and Fit.

TAAN has been pushing for this ban on solo trekking for a long time. TAAN is facing the problem of two to four cases of solo trekkers getting involved in deadly incidents. Taking a trained trekking guide makes safer travel and stay away from possible dangers too.

Many popular trails are in remote destinations where human settlements are sparse and cellular connectivity unreliable. There will be sudden weather change that brings natural disasters such as landslides which are unfamiliar for solo trekkers. When Trekkers go missing then there will be a big challenge for authorities to conduct search and rescue operations.

Due to this lost and missing case, Nepal is taken as Unsafe Destination which is a bad thing for the Country’s economy and development. Many problems, this is one of the reasons for the Implementation of banned solo trekkers.

Benefits of Solo Tourist banned in Nepal

There are many Benefits of Solo tourists being banned in Nepal, if we can do it properly. The first one is the new job opportunity for many local guides. In 2019-20 46000 were solo trekkers among a total of 171000 trekkers. We can imagine from here how many local people can get a job because taking a guide is mandatory now. There is always an issue of not getting enough work for a guide which can be solved easily by this step from the tourism board of Nepal.

Process of Hire a trekking guide in Nepal

It is clear from the Nepal tourism board that solo and fit need to hire guides through a Government-authorized Trekking company. Trekkers are allowed to choose the trekking agencies of their choice but they have to make sure that the agency has authority to operate in Nepal. You can check the database of the Nepal tourism board where you can see the list of registered trekking agencies.

The minimum pay for a guide is us$17 per day. The cost differs from Annapurna trekking to Everest trekking to Kanchenjunga trekking and Dolpa. Guide costs can go up based on the guide’s experience, language, and difficulty of the trekking route. You can find online the Best trekking company in Nepal.

Trekkers can go solo in these places

After the new rule bars solo trekking in national parks and conservation area, there is still plenty of places where solo trekkers can go. The Pikey Peak trek in the lower parts of the Everest region can be visited. It is increasingly popular in the last few years. This trek has an outstanding view of mountains including Everest. We can do this trek within a week’s time. Trek to Melamchi and Panchpokhari are other options we can go solo. You can also go to Pokhara which is the tourist hub and you don’t need any company or guide to visit Pokhara. Just take Kathmandu to Pokhara Tourist bus or Take a flight and enjoy your stay.

We can also do Nagarkot and Champadevi hikes. There are also possibilities to go to Dhulikhel and Nagarkot without any difficulties. We can also do Everest base camp helicopter tour solo too. We can also do other heli tours in Nepal without any guide.