A field manual for trekkers in Nepal, written and maintained from Kathmandu.

Lekaly is a mobile app for the 24-hour window when an independent trekker is deciding to walk Annapurna, Everest Base Camp, Langtang, or Manaslu — and then for every day after that, on the trail, when they're at 4,500 metres with no signal trying to remember which teahouse in Yak Kharka actually has hot showers.

It is a tool. It is not a tour, not a guide-finder by default, not a community. We do offer an opt-in quote flow that connects trekkers to TAAN-licensed agencies — but that lives in a single screen behind an explicit toggle, and we charge no commission during the 2026 pilot.

• Not a tour operator. We don't sell trips, we don't run a fleet of guides, we don't have a 'book now' button.
• Not a marketplace. We don't take a cut when a trekker books with an agency. Quote requests pass through us, money does not.
• Not a content site. There is no SEO-optimised 'Top 10 Things to Pack for Annapurna' page. The blog is operational — dispatches from the team.
• Not crowd-sourced. Reddit and TripAdvisor are great. We are not a wiki on top of them. Every fact in the app is owned by a person on our team.
• Not a connected social app. No comments, no likes, no follow. We do not need to know who your friends are to tell you the TIMS fee.

The team walks each of the four supported treks at least four times a year — once per season, plus an extra in the high season. Between walks, two ops staff in Kathmandu refresh permit fees, dial every listed phone number once a fortnight, and pull the live Lukla cancellation log from CAAN.

Anything that hasn't been verified in 90 days gets flagged in the app with an amber dot. Anything older than 180 days gets removed. We'd rather have fewer contacts than stale ones.