Adventure
Annapurna vs Everest Base Camp: Which Nepal Trek Is Right for You
Both are legendary. One might break you. An honest comparison of cost, altitude, crowds and reward.
By Camille Laurent · 16 April 2026 · 10 min read
Nepal's two great treks attract a quarter of a million boots a year between them, and choosing wrong means either altitude misery or a trail so busy it feels like a shopping street. Choose honestly.
Everest Base Camp is the harder, higher, more committing trek: twelve to fourteen days, a high point of 5,364 metres, and a genuine risk of altitude sickness that sends a meaningful share of trekkers down early. The reward is the Khumbu — Sherpa villages, monasteries hanging off cliffs, and the great wall of the Himalaya filling every window.
The Annapurna Circuit is more varied and more forgiving: fifteen to twenty days at a gentler profile, crossing the 5,416-metre Thorong La pass but descending every night to sleep low. The landscape shifts from subtropical jungle to Tibetan plateau, and the teahouses are cheaper, quieter and better fed.
The short version: if you have the fitness, the acclimatisation days and the dream of standing under Everest, go Khumbu. If you want a longer, richer, cheaper walk with half the altitude risk, go Annapurna. Either way, budget 25 to 35 euros a day on the trail and take travel insurance that covers helicopter evacuation.
