Two weeks in Nepal, booked properly.
Which sunrise ridge actually clears the cloud. What a Base Camp permit costs before you walk. Whether the hour over Everest is worth the dawn alarm. Every bookable day in Nepal, reviewed.
Kathmandu or Pokhara: Nepal runs on two front doors.
Almost everything bookable in this country leaves from one of two towns. The valley gives you seven UNESCO squares, the cremation ghats and the dawn ridge at Nagarkot. The lake gives you the Annapurnas at eye level, the paragliding and every trailhead that matters.
Kathmandu Valley
Three medieval capitals inside one ring road, a stupa the size of a hill, and the smoke off the Bagmati at dusk. Most first days in Nepal happen here, and most of them are badly planned.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 2Private Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sitesfrom $17
- 3Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotelfrom $1,575
Pokhara & the lake
Machapuchare stands over Phewa Lake close enough to feel rude. Walk out of town and you are on the Annapurna trails by lunchtime; stay in town and you are off Sarangkot under a wing by nine.
- 1ZipFlyer Nepal – The World’s Steepest Zip-linefrom $165
- 2Bungee Pokhara by HighGround Adventuresfrom $90
- 3Sarangkot Sunrise Himalayas Tourfrom $8
Everest, Annapurna, Mardi Himal: pick the walk, then pick the outfit.
Every trek and day hike in Nepal →Nepal sells treks by name, and the names are not interchangeable. One is a fortnight at altitude behind a Lukla flight. One is four days of rhododendron and a viewpoint at dawn. Below, each named trek with what it actually asks of you.
The days most travellers in Nepal end up booking.
Every Nepal review →Base camp fortnights, a momo class in Thamel, the steepest zip-line on the planet. Different trips entirely, and these are the ones that keep filling.
1
Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
Review the 14-day Everest Base Camp Trek with Ace the Himalaya, including costs, daily hikes, acclimatization, guides, porters, and practical tips.
From · $1,800
Read our review →
2
Private Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sites
from $17
3
Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotel
from $1,575
4
ZipFlyer Nepal – The World’s Steepest Zip-line
from $165
5
Half day cooking class in Thamel kathmandu
from $28
6
Everest Base Camp Trekking
from $1,350
7
Nagarkot Sunrise View and Day Hiking from Kathmandu
from $45
8
Full Day 7 UNESCO Tour with Lunch – Private/Group
from $10
Nepal is cheap until you start walking.
A morning in the durbar squares costs less than a coffee run at home. A guided fortnight to Everest Base Camp costs more than the flight in. The whole catalogue, split by what it takes off the card.
Momo classes in Thamel, durbar square walks, the dawn run out to Nagarkot, a canoe on the Rapti. Most single days in Nepal live here.
Rafting the Upper Seti, all seven heritage sites with lunch, a wing off Sarangkot, two nights in a Chitwan lodge.
The long walks with permits, porters and teahouse beds included, the helicopter to Everest View, and the private jeep to Muktinath.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 2Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotelfrom $1,575
- 3Everest Base Camp Trekkingfrom $1,350
You can be back in Kathmandu for lunch.
Not everyone has fourteen days and a Lukla ticket. The scenic flights leave Kathmandu at first light and turn at the Khumbu; the helicopters land you at Everest View Hotel for breakfast at 3,880m and have you home by noon.
Chitwan is where Nepal stops climbing.
Drop off the hills to 150 metres and the country turns to sal forest, elephant grass and river. Greater one-horned rhino graze the floodplain in daylight; the tigers are there and you will probably not see one. Two nights is the honest minimum.
All Chitwan safaris →
Three mornings that could only happen in Nepal.
Temples and street food you can find anywhere in Asia. A teahouse trail to the foot of the highest mountain on earth, an open-air cremation ground that has never closed, and a ridge road built purely to watch the sun hit the Himalaya.
The Teahouse Trail
There is no road to Everest. You fly to a 527-metre airstrip at Lukla, then walk north for a week through Sherpa villages that feed and sleep trekkers as a matter of course. Namche Bazaar at 3,440m is where you stop for two nights whether you feel like it or not, because the acclimatisation is the whole schedule. The reward is Kala Patthar before dawn, with the summit pyramid going gold above the Khumbu icefall.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,499 reviews
- 2Everest Base Camp Trekking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 485 reviews
- 3Everest Base Camp Trekking – 13 Day★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 365 reviews
Aarati on the Bagmati
Pashupatinath is a working Hindu cremation ground on the river at the edge of Kathmandu, and it does not pause for visitors. Pyres burn on the ghats through the day; at dusk the bells start and the aarati lamps go up on the far bank while sadhus in ochre watch from the terraces. You stand across the water, you keep your camera down at the burning ghats, and you leave quieter than you arrived.
- 1Kathmandu Spiritual Sites: Bodhnath & Pashupatinath Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 185 reviews
- 2Pashupatinath Temple Evening Aarati Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 36 reviews
- 3Pashupatinath Temple Aarti Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 29 reviews
The Sunrise Ridge
Nepal has turned dawn into a product. Nagarkot sits on a ridge an hour and a half east of Kathmandu and looks along a wall of Himalaya from Langtang round towards Everest on the clearest mornings; Sarangkot does the same job above Pokhara with the Annapurnas filling the frame. October and November are when the haze lifts and the promise holds.
- 1Nagarkot Sunrise View and Day Hiking from Kathmandu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 471 reviews
- 2Sarangkot Sunrise Himalayas Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 218 reviews
- 3Nagarkot Sunrise View & Morning Hike with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 188 reviews
Sort these before you land in Kathmandu.
Most of Nepal can be arranged over breakfast in Thamel the day before. These four cannot: they run on permits issued in office hours, on flights that only leave at dawn, and on an October window that the whole country books at once.
- 01Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysTwo permits, both bought in person before you walk: Sagarmatha National Park entry and the Khumbu rural municipality card. Autumn teahouse beds above Namche go to booked groups first.
- 02Annapurna base camp trek 5 DaysThe Annapurna Conservation Area permit is issued in Kathmandu or Pokhara, in office hours, on working days. Turn up at a checkpost without it and the fee doubles.
- 031 hour Panoramic Everest FlightEvery mountain flight leaves at first light before the cloud builds, and the whole fleet flies the same hour. In October and November those seats are gone weeks out.
- 04Jungle Towernight Stay In Chitwan National Park ,nepal-2 Nights 3 Days PackagePark entry is issued day by day at Sauraha and the riverside lodges inside the buffer zone fill through the autumn. A two-night package is the only version that includes the morning the animals move.
When the monsoon sits on the valley, book indoors.
The summer rain closes the views, muddies the trails and grounds the mountain flights, and it does nothing at all to a kitchen, a pottery wheel or a courtyard. This is the season the Kathmandu Valley is best at: momo folded by hand, a Newari khaja set eaten sitting on the floor, a thangka half painted, and the hills going impossibly green between downpours.
By place — valley, lake, jungle, ice
Kathmandu270 tours
Pokhara101 tours
Bhaktapur11 tours
Patan (Lalitpur)5 tours
Nagarkot26 tours
Sarangkot8 tours
Chitwan4 tours
Everest & Khumbu5 tours
Lumbini4 tours- Everywhere in Nepal →
By day — what are you actually doing?
Kathmandu to Sarangkot: the run most first trips make.
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