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Comment by fooker | Hacker News Reader

This is main difference between backpacking in the US vs backpacking in India/Nepal/Bhutan.

You just pack clothes, no matter how remote your destination is, there’s going to be food and shelter available every 6-8hours.

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"Backpacking" in the US is conceptually and vernaculary different from trekking, not to argue something you probably know already and aren't claiming. The guesthouses in these countries were also government sponsored or owned-outright in my experience. There's an economic benefit to providing employment for the caretakers and of course for foreign tourism and even local travelers.

Maybe highway rest-stops are the closest analog for the US but even many of those have been shuttered by governments driven to parsimony.

Not just guesthouses though, it’s pretty easy to find a place to sleep in small villages.

The word for it is ‘home-stay’, there are a few houses in every village that are set up to accommodate guests for a very reasonable amount of money.

And these villages are pretty much everywhere.

I have been lost in the Himalayas, and it was not that much work to walk down the river to a village.

Isn't that due to a different relationship to travel? Many on foot, villagers passing through from one area to another perhaps for the market, it makes sense that there will be more opportunities for "walk-in" accommodations. In the US the expectation would be someone flying or driving long distances, or perhaps taking a bus, but not to sell produce at the regional market on foot. And foreign travelers to the US are often people of some financial means or are operating in specialized systems geared towards immigrants, like some of the "mexican" coach services in some states.

I did find, like it seems you did, that I loved traveling through Nepal and the accommodations you've described. Remarkable and tough people living hard lives with resilient cheer.

Yes, walking is perhaps the primary factor here.

I have heard of people trying this sort of backpacking in Europe and South America but it seems to have involved a lot more planning than what you can get away with in the Himalayas.

That's actually true in India, because India has a huge population. So no matter where you are in India, you are never too far from civilization. Some people have backpacked across India with just a few essentials.

Nepal and Bhutan has less population, so the density of humans vs nature is less there.

But if you stick close to the hiking trails in this vast & beautiful subcontinent, you can backpack easily from one rest stop to another.

And after some hours of tough trekking, when you encounter the warm welcome, bonhomie, food & drinks, music & laughter from the natives/locals, it is an amazing experience, worthy to be cherished. Faith in humanity - restored!

Nepal, Bhutan and most of the Indian states with the Himalayan mountains have a very similar population density.

Yeah, true.

And those Himalayan mountains are breathtakingly beautiful!

>there’s going to be food and shelter available every 6-8hours

In Nepal? That sounds like a risky assumption to make.

Yes

Of course if you go completely off-trail for days all bets are off.

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