Before you photograph a person, ask.
Kids especially. Faces are not landscapes. If our leader translates and the answer is yes, great. If it’s no or a shrug, put the camera down and remember instead. In Kalash valleys and some Wakhi villages, women may prefer not to be photographed at all — we’ll flag it.
Cover your knees and shoulders in villages.
You don’t need to change how you dress on the trail. But when you’re walking through a village, having dinner with a family, or visiting a mosque or temple, both men and women should have shoulders and knees covered. It matters more than any speech about respect.
Don’t give money or sweets directly to children.
It sounds mean, we know. But direct handouts train kids to expect them from every subsequent traveler, and they undermine the parents. If you want to give back, ask us — every journey has a village fund we can direct a contribution to, and it’s spent on things that outlast your visit.
Keep your rubbish. All of it.
Including apple cores, orange peels and cigarette butts. There is no municipal collection above 3,000 m; whatever gets dropped stays there forever, or ends up in a goat.
Walk at the group’s pace.
The pace up front is set by the slowest walker at the back. If you’re fast, great — you get more time at each viewpoint. If you’re a mid-pack walker who accidentally sprints ahead, please wait at the next rise. Getting a whole group into camp within an hour of each other is a small kindness that makes everything downstream (dinner, warmth, sleep) work better.
Say yes to tea.
Even if it’s your fourteenth cup that day. Salt tea, sweet tea, butter tea — it’s never really about the tea.