Nepal

If you love mountains, don’t miss Nepal. The Himalayas is the most awe-inspiring place we’ve ever visited, full of snow-topped peaks and  moon-like landscape. We were immersed in this scenery during an epic trek to Everest Base Camp, which was perhaps our most memorable and challenging travel experience to date.  Dealing with altitude sickness, never-ending uphill climbs, freezing temperatures and carrying our own packs made the moment we arrived at Base Camp all the more incredible. We left our home in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and flew to Kathmandu in May 2017. Read more about our epic trek, including the route, costs and challenges involved in these posts.

As the year draws to a close and we prepare to leave for South America in January, it’s time to take a look at our 2017 travel roundup. I feel incredibly blessed to have enjoyed yet another year full of new experiences, adventures and travel. In 2017, we managed to live in Thailand, trek to Everest Base Camp, explore Sri Lanka and road-trip around Europe. We got married, went vegan, continued to earn a living remotely and, of course, blogged about it all.
Since we left the UK in 2013, Andrew and I have stayed in hundreds of hostels, hotels, guesthouses, apartments and Airbnb places. While some have been incredible, like our five-star honeymoon suite in Thailand, we’ve also stayed in some real dives and battled with bedbugs more than once. Here’s a look at five of the most unusual travel stays we’ve experienced to date, from a longhouse in Malaysia to a lavish London pig sit.
How much does it cost to go to Everest Base Camp? Sure, trekking to the highest mountain in the world doesn’t come cheap, but if you hike independently and without a porter like we did, it doesn’t have to break the bank either. From $2 per night accommodation to £100 hiking shoes, here’s our two-week Everest Base Camp trek cost breakdown.
Are you planning to take on Nepal’s most famous trek to see the world’s mightiest mountain? Then trust me, you’re in for one hell of an adventure. Our journey to Everest Base Camp turned out to be one of our most incredible, challenging travel experiences to date. Before you begin, check out this Everest Base Camp trek itinerary we used during our epic hike.
There are some trips that work best as unplanned, spontaneous adventures, but trekking to Everest Base Camp isn’t one of them. We did some serious planning for our epic hike and spent hours researching gear, routes and costs before we even set foot in Nepal. As we wanted to trek independently without a porter, we knew we’d have to carry every item on our backs, each painful step of the way. So what did we take with us? Here’s a look at our Everest Base Camp Packing list.
The early morning air was frigid and so thin I struggled to catch my breath. My legs felt coated in molten lead as I hauled them in slow motion up the boulder-strewn incline. Sobs caught in my throat and my head throbbed in time to my heartbeat. I knew that the only way to cure my altitude sickness was to descend, yet I was mesmerised by the view. Above me, sculpted snow-topped mountains stood against a crisp blue sky, among them, the tallest peak in the world: Everest.

So, it happened. This week we said a very sad goodbye to our life in Chiang Mai. Two days and three delayed flights later we arrived in Nepal’s dusty, chaotic capital city, Kathmandu. Even though our lives are more transient than the average person’s, I still find change hard, especially when I’m moving on from a place that I love. So, on the first night in this strange new city, I’m not ashamed to admit that I shed a few homesick tears for Chiang Mai.