How to hire a guide in Nepal???

If you are making plan to visit Nepal for your adventure and luxury trip you need to know about guiding service in Nepal. We have many Trekking and tour agency in Nepal and thousands of trekking guide as well. Before the departure your trip you need to know your guide. You will be spending days or weeks with this person and potentially paying them a lot of money. Make sure you’ve got the right guide for your journey! Shikhar Adventure provide the best government authorize licensed holder guide for your secure and memorable trip. Here is the some question you need to ask with agency when you booked the guide.

1. Are they licensed and insured?

We have lots of guide in country and some of them independent guides and agency guides. The guide will get license form Nepal academy of tourism and hotel management (NATHM). This is a small hurdle that shows your guide is a professional and not simply someone making extra cash on the side. In addition to credibility, this information is valuable in the unlikely event you run into any problems on the trek. Knowing your guide is on the radar of local authorities and has insurance will give you peace of mind.

2. How experienced is this guide?

Many guides start out as porters, learn the trail, improve their language & client-facing skills, and then begin leading their own treks. Knowing how many times they’ve guided a trek helps in two regards – confidence and connections.You want a guide confident with the trail, direction, distances, and most importantly safety. An inexperienced guide may be unable to spot AMS in their clients, spot weather changes, or estimate distances. There are few things worse than a guide that hesitates or is unsure of the correct response to a given situation. An experienced guide brings this confidence to the trek and can be the leader you need.

3. Can we communicate in own language?

It seems obvious, but too often people trek with guides and lack the language skills to communicate with each other. Sometimes the agency or guide oversell their ability to speak a language or maybe you’ve been tempted by a low price. Be warned, this puts a serious cap on your ability to maximize value from your experience. Guides share knowledge of the land, people, and culture you’ll experience during your trek – don’t miss out on this!

Many professional guides go to great lengths to learn languages. The professional guide not only spoke very high level English but also intermediate German, Spanish, and even a bit of Japanese and many more, unfortunately, the language skills typically fall on the guide but they certainly don’t have to. Learn some words and phrases in their language and force yourself to use them on the trek. You’ll improve your communication & win the respect of your guide. If you want own language guide we will provide upon your request.

4. How many people in the trek?

Treks are fun with other people –so other people will be joining your adventure in your interest. If you’ve made a trek booking through agency you can ask how many people have joining with your group.If you join the group, the cost of a guide is shared between the trekkers so adding additional trekkers should make the per/trekker price lower. Shikhar adventure make the group size as per your request. We are always highly appreciate your suggestion.

5. What do they do in the off season?

This question opens the conversation about their life outside of being a guide. We have just two tourist season in Nepal, spring and autumn, at that time all the guide busy in trekking and rest of the time they will spend with family. But some guide they work in other fiend also for part time. Also, this provides insight into whether or not your guide can hold a conversation, particularly about something they know a lot about – themselves. If you’re able to have a productive back-and-forth about their life, it’s likely you’ll have no problem chatting on the trail.

6. As a women, Is it safe to trek alone in Nepal with a guide?

Many women come to trekking in Nepal both in solo and group. Trekking in the night it is important that you feel comfortable with your guide. The majority of guide are male. However some agencies have Female guide and porter that you might want consider if you are not comfortable with a male guide. However female guide are much more expensive then male guide but we can provide upon your request. If you booked the guide through the agency they will provide the best government authorize licensed holder guide and it will be 100% safe to travel with. When you booked your tour please ask the guide they are licensed or not.

7. Do I need guide and porter for trekking?

Nepal is the best destination for adventure lovers so, if you are planning to go trekking in mountain we suggest you to book the guide and porter. A guide speak good English and tell you about the place, culture, people and arrange the right accommodation for you. In the mountain it will be very difficult to carry your backpack yourself so, we will recommend to hire the local porter to carry your language and other equipment. Most of the porter they carry two bag but not more than 25 kg. If you have some extra language, which is not necessary for trekking you can store in city where you stayed before trekking. It will be free storage in your hotel.