Accommodation on Everest Base Camp Trek: Teahouses & Luxury Lodges

By the time I trekked Everest Base Camp, I was familiar with the typical accommodation on the trekking routes in Nepal: mostly teahouses and a few luxury lodges.

The accommodation on Everest Base Camp Trek is similar: the teahouses have basic rooms to sleep, and while some rooms have attached toilets, most are just simple rooms and there is a shared toilet on each floor.

In each teahouse there is a dining hall where they serve the meals. There is also a stove that they light in the dining halls in the evenings, and it is the warmest place to be as there is no heating in any other rooms.

I went trekking EBC in the peak autumn season and everyone kept telling me that I should pre-book the accommodation as they’ll all be fully booked. I have always trekked solo without pre-booking accommodation, so I wanted to test out how it is on the EBC trek.

I can say that I had no problem booking a room on the spot as there are many teahouses in most villages. It can be more challenging in higher altitude (Lobuche, Gorakshep) but it was fine for me to book on the spot too.

Everest Base Camp Trek Accommodation

The accommodation on the Everest Base Camp trek is in traditional teahouses. In a few villages, there are luxury lodges but usually, one luxury lodge per village.

The teahouses are all very similar and offer pretty much the same: basic room to sleep, dining hall for food and warming up. In all teahouses, there is a separate hot shower. Wifi and charging is free up until Dingboche, and from Dingboche up you have to pay extra for them.

Everest Base Camp Teahouses

The teahouses are basic accommodation, and they have the necessities you need during the trek.

The rooms are mostly twin rooms, accommodating 2 people from each group. You don’t have to share a room with strangers. I was trekking solo and I always had a room to myself. Sometimes it was a single room, other times it was a twin room, but I didn’t have to share it with someone random.

The teahouses also have dining halls where you have all your meals. Usually, you have breakfast and dinner in the teahouse where you sleep. You have lunch during the day while you trek from one place to the next.

The price for a room is Rs. 500-1,000 (USD 3-7) per night for rooms without attached toilet. I paid Rs. 500 (USD 3) up until Dingboche, and then from Dingboche up, it cost Rs. 1,000 (USD 7) per night.

The rooms with attached toilet cost Rs. 1,500-3,000 (USD 10-21). They are totally worth it, and if I went again, I would book those all the way. The shared toilets got dirty, and the more tired I was, the less I felt I have the capacity to deal with dirty toilets.

Everest Base Camp Luxury Lodges

If you are looking for some more comfort than the general teahouses, there is some good news. In lower altitude of the Everest Base Camp Trek, there is one luxury lodge in each village.

The Mountain Lodges of Nepal runs luxury lodges in remote parts pf Nepal, and they have lodges in Lukla, Phakding, Monjo, Namche Bazaar and Deboche.

The lodges are honestly so nice! The interior and design is so beautiful for their lodges. Plus, the rooms have ensuite bathrooms, and they have heated blankets. There is even a spa at the lodge in Namche Bazaar, which is great as you spend 2 nights in Namche Bazaar to acclimatize.

The luxury treks run by trekking agencies accommodate trekkers at the Mountain Lodges of Nepal. If you are trekking without a trekking agency/guide, you can contact the lodge in advance to book your spot, however, in my opinion, they likely have available rooms even if you just turn up without prior reservation.

Wifi and Internet Access

The wifi and internet access is really good in the lower altitude of the trek, and access becomes more challenging in higher altitudes.

In low altitudes (Lukla, Phakding, Namche Bazaar, Tengboche), there is free wifi in teahouses. Plus, Nepali SIM cards also have network, so you can also use mobile data.

There is also free charging in low altitudes. There is a plug in each room, so you can charge phones and power banks for free.

When you are getting a SIM card for your holiday in Nepal, I recommend getting the one by Nepal Telecom (Namaste), and not NCell. Nepal Telecom has a better coverage in the mountainous region, including Everest Base Camp.

With Nepal Telecom, you still have network in Dingboche. While, NCell users don’t have network in Dingboche. So, if you have an NCell SIM, you’ll have to pay for wifi from Dingboche onwards.

Once you get to the two highest villages on the trek (Lobuche, Gorakshep), none of the SIM have network anymore. To connect to the internet, you have to get wifi cards.

The wifi cards are available at every teahouse and works like a scratch card. You scratch off the card to see the code, then use the code to connect to the wifi in the teahouse. The cards only work if you are at the teahouse close to the wifi network.

I decided to buy the wifi cards in Lobuche and Gorakshep as I was trekking solo and I like to update my family once a day. The wifi cards have some limitations as sometimes they only worked in the dining hall of the teahouse, sometimes they also worked in my room.

