A Taste of Nepal Tour

It's our second time trekking with responsible Adventure. Trekking in Nepal and especially Everest base camp was an awesome experience. Raj and his team took really good care of us. they prepared special meals and drinks (every morning) that could help us with acclimatization. They even went extra mile for us - one of the porters even offered us his own water to drink and his warm down gloves when our water froze and when our gloves weren't sufficient for us in the cold. Though there are cheaper options, i honestly feel that it is worth paying a little more for such wonderful service. Especially in the mountains, it is important to have a company that cares for you, being safe and reliable.

"I've gone trekking with Raj and Responsible Adventures a couple of times now, but this was a special one - this is my first camping trek in the Himalaya, and more importantly, we traveled to Chandra's home - a remote village called Majkharka in the Solu district - to attend his traditional wedding ceremony. Chandra is a dear friend of mine and also my guide when I went on the Manaslu Base Camp and Langtang/Gosaikunda treks, so it was a real honour and pleasure to be invited to an event so important to him. Responsible Adventures organised the logistics and made all the arrangements for this trip so that us city-dwellers could be left free to savour this cultural experience - from the thumping 4WD off-road journey to housing us in very spacious tents to custom meals (including my favourite freshly ground and brewed morning coffee). Raj and his crew (shoutout to the 2 Dils and Sundar) clearly outdid themselves again. I had initially worried that our presence would lead to too much unnecessary spectacle and negatively influence proceedings, but thankfully that was kept to a minimum. I attribute that mostly to Chandra and his fellow villagers - while they were extremely welcoming and hospitable (including plying us with copious amount of moonshine "chang", a fermented millet alcohol, and "raksi", a distilled rice/millet wine), they seemed more intent on making sure that the ceremonial proceedings were done right and all their guests from near and far well taken care of and enjoyed themselves. It also helped that the 4 of us foreigners were really sporting and keen to immerse ourselves in the experience! Great times with Responsible Adventures once again and looking forward to future trips with them!"

My first trip with Raj was around the Annapurna region. Raj and his staff were incredible, and everything was planned out to perfection. the meals cooked were excellent and very varied. There was a mix of asian and western food, and both were done well. It is so nice to have a guide who can speak perfect english and has a real grasp of western culture, through this he was able to really articulate key cultural differences between us and the people we were seeing. It was also evident that he was working hard to reduce the impact that we were having on the surrounding country. 2 years after our first trip to Annapurna my father and I returned for another trip with Raj, this time for everest basecamp. The service and care again were excellent, and I could tell that Raj had experimented with different foods and these were added to the menu. Raj worked well to keep us motivated and at a steady pace to ensure we made it to our destination, even through the more challenging wet season. I would definitely recommend Raj and responsible adventures, a truly professional and personal service.

Raj set the bar as far a trip planning, i.e., accommodations, restaurants, tours. Guides were very proficient. If a change needed to made, it was smoothly done. The bus driver to Mt. Everest was cautious yet proficient in his driving. I would highly recommend this company. If you have difficulty walking, please bring a cane with a rubber tip. You will need it, as there are many steps on some of the sites.

Great trip. Awesome guide and buddy in Raj. His team were superb including the cooks drivers, yak drivers and local guide Brilliantly well-organised and flexible enough to adjust when we wanted to do or add something different

When incidents happen, a situation occurs or someone gets sick or conditions get uncomfortable the mark of a good guide becomes apparent. How adaptable is the guide, how prepared, how solution-oriented? Experience certainly but also the priorities, whether the client's interest is truly the top consideration. In the extremely competitive Nepali trekking industry service standards are wide-ranging - which is less of a concern than safety standards. Except that service and safety are often tightly linked in Himalayan trekking in my opinion where weather changes in a blink of an eye and is never reliably predictable. Pre-trek advice counts as much as service provided during the trek. With Responsible Adventures and Raj, our questions were always promptly answered in great detail. Pre-trek advice on gear was particularly prescient when clear skies turned foul on the last 3 days - in the middle of dry season. During the trek, I consistently felt that we were in good hands, from the experiences shared and awesome food prepared to the way our itinerary was revised day to day taking into account both the weather changes and the physical condition of each person in the group. Great attention was paid to preparation and end to end service delivery from the time we were picked up at Kathmandu airport to the send-off at the same place. The experience as a whole was more than enjoyable - it was a fabulous holiday with beautiful scenery, newly made friends, altitude and weather challenges surmounted and overall, a fantastic trek.

Raj is an amazing tour leader which helped us even to rent sleeping bags. He and his whole team made sure that we receive only the best of our trek. Highly recommended!!

