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Summit Kilimanjaro

Somewhere around 5,500 metres, most people stop being able to eat. This is normal, guides say, handing over ginger biscuits and insisting you drink more water than seems possible in freezing air. The summit, at 5,895m, gets reached mostly on willpower, after six or seven days on the Machame route with an extra acclimatisation night that noticeably raises your odds of actually making it. On summit night you walk from midnight until sunrise, saying almost nothing, boots finding the same rhythm as the person ahead. The detail that stays afterwards isn't the sign at the top. It's your guide humming the same four notes for six hours straight, the only comfort going.

Practical

Cost
$1,500–4,000
Best time
Dry seasons: January–March and June–October
Difficulty
Hard
Time it takes
6–7 days on the mountain, plus travel to Tanzania
What people get wrong
Booking the cheapest possible itinerary, which usually means cutting the extra acclimatisation day that most affects whether you actually summit. People also underestimate how cold and exhausting summit night is and overestimate how much gear alone will fix that.
With
A group

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