Methodology

Last updated 13 Oct 2026 (6 days ago)

Tripperoni lists packaged hiking, walking and trekking tours trail by trail, and compares them at the level of the individual departure: its dates, price, status, seats left, and when we last checked it. This page explains where that data comes from and what our labels mean.

What we list

Multi-day packaged tours on a named trail: guided group, self-guided and private.
Facts come from operators' own public pages, feeds and booking calendars. Summaries are written by us.
We never copy itinerary text or photos unless the operator licenses them.
We don't take bookings or payments. Every booking happens on the operator's (or their partner's) site.

How we choose operators

Every operator on every trail must meet all four of these:

A real business: a legal entity name, a contact address, and a website with tour pages in English.
At least one tour on the trail with a public price (a from-price at minimum).
Any licence the destination requires, checked against the public register where one exists (for example Peru's authorized Inca Trail operator list, Tanzania's tour operator licence, or Nepal's trekking agency licence).
No unresolved serious safety or fraud red flags in public sources such as news reports or regulator notices.

On the busiest trails (Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp, Annapurna, the Inca Trail and Salkantay) we cap the list at 25 to 40 operators. When there are more applicants than places, we rank them by:

Publishing departure data, as fixed dates or an availability calendar. This counts most, because live data is the product.
Review footprint on two or more independent platforms (used for selection only; we don't display third-party ratings).
Years operating.
Range of formats on the trail: guided, self-guided and private.
Responsible-travel signals, such as porter-welfare policies or group-size caps.

Operators not listed can apply; we check applications against the same criteria and re-score every quarter. A company reselling another operator's departures appears as “also sold by” on that tour, never as a separate tour. Paid placements, when they exist, are labelled and never change default sorting or search ranking.

How freshness works

We fetch each operator's data on a schedule, politely (at most one request every two seconds per site, respecting robots.txt):

Every 6 hours for any operator with a departure starting in the next 60 days.
Daily otherwise.
Weekly for tour details such as inclusions and grades, and immediately when a page changes.
Daily for trail status facts, checked against official sources and reviewed before they change.

Every departure shows “checked X ago”: the last time a successful check saw it on the operator's site. Then:

After 48 hours without a good check, the departure gets a “may be outdated” badge and stops counting as “has space”.
After 72 hours, we hide its dates and say “dates temporarily unavailable”, so you check with the operator.
A departure that disappears from two successful checks in a row is marked gone and hidden after 48 hours. Failed checks never count, so a broken page can't make live departures vanish.

Prices are indicative. Always confirm the price and availability on the operator's site before you book.

What the labels mean

Available: The operator shows open space on this date.
Limited · 2 seats left: Only a few places left; we show the seat count when the operator publishes it.
Guaranteed: The operator has committed to run the departure whatever the final group size.
On request: The operator asks you to enquire before booking.
Sold out: Full. Cancelled departures are removed rather than shown.
New: First seen in the last 7 days.
Price dropped: At least 5% below the previous price we saw; the old price is shown struck through.
May be outdated: We haven't had a good check for over 48 hours.

Prices and currency

We always show the operator's own price in their currency, with a USD equivalent (“≈ $”) at that day's exchange rate.
You can pick a display currency in the header. Converted amounts are marked “≈” and the choice stays in your browser.
To compare tours we use the price per person, per day, twin share, land only, in USD. Per-group or per-cabin prices are divided by the number of travellers they cover. Single-room prices and supplements are shown but never used for sorting.
Tours that include flights show “incl. flights from …” and are only compared with other flight-inclusive tours.

Difficulty grades

Every operator grades differently, so we map each one onto a single 1–5 scale and always show the operator's own grade beside ours.

Grade	Meaning
1/5 Easy	Up to 12 km a day, up to 400 m of ascent, waymarked paths, no altitude.
2/5 Moderate	Up to 18 km a day and 800 m of ascent.
3/5 Challenging	Up to 22 km a day and 1,200 m of ascent, or rough terrain.
4/5 Strenuous	Long days, more than 1,200 m of ascent, or 3,500–5,000 m altitude.
5/5 Extreme	Above 5,000 m, glacier or scrambling, or very long remote stages.

Trail status facts

Season dates, refuge opening and booking rules, permits, fees and closures come from official sources first (park authorities, tourism boards, governments), then recognised trail associations, never another tour company's copy. Each fact links to its source with a short quote, shows when it was last verified, and keeps its history. If an official source says something different, the official source wins.

When we get it wrong

Tell us on the corrections page. We check every report against the source and fix it or explain why not. Operators can ask to be removed via operator removal; we act within 48 hours.