India, Oct. 3 -- Most people comparing treks in Nepal end up looking at the wrong things first - altitude charts, day-by-day distances, maybe a photo of a famous viewpoint. That's useful information, sure, but it misses the point. The real difference between the Everest Base Camp Trek and the 7 Days Annapurna Base Camp Trek isn't really about numbers. It's about what kind of journey each one puts you through.

Everest pulls you slowly into the high Khumbu, the Sherpa homeland, a place where the mountains get bigger and the air gets thinner with almost every step you take over roughly two weeks. Annapurna does something different. In seven days it takes you from warm, terraced valleys through thick forest and into a tight amphitheatre of p...