6 Tourist Scams in Pokhara

You're walking along Pokhara's Lakeside strip when a woman carrying a baby approaches and asks for money to buy milk.

She seems genuinely distressed, so instead of cash, you offer to buy the milk yourself. She leads you to a nearby shop and points to the most expensive imported milk powder — around NPR 2,000-3,000. After you pay and leave, she returns the powder to the shopkeeper, who was in on it, and they split the refund. As r/nepal users frequently warn, this is one of Pokhara's most persistent scams, and the same women work the Lakeside area daily with the same routine.

You arrive in Pokhara and want to trek Annapurna.

A hawker on the Lakeside strip offers an all-inclusive package for half the price of established agencies. The Instagram page looks legit, but there's no office address and payment is cash only. As r/travel users report, many of these operators lack Nepal Tourism Board authorization, use uninsured vehicles, and send untrained guides who may abandon you mid-trail. Some simply disappear with your money. In worst cases, guides have pressured trekkers into faking altitude sickness for helicopter evacuations, then filed fraudulent insurance claims — a scheme that has led to arrests across Nepal.

You're trekking the Annapurna Circuit from Pokhara when your guide suddenly insists you look unwell ...

You're trekking the Annapurna Circuit from Pokhara when your guide suddenly insists you look unwell and need an emergency helicopter evacuation. He contacts a rescue service and within hours you're airlifted to a Pokhara hospital where doctors run unnecessary tests and keep you for days. Your travel insurance gets billed tens of thousands of dollars. As r/travel and international media have reported, Nepal police arrested 33 people in 2026 in connection with a $20 million fake rescue racket — guides, rescue companies, and hospital staff colluded to stage evacuations, forge medical reports, and file fraudulent claims against foreign insurers.

You need Nepali rupees and spot a money changer on Pokhara's Lakeside strip offering a rate better than the banks.

You hand over your dollars and the changer counts out the rupees quickly, seemingly correct. But as r/nepal users explain, fast-hand counting tricks are standard here — bills get palmed, old invalid notes get mixed in, or the changer shortchanges you by folding bills to make a stack look thicker. By the time you recount back at your hotel, you're missing NPR 1,000-2,000. Street changers also give no receipts, which means you can't convert unused rupees back when you leave.

You're walking along Lakeside when someone hands you a flyer for a massage at a steep discount —

maybe NPR 500 for a full-body Ayurvedic treatment. You go in and the session starts normally. But partway through, the masseuse begins adding 'premium' oils, 'special' techniques, and extra treatments you never asked for. The final bill hits NPR 3,000-5,000. As r/solotravel users describe, if you refuse to pay, the staff become hostile and the exits seem to get blocked. The coupons circulating on the street are designed to get you through the door, not to give you a deal.

You step out of Pokhara Airport or the bus station and approach a taxi.

When you ask about the meter, the driver waves it off — 'Meter is broken, sir' — and quotes NPR 800-1,000 for a ride to Lakeside that should cost NPR 200-300. As r/nepal users confirm, almost every taxi at tourist arrival points in Pokhara refuses the meter. They target tired arrivals who don't know local prices. Some drivers also take deliberately long routes through town to justify the inflated fare, or insist on stopping at a 'friend's shop' along the way.