When Nepal banned independent trekking on April 1st this year, lovers of solitude and snowy, mountain-teahouse treks were left reeling. Introduced suddenly and without widespread community consultation in Nepal, the new regulations blanket all the country’s national parks and conservation areas, making it now compulsory to walk with a guide. It sounds the death knell for Nepal’s golden era of exploratory mountain wanders.
The new rules effectively outlaw what the Nepali government calls ‘Free Independent Trekkers’: those travelling solo, in pairs, or in small groups without a registered guide. Those who fell into the ‘FIT’ category accounted for about 27 per cent of Nepal’s 171,000 visitors in 2019, and it’s this group that the ban targets, hoping to turn them into guided-group trekkers before the year is out.
POLITICS AT PLAY
It’s no secret that—to boost local employment and revenue, under the guise of increasing trekker safety—vested interests in Nepal’s trekking industry have been angling for guide-only trekking for