The wifi cards cost Rs. 1,200 (USD 8) for a 24-hour card, and Rs. 1,500 (USD 10) for a 48-hour card. I spent more in high altitude as I also bought the wifi cards. Plus, once I started using the wifi cards, it used up a lot of my phone’s battery, and then I also had to pay for charging my phone and power bank.

Feeling Cold

During my trek in November, I kept checking the temperature in every village. During the day, the temperature was really good: it was sunny from 8:30 am onwards until around 3 pm in the afternoon. Once the sun goes down in the afternoon, it starts to get cold.

The coldest times are at night when you are at the teahouse. Usually, there is a stove in the teahouse dining hall and it’s the only place where you can warm up. The other rooms are not heated in any way, and it feels the coldest when you go to sleep.

If you have a porter during your trek then it is worth bringing a sleeping bag to keep you warm at night.

I trekked without a porter, and to keep my backpack light, I only brought a sleeping bag liner. I never take a sleeping bag with me on my treks in Nepal, and found that a sleeping bag liner plus the blankets at the teahouse are good enough to keep me warm.

After I completed the Everest Base Camp trek, looking back, if I went again, I would hire a porter to make the trek easier, and I would definitely bring a sleeping bag as well.

For me, the EBC trek was longer than other treks I have done before and thought that even though I didn’t feel cold, having a sleeping bag could have added a bit more comfort.

Toilets

Most of the rooms at the teahouses don’t have an attached toilet. Usually, there is a shared toilet on each floor of the teahouse, and it is shared between all the people who are accommodated on that specific floor.

Most of the toilets are western style toilets, and there are only squat toilets in Gorakshep.

Each teahouse also has a few rooms with an attached toilet. They are a bit pricier than the regular rooms but to be honest, they are worth it.

Again, if I went again to trek EBC, I would for sure take the rooms with attached toilet. It’s nice to have the toilet in your room and not to have to share one with so many people.

Shower

There is usually a separate shower in each teahouse with hot water. This shower is normally locked and when you want to take a shower, you have to ask the owners to unlock it for you.

They lock the showers as it costs extra to take a hot water shower, and then they add the costs to your bill.

The hot showers cost around Rs. 300-500 depending on how high up you are on the trek. To be honest, many places high up have a hot shower but it is not recommended to shower.

Even though the shower is with hot water, it is so cold outside that you could easily catch a cold. I didn’t take a shower above Namche Bazaar and while I didn’t get a cold, I was feeling pretty dirty overall.

I had baby wipes with me, but there is no amount of baby wipes that could have made me feel better about the deteriorating hygiene circumstances. If I went again, I would still stick to no shower above Namche, but I would maybe prepare more mentally of having to go without a shower for this long.

Booking Accommodation on Everest Base Camp Trek

Everyone always says that you have to pre-book accommodation on the Everest Base Camp Trek in peak season (Autumn, Spring) as the teahouses get fully booked due to the large number of trekkers.

I went trekking in peak Autumn season without a guide or pre-booking any accommodation, so I tested what’s really happening on the ground and whether you should pre-book any accommodation.

On my EBC trek, I noticed that most of the villages on the route are pretty big with a large number of teahouses. All major villages have plenty of teahouses, and each teahouse is pretty big with a large capacity. (Especially places like Phakding, Namche Bazaar and Dingboche).

All in all, I found that the teahouses on the Everest Base Camp trek are so big that they were built to be able to accommodate the high number of trekkers that visit each season.

Any other trek I have done in Nepal (Annapurna Base Camp, Langtang, Mardi Himal), the teahouses are only one floor (ground floor). The teahouses on the Everest Base Camp trek have 2-3 floors, and each floor has 10-15 twin rooms accommodating 2 people from the same group.

So honestly, the capacity to accommodate trekkers is bigger than people give credit to.

While I didn’t have a difficulty to book teahouses on the spot during my trek, I do recommend being more cautious once you get higher up to Lobuche and Gorakshep. The last two villages on the trek have more limited accommodation and on the odd occasion, it may be a bit more challenging to find available rooms.

One time, one teahouse was fully booked when I got to Lobuche, and I had to go and ask in another hotel if they had a room. It was fine because there will always be a teahouse with rooms available, but if you don’t have it pre-booked, then maybe you’ll have to ask in a few different places if they have a room.

If you want to be 100% sure, then when you are in Dingboche, ask the teahouse owner to call ahead an accommodation in Lobuche and book a place for you. Once you are in Lobuche, do the same for booking accommodation for Gorakshep.