Annapurna Base Camp Trek — Compare 6 Guided Routes

Every trek on this page ends in the same place: a flat glacial floor at 4,130 metres, ringed by a near-complete circle of peaks, with Annapurna I (8,091 m) at its head and Machhapuchhre — the Fishtail — standing unclimbed above the entrance. What changes between a $91 five-day package and a $2,689 helicopter itinerary is not the destination. It is how fast you get there, how much of the walking you replace with a vehicle, and how much of the daily cost is folded into the booking price.

The route is a corridor, not a loop

Unlike the Annapurna Circuit, which crosses a 5,416 m pass and takes two weeks or more, the Annapurna Base Camp trek runs up a single valley and back down it. The Modi Khola cuts a deep gorge north from the middle hills into the Annapurna Sanctuary, and the trail follows it: terraced farmland and Gurung villages at the bottom, dense oak and rhododendron forest in the middle, then bare moraine and snow at the top. There is one way in and one way out, which is why every operator’s itinerary looks broadly similar and why the differences are all in the pacing.

The gateway village is Chhomrong, at around 2,170 m. Below it the trail is a network of farm paths and jeep roads; above it there is one route, punctuated by the settlements every trekker learns by name — Sinuwa, Bamboo, Dovan, Himalaya, Deurali, Machhapuchhre Base Camp, and finally Annapurna Base Camp itself.

What the day count actually buys you

A five-day trek works because a jeep now runs up the rough road to Siwai or Simrung, cutting out roughly two days of the old approach from Nayapul. You still sleep at base camp. The trade-off is altitude gain: you go from about 1,500 m to 4,130 m in three walking days, which is fast. It suits people who are already fit and have trekked at altitude before.

A seven-day trek is what most Nepali guides suggest for a first Himalayan trip. It adds a night in Ghandruk — the large slate-roofed Gurung village with a direct view of Annapurna South — and spreads the climb over gentler stages. It also leaves a spare margin: if you wake to cloud at base camp, you have not blown the entire trip.

A nine- or ten-day trek adds the Ghorepani–Poon Hill leg before turning into the Sanctuary. Poon Hill (3,210 m) gives you the wide horizon-to-horizon panorama of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri that you cannot see from inside the Sanctuary, where the peaks are so close they fill the sky rather than line it up. It also builds four days of acclimatisation below 3,000 m before you go high, which is why one traveller on the ten-day route reported their guide simply extending the itinerary when altitude symptoms appeared, rather than pushing on.

The helicopter-return package replaces the three-day descent with a twenty-minute flight. It is the only genuinely different product on this page — and worth knowing that Sanctuary helicopter flights are weather-dependent and regularly delayed, so you should keep a buffer day before any onward international flight.

The staircases, not the altitude, are what people remember

Annapurna Base Camp is high, but it is not extreme. At 4,130 m most trekkers feel the thinner air as breathlessness and a mild headache rather than anything worse, and the standard advice applies: climb slowly, drink more than you think you need, and tell your guide early if you feel unwell.

What catches people out is the stone staircases. The climb out of Chhomrong and the ascent to Sinuwa are long flights of hand-laid stone steps, and on the Ghorepani routes the Ulleri staircase runs to several thousand steps in a single morning. There is no scrambling, no rope and no technical ground anywhere on the trail — but there are five to six hours of walking a day for consecutive days, much of it stepping up or stepping down. Our trek difficulty guide breaks down each stage and the training that actually transfers.

Permits, guides and what the rules are now

One permit covers the whole region: the Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) permit, which in 2026 costs NPR 3,000 for foreign nationals — roughly US$22–25 — and NPR 1,000 for SAARC nationals. It covers Annapurna Base Camp, Poon Hill, Mardi Himal and the Circuit alike. The separate TIMS card, still cited by a lot of older blog posts, is reported to no longer be checked at Annapurna checkpoints, though agencies often still issue one.

The bigger change is the guide rule. Since 1 April 2023 the Nepal Tourism Board has required foreign trekkers to be accompanied by a licensed guide, ending unaccompanied independent trekking in the conservation areas; guides must be registered with the Trekking Agencies Association of Nepal. Every operator on this page is organising exactly that, and the permit paperwork is handled for you before you arrive. It is not something you need to solve yourself — but it is why “can I do this alone?” now has a different answer than it did a few years ago.

When to go

October and April are the two months everything else is measured against. October gives the clearest post-monsoon air and the most reliable mountain views, at the cost of being the busiest month on the trail; April brings the rhododendron forests into bloom and warmer nights. November is the driest month of the autumn, and late November is the shoulder-season sweet spot — thinner crowds, still-strong views, but base-camp nights reported down around −10 °C, so your sleeping bag rating matters. Monsoon treks (June to August) do happen and can still deliver clear mornings, but expect erratic weather, cloud, and leeches on the lower forest sections. The month-by-month guide has the full picture, and if you are still weighing this against the Khumbu, the ABC vs Everest Base Camp comparison puts the two side by side.

What is actually included

This is where the listed prices stop being comparable. The $91 five-day package includes the guide, permits, lodging, jeep transfer and even the loan of a down jacket and sleeping bag — but meals are an add-on. The seven-day route includes private transport and lodges but no food at all, which realistically adds $25–35 a day. The nine-day route excludes sleeping bags and poles, which are cheap to rent in Pokhara but easy to forget. The comparison table above sets those inclusions side by side, every tour page lists them line by line, and the cost and permits guide works a realistic all-in budget for a seven-day trek — so you can price each route properly before you book rather than after.