They were fully organized camping trips, with porters and yaks and cooks. The scenery was spectacular, and the exotic cultures of the people living in the mountains there, between India and Tibet, were fascinating. Someday I would have to go to Nepal. I immediately began to buy books on Nepal , and sent inquiries out on the rec.travel computer newsgroup to try to find people who had been to Nepal. I learned that the best time to go was in October or November, so if I wanted to go, now was the best time, before I found a faculty position and would be teaching then.
Summer is the worst time of the year to go to Nepal, since that is the monsoon season.
It also became clear that to go with a fully organized trip from the U.S. would cost thousands of dollars more than going independently. Since I prefer independent travel anyway, and since Nepal has a reputation for being a very safe country, I decided to go alone. Some of the people who I contacted by computer confirmed that this was a perfectly reasonable way to go. I decided I would stay six weeks, since that would give me plenty of time for a trek in the Everest region, as well as time to see some of the rest of Nepal. I didn't schedule the rest of the trip, apart from the Everest trek, in detail, since I didn't know what kind of travel delays I might encounter.