If you are travelling to the Everest/Nepal region and are looking for a guide or trekking company, I would highly recommend Responsible Adventures. They were very professional, spoke immaculate English and were knowledgeable in the area and we had a great trek up to Base Camp with them. Looking around on the internet before we left they seemed to be a little more expensive than some of the other companies but we were very impressed with the way the leader Raj corresponded with us and was able to customize a schedule that suited our needs. The extra money was worth it if for no other reason than that we had our own chef who overlooked all the meals prepared for us (sometimes having to take control of bad hygienic situations so our health would not be compromised��_what price do you put on your health?). We crossed paths with a number of different groups on the way and were sometimes appalled at the low level of English spoken by the guides that were running the show. In fact we had a number of outsiders comment on the level of service that we were receiving compared to what they were getting. Definitely worth the extra money, the small things added up to a much better overall experience. Safe to say it was one of the most memorable experiences of our lives, the region is just spectacular! The trek was a lot harder than we originally anticipated but we were a group with no previous trekking experience so were not really sure what we were in for. Our trek leader Raj was with us from the moment we arrived at Kathmandu airport until we caught our plane home, which was actually longer than he was meant to stay with us. It was great having him there for the extra days especially beforehand as he took us to all the right places to buy or rent the necessary gear for the trek. Looking back, had we not spent those extra days in Kathmandu we would have been severely under-prepared. He also took us out to a lot of the local places and gave us a taste of authentic Nepalese life but we were staying in 5 star hotels in Kathmandu so we were able to escape the bustle and dust when we had had enough, which was important. Most important items were a hired sleeping bag that was a saving grace against extreme temperatures and a camel pack for water so you don�۪t have to keep stopping to re-hydrate. I would go back to the region in the future, perhaps the Annapurna trek next time and I believe Responsible Adventures do that trek, so for me it�۪s a no brainer to choose them again. We all would consider Raj as a friend now and certainly someone who you would trust with your life as that�۪s what you are doing.

I first heard about Raj and Responsible Adventures through a friend of a friend (Matthew). I had been planning on trekking in Nepal but had little to no success in finding a guide. Other Friends had recommended different companies or contacts of friends that they knew in Nepal who recommended other companies and all of them ended up not really fitting what I was looking for. Matthew reached out to me and had nothing but praise for Raj. He had trekked with Raj about a year ago and highly recommended him. I was worried because it was so last minute, in fact, it was three days before I was to leave for Nepal. Matthew assured me that Raj would point me in the right direction and take care of me the best he could. He also told me that Raj was very efficient in responding in a timely manner. He also explained that he had trekked several times prior to being exposed to Responsible Adventures and that a trek with Raj and his team was unlike any other trekking experience. I reached out to Raj and just as my friend had said, he replied very quickly. What I noticed immediately was his candid manner in which he explained that it was very late for me to be booking with him and that it was high season and things might be difficult. He made every effort to accommodate me and ended up being my personal guide for the week. I was especially grateful that he was willing to customize and improvise the details in order to help me have the most memorable experience. Raj was thorough and exact in his planning and communicated extensively via email in order to make sure that I had all the information I needed to move forward with the trek. He helped me with the visa process and procuring domestic flights within Nepal as well as accommodations for hotels. This was a huge burden lifted for me as I had waited until the last minute to make plans, and it was high season. As such, I was worried I wouldn�۪t find appropriate accommodations. Raj made it all happen for me! My actual trekking experience with Raj was just delightful! He is knowledgeable and shared with me the history of his beloved country. He was also careful and capable, witty (made me laugh out loud all day long), conscientious and has trekked long enough now (30 years) to know all the owners of the tea/guesthouses. We got special treatment because of his good relations with these owners. I would absolutely recommend Raj and his company for anyone seeking a unique and very memorable Nepal trekking experience.

Having just returned from a month in Nepal, I am reflecting on just how spectacular our trip on the Annapurna Circuit (Ghorepani-Poon Hill trek). The first half of the trip was with the entire family (my wife, our 8-year old daughter and our 6-year old son). Admittedly, my wife and I were a bit nervous about how our kids would fare with the long days of trekking. To our delight, Raj and his team crafted an absolutely ideal experience to meet the unique needs of our family. They had arranged to bring along two large baskets which were rigged to accommodate our kids to sit in them when they got tired of walking! It was perfect. We thought our daughter would have used the basket much more, but we were so pleased and proud that she got into a groove and really didn�۪t use the basket much at all for the entire trek. She pushed herself and learned a few things about what she�۪s capable of - a valuable lesson, to be sure. Another great benefit of doing a family trek is just the sheer mount of quality time together in the mountains / out in nature. Playing games as you trek, chatting away...we found our kids opened up to us and we were able to really connect with them - so,etching that is difficult to do during the breakneck pace of our everyday lives. I would imagine doing a trek with older kids / early teenagers would be a great way to connect with those sometimes hard-to-reach pre-teens in those ever important adolescent and early adult years. No phones, minimal internet, mountains, great food, and top notch family fun. The Responsible Adventures crew went above and beyond in other ways as well. Raj and the team provided a wellness angle that we didn�۪t expect and were ecstatic about. We were treated to a number of gourmet meals - prepared by our very own, specially trained trekking chef - all of which inlcuded locally sourced fruits and vegetables, minerals and superfoods rich in antioxidants. The fresh local organic coffee from a French Press was a hit. We even had sushi, tempura, and an incredible Thai green curry with Himalayan mushrooms, chayote, goji berries, and other delectable treats. We were the envy of all other trekkers in the guest houses! Raj is knowledgeable, safety conscious, passionate, professional in every way, and was always thinking several steps ahead to ensure my family and I had the best possible experience. Finally, and perhaps one of the things that most people take for granted, Raj�۪s English is impeccable. Being able to speak articulately to us about history, religion, culture, and our natural surroundings created an infinitely richer experience for the family. In short, I would not hesitate to recommend Responsible Adventures to anyone looking for something above and beyond your average Nepal trekking trip. In fact, I�۪m already planning another trip back next year! There are loads of cheap, ���quick and dirty�۝ trekking ���companies�۪ that can take you out to the mountains; never has the adage ���you get what you pay for�۝ been more true. Whatever the slight premium you pay to go with Responsible Adventures, it is well worth it. Thanks, Raj and the RA Team!