10 Reasons You Should Never Book a Trekking Holiday

(STOP: This is a very serious list of warnings for anyone considering joy, challenging themselves, and views that break the internet)

1. You’ll have to put your phone down.

In the real world (read: on a trail in the Himalaya or Andes), your phone becomes a glorified torch and/or camera. Forget bars – you’ll be lucky to find enough reception to load yesterday’s weather. And strangely, that disconnection feels good. Dangerous territory for screen addicts.

2. You’ll meet people. In real life.

You might sit next to someone from Norway at breakfast, swap snacks with a South African on a high pass, or laugh with your Nepali leader over dinner. Actual conversations, eye contact, maybe even hugs. Honestly, it’s a slippery slope to remembering humans are pretty great.

3. Your comfort zone will go missing.

You’ll sleep in a tent, wash from a bowl of warm water broght to your tent, or hike over a snow-covered pass. You’ll eat food prepared by your own trek cook that you didn’t have to order off a menu and maybe even carry a daypack with your favourite sweets. Worst of all, you might love it. If routine is your thing, trekking holidays are a risky move, although when walking each day you do find a new rythym to enjoy.

4. You’ll feel too healthy.

There’s something deeply unsettling about returning from a holiday stronger, leaner, better rested, and with a weird glint of vitality in your eye. Where’s the post-trip bloat? The sluggish airport walk? Gone. Vanished. Replaced by endorphins and calves you didn't ask for.

5. You’ll start liking nature.

Mountains, waterfalls, silence, wildflowers, glaciers... it's a lot. And they grow on you. Suddenly you're saying things like “look at that ridgeline!” or “can you believe this air?” If you prefer a city skyline and latte queues, beware – trekking might turn you.

6. You’ll accidentally do something good.

Supporting local guides and porters. Funding community projects. Minimising plastic waste. Helping collect trail litter with the 10 Pieces initiative. Trekking with a responsible operator means you might leave a place better than you found it. Sneaky, wholesome stuff.

7. You’ll ruin future holidays.

Good luck enjoying a standard hotel pool holiday after camping under the stars at 4,000m or watching sunrise over Machu Picchu. The bar gets raised. Permanently. It's hard to "unsee" the magic of places that take effort to reach.

8. You’ll have to manage attention on your socials.

That photo of you grinning at Everest Base Camp? Or crossing the Cho La with a prayer flag flapping behind you? People will comment. They’ll ask how, when, why, and what boots you wore. It's exhausting. If your goal is to stay unnoticed, stay home.

9. You’ll gain bragging rights. And feel weird about it.

You’ll have wild stories – altitude tales, yak traffic jams, surprise birthday cakes at 3,000m – and no one back home will quite understand. You won’t want to be that person, but you’ll drop “when I was crossing the Thorong La…” into casual chat. It’s inevitable.

10. You might find what you didn’t know you were looking for.

Stillness. Confidence. Awe. Maybe clarity about what matters. The thing about walking in nature for days is it clears space in your head that everyday life doesn’t. You thought you booked a trekking holiday — turns out you signed up for a small life reset.

So yeah, best to give it a miss.
Too much fresh air. Too many sunrises. Way too many people calling you inspiring on Instagram. It’s just not worth it.

Unless, of course... it is.