In rural Nepal, homestays offer true local connection – but are you ready for grassroots travel? | Canada Voices

What does it mean to be a good visitor?

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about a lot since a trip to Nepal with the Community Homestay Network. Rather than booking a hotel, the company pairs tourists with locals who open up their homes in lesser-known areas of the country. The pitch is that staying with a family creates a more genuine connection. An authentic look into the day-to-day lifestyle alongside a number of activities – hiking, cooking classes, arts and crafts – created and guided by the townspeople.

It’s part of a broader shift in tourism: More travellers want to actively engage with communities and cultural practices rather than simply observe them.

That’s an easy idea to get behind. And while my visit last May included some breathtaking views and delicious home-cooked meals, there were also some growing pains for the program, pointing to bigger questions about the implications of visiting a place tourists don’t normally reach.

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According to Tourism Nepal, the country hosted 1.15 million visitors in 2024. A 2022 report from World Bank noted that tourism accounts for 6.7 per cent of the country’s economy, with the industry employing more than a million people, according to the Journal of Travel Medicine.

Those numbers come with trade-offs. Mountain tourism has led to massive amounts of pollution and waste in once-pristine areas. An overreliance on outside visitors can also have drawbacks if those visitors stop coming. The 2015 Gorkha earthquake, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic dealt major blows to the industry, with numbers still recovering today.

Political instability has also shaped travel patterns. More recently, Nepal’s 2025 “Gen Z” anti-government protests (which saw the death of several protesters and the ultimate resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli) have caused many tourists to rethink their visit. Canada recently updated its travel advisory for the country, removing the suggestions to avoid non-essential travel to Nepal, though the government still suggests exercising a high degree of caution.

Still, for many Nepalis, the money from tourism offers a chance at upward mobility.

Shiva Dhakal, founder of Community Homestay Network, created the company in 2017 to offer rural communities outside Nepal’s major destinations a way into the tourism economy and – from his perspective – a chance at a better life without having to leave home.

Rural mobility in the country means that young people are migrating from smaller villages to bigger cities, or leaving Nepal entirely in search of work. Encouraging tourists to visit lesser-known spots can bring an influx of money to places where job opportunities are limited.

That impact has been particularly empowering for women. One host noted that the additional revenue created by homestays gave her a say in how her family spends their money – a conversation she had previously been excluded from.

To date, there are 40 communities across Nepal offering homestays through the network. Eighty per cent of each booking fee goes directly to hosts, with costs ranging from approximately US$48 a person nightly to a few hundred dollars for three-day excursions with local activities and meals, and upward of a few thousand dollars for week-long trips. Last year, the company attracted more than 7,000 travellers from across the globe.

During my trip, our tour group participated in two different homestays with families in the villages of Narchyang and Hemjakot.

Narchyang is an agricultural community roughly four hours from Pokhara, one of Nepal’s main tourism hubs. The drive there was both pretty and difficult, with winding roads taking us through lush greenery and bumpy terrain.

Located below several mountain ranges, including the famous Mount Dhaulagiri and Annapurna I, the village’s roughly 1,500 residents live in brightly coloured houses clustered together and connected by stone paths.

My host family was welcoming and kind, though our lack of a shared language made deeper connection challenging. The more outgoing members of our 20-person group brushed past the awkwardness with hand gestures and a lot of smiling, helping with yard work and participating in the preparation of dal bhat – rice with fresh vegetables. It was clear that getting the most out of our homestay required effort from visitors, too.

Our second day in Narchyang featured a six-hour hike through farmland. Accompanied by a handful of local dogs, our trek was mostly upward, slowly scaling a massive hill for mountain views and a snapshot of Narchyang from above. Everywhere I turned looked like a postcard. But those views came with a price.

Halfway through our walk, I felt a scratch on my ankle. Looking down at my blood-soaked sock, I found a leech the size of my pinky making a meal on my foot. Our hosts were sympathetic but unfazed. A common occurrence in the area, they suggested the tourists periodically check their shoes, remove any unwelcome guests, then move on.

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We arrived in Hemjakot during the back half of the trip. I spent the four-hour drive to our destination looking out the window, awed by the massive cliffs as we waved through the valley, while simultaneously trying not to get carsick. Our group was greeted with live music and dancing. Later, we participated in garland-making before settling in with the hosts.

To me, the rustic quality of the homestays and the challenge of getting to each village was all part of the larger experience, but my tolerance for critters and discomfort may be higher than I realized. As more tourists start coming to these areas, I wondered how much the destinations will change based on those visits.

Some members in my group were less enthusiastic about the bare-bones accommodations offered at our homestays. While most were seasoned travellers familiar with hostels and rural communities, worries about insects, the cleanliness of bathrooms and bedding created some tensions.

Those concerns are something the facilitators at the homestay network are trying to address with their hosts, who are encouraged to upgrade their sleeping areas and step up cleaning standards based on visitor feedback.

It’s a push and pull between looking for an authentic experience and expecting comfort in homes where the hosts lived.

The experience with Nepal’s Community Homestay Network pushed me outside my comfort zone, but it offered a perspective unlike any other trip I’ve taken. I had many opportunities to engage with new cultures, both those visiting and those hosting. For travellers willing to put in the effort, there is a lot of upside. But a sense of community isn’t an on-demand experience.

If you go

Community Homestay Network’s eight-day program, Rural Life with the Locals: A Journey through Narchyang and Hemjakot starts at $2,900 a person. The fee includes a local English-speaking guide, ground transportation, accommodation and hands-on experiences, plus most meals. It excludes domestic travel options to and from Pokhara (by flight, private transfer or bus) and international flights.

The writer was a guest of Community Homestay Network. It did not review or approve the story before publication.