Is there WiFi on Everest Base Camp Trek?

With the advancement of technology in the recent years, internet has become an integral part of our life. A popular saying goes that a day without internet is a year without rain. Staying connected with our friends and family over social media has become a daily routine for most of us. A life without internet, a life where we are completely disconnected from the outer world, is unimaginable and most probably, impossible.

Is there WiFi on Everest Base Camp Trek? It was the first question that popped into Anto’s head before heading over to Nepal. Anto couldn’t gather concrete and recent results upon googling. She then contacted with the agency she had booked with and was told that there would be WiFi in four places on the trail. ” I decided to go without internet as often as I could but I was happy I would still be able to buy wifi every now and then, just to say ‘hello’ to my family or to put some pictures on Instagram.”

Her first stop was Paradise Lodge in Lukla, where she could buy unlimited wifi for 500 rupees, but she decided not to. She had only been away a couple of hours and she knew that she can easily do without wifi for couple of more days. The next stop was Phakding, a small village. WiFi was available all over the Phakding village. Anto was excited about her next stop Namche Bazaar and wanted to save some for Namche Bazaar. She didn’t opt for buying wifi in the Phakding village too.

“The trek to Namche was gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to share my pictures online with family and friends. So upon arrival at Hotel Everest, I bought unlimited wifi for 500 rupees. I figured it would be worth it while we were staying for two nights. As we arrived as some of the first ones, wifi was quick when we got there, but once people started to come in, the connection got worse and eventually died, only to reconnect again during the middle of the night, when all messages from home started to come in.”

Her next destination was a hike up to Everest View Hotel, where one can see the first really good views of the mighty Everest. To her surprise, the Hotel had free wifi which was super fast. Though everyone was frantically uploading pictures at the same time, the internet connection was very good. She visited a bakery in the late afternoon and they had free wifi too.

Mong-La was the next stop with no wifi and then came Dole, where she could buy wifi. Upon reaching Machhermo, Anto bought a card from Everest Link for 800 rupees. 800 rupees was worth 500 MB internet. “Everest Link works like a creditcard that can be used in various places until you reach the limit, however we were also told that the network is very unreliable and that sometimes it only works in one place. We could however use it with both our phones, when I signed out, Martijn was able to sign in, so that was really great. The next day we finally arrived in Gokyo and it looked like I still had some MBs left, however after I uploaded one picture to Instagram, the network didn’t accept my card anymore, either because I reached my limit or just for any other reason. I could’ve bought wifi here but didn’t since I had already checked emails and was able to upload one picture.”

Next up was Thangnak, a town which seperated village from Gokyo. The town had wifi but Anto wanted to stick to her resolution of not buying wifi more than 4 times. The town of Dzongla, situated on the other side to the Cho-La Pass also had paid wifi. One of the guys played Foo Fighters through the internet connection.

Lobuche and Gorak Sherp, the last village before Everest Base camp were next on the list. Anto assumes that Lobuche did have wifi as she noticed a wifi for sale signboard there. After making it to the ultimate destination – The Everest Base Camp, Anto felt enchanted and wanted to connect to her friends and family desperately. She paid 500/hr for internet and it worked pretty fast. ” I did all I have to do, uploaded my victory picture and notified everyone I wanted to know, that I made it up to EBC. The hour was over before I knew it and not one single second I regretted spending money on that.”

Anto has even listed down names of places to find wifi on Everest Base Camp trek based on her stay in November, 2015. This post has been excerpted from the original blog post up on www.we12travel.com. Click below to read the full version and also to check the list of places which has wifi on Everest Base Camp Trek: