Manaslu Circuit Trek

The Manaslu Circuit is a long-distance teahouse trek that walks all the way around Manaslu, 8,163 m, the eighth-highest mountain on earth, in the Gorkha district of central Nepal. You start low in the sub-tropical Budhi Gandaki gorge, climb steadily north through Gurung and then Tibetan villages, cross the Larkya La pass at 5,106 m (16,752 ft), and drop down the far side into the head of the Marsyangdi valley at Bimthang. Most people walk 155–180 km of it over 10 to 16 days, depending on how far up the valley the jeep road has got. Unlike the Annapurna Circuit, almost none of that can be driven.

That change of world is the point of the trek. On day three you are walking through rice terraces and waterfalls with leeches on the path in the wrong season, on a trail cut into the side of a gorge. On day ten you are above every tree in Nepal, on frozen moraine, with prayer flags cracking in a wind coming off the Tibetan border, which is close enough to walk to from Samdo. Very few walks anywhere give you two climate zones and a 5,000-metre pass on the same trip, in teahouses, with a bed and a hot meal at the end of each day.

We run it as a 14-day trip from Kathmandu back to Kathmandu, ten days walking, an acclimatisation day at Samagaun under the north face, and buffer time built in at the end for the long drive out. Small groups, licensed local guides, all three permits filed for you in Kathmandu, and beds held at Dharamsala, where there are only a few dozen of them. Bookings are open for 2026 and 2027.

Be honest with yourself about three things: time, altitude and comfort. Everything else about this trek is manageable for a reasonably fit hill-walker, and the third one is the one people underestimate: this is a plainer trek than the Annapurna Circuit, and that is most of why it is a better one.

If you are unsure which side of that line you fall on, read the difficulty and fitness guide (it has an honest UK hillwalking benchmark rather than a marketing grade) and the Larkya La crossing guide, which explains what the pass day actually asks of you.

We are 6K Nepal Treks, a Nepal-registered operator based in Pokhara. We are not an agency that sells your trek on to somebody else: the guide who answers your WhatsApp message is from the team that walks with you over the pass.

The part that matters most on this particular trek is the last one. The Manaslu Circuit is safe right up until the weather turns on pass day, and then the only thing between a group and a serious problem is a guide who is willing to lose a day. That decision costs more here than it does on Annapurna, because there is no road to bail out to and Dharamsala is not a comfortable place to sit and wait. Ours make it anyway. There is a review further down this page from a trekker whose guide did exactly that.

This is the single biggest practical difference between Manaslu and every other teahouse trek in Nepal, and it is worth understanding before you compare prices. The Nepali government treats the upper Budhi Gandaki as a restricted area because it sits against the Tibetan border. Three rules follow from that, and none of them can be worked around.

You need three permits in total: the Manaslu Restricted Area Permit (RAP), which is priced per week and costs more in the autumn than the rest of the year; the Manaslu Conservation Area Permit (MCAP) for the main valley; and the Annapurna Conservation Area Permit (ACAP), because once you are over Larkya La and heading for Dharapani you are in the Annapurna area. Adding the Tsum Valley adds a fourth. All of them are included in our price and all of them are our job, not yours. You bring a passport, a visa and passport photographs.

Fourteen days is the sweet spot. It gives you the full arc of the trek, gorge, high valley, pass, forest, with a proper acclimatisation day at Samagaun and a spare day at the end for the long drive back from Dharapani, which is a rough road that loses hours to weather often enough that you should plan for it rather than hope.

The full write-up, with distances, ascent and descent for every day and the alternatives at each junction, is on the 14-day itinerary page. The route map and altitude profile shows the same thing as a picture.

Our guided 14-day Manaslu Circuit starts at £1,295 per person, based on two trekkers sharing. That price is all-inclusive on the trail: guide, porter, all three permits, every teahouse night and three meals a day while you are walking. There is no UK agency margin on top of it because there is no UK agency.

It is worth knowing why Manaslu costs more than Annapurna, because a suspiciously cheap Manaslu quote usually means something has been left out. The restricted-area permit alone runs to roughly £75 to £110 per person depending on the season, the guide is a legal requirement rather than an option you could decline, and the jeep in and out is longer and rougher than anything on the Annapurna side.

Per-person prices fall as the group grows, because a guide and a porter are fixed costs that get split more ways. There is no solo rate on this trek, because there is no solo permit. We quote your exact figure in writing before you pay anything. Tell us your group size and dates and it comes back the same day.

Reviews of Rohit and the 6K guiding team, from Google. The trek is named as the reviewer wrote it.

We run the Manaslu Circuit as a private trip on any date you like in the two good seasons, for two trekkers or more. Two is the floor everywhere in this restricted area, so if you are travelling on your own, say so and we will put you on a date where somebody else is already going. Group departures run to a maximum of 12 so that one guide and one assistant can actually keep eyes on everybody on pass day.

Two practical notes on timing. October is the busiest month on the circuit, and although Manaslu is quiet by Nepali standards, Dharamsala has only a few dozen beds and they are the constraint on the whole route; if you are walking in the second half of October we hold those well ahead. And if you are tied to UK school holidays, the October half-term lands inside the best autumn weather but needs booking early, while Easter sits in a good spring window with far fewer people on the trail, at the cost of more old snow on the pass. The month-by-month detail is in the best time to trek guide.

Send us your dates and group size and we will come back the same day with your exact price in writing, the itinerary length that fits your leave, and an honest view of whether the month you are looking at works on the pass. Nothing is charged until you are happy with the plan.

Fourteen days is our standard, and it suits most people. It is not the only shape this trek comes in. Same route, same guiding team, same Larkya La: give the middle of the trek two extra days at Samagaun for the side trips and the base camp, or add the hidden valley before you start the circuit.

Every one of these crosses Larkya La at 5,106 m. If you are not sure which length your fitness and altitude history point to, start with the difficulty and fitness guide, and the cost breakdown shows what changes as the days go up.