Changing Travel: The Guardian
When The Guardian profiled the sustainable travel startups reshaping the industry, SASANE Sisterhood stood out for a simple, powerful reason: operating in Nepal since 2016, its Himalayan treks are led by female human-trafficking survivors — and every booking funds bringing the next woman into the trade. In a feature about the businesses funded and championed for their social impact, SASANE represented one of the clearest examples of tourism rebuilt around the people it most often overlooks.
SASANE's place among these pioneers was no accident. The organisation was founded on the conviction that the women failed by trafficking, violence and poverty should not be passive recipients of aid but the leaders of a thriving enterprise. Since 2016 it has done exactly that — equipping survivors with the skills, licences and confidence to guide international travellers through Nepal's mountains, and proving that a livelihood in tourism can be one of the most effective protections against exploitation.
What earns SASANE its standing as a women-empowerment travel operator is the way impact and experience are inseparable. The treks it offers are genuinely excellent — remote Himalayan trails, mountain villages, and encounters most visitors never reach — and they are led by guides whose expertise is matched by their stake in the outcome. Every journey channels income to rural communities and to the women who run them, turning each booking into a small act of social change.
The Guardian's recognition placed SASANE in conversation with the global movement to make travel a force for good, alongside other social enterprises backed for their potential to transform their industries. For a Nepali organisation led by survivors, appearing in one of the world's most influential newspapers carried weight far beyond publicity: it signalled to travellers everywhere that ethical, women-led tourism in the Himalayas was not a niche experiment but a model worth funding and following.
That visibility also reflects a broader shift the article captured — a generation of travellers increasingly unwilling to separate where they go from what their money does. SASANE answers that demand directly. Its guides are professionals who have passed the same examinations as any in Nepal; what makes them extraordinary is the journey behind the badge and the future their work secures.
Years after that feature, SASANE continues to embody what sustainable travel was meant to mean. For anyone searching for a meaningful way to experience Nepal, it offers a rare combination: a world-class Himalayan adventure, guided by women who have reclaimed their lives, in an enterprise the international press has recognised as a pioneer of sustainable tourism.