Nepal is measured in altitude. Start where you are comfortable.
Whether fourteen days to Base Camp is really necessary. What the mountain flight costs and why it only leaves at dawn. Which of the valley’s seven heritage sites survive a single day. Reviews of every tour you can book in Nepal.
Base Camp, the valley stupas, a dawn flight and a momo kitchen.
Five bookings a first Nepal itinerary tends to hang off, high ground to low. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The long oneEverest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysFourteen days up the Khumbu to the foot of Everest. Lukla flight, teahouses, and two nights at Namche to let the altitude settle.
02The valley dayPrivate Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sitesSwayambhunath, Boudhanath, Pashupatinath and the durbar squares, by car, in one long day. The efficient version of a week of wandering.
03The dawn flightEverest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View HotelA helicopter to Kala Patthar and breakfast at the Everest View Hotel. Base Camp scenery in a morning, for people without a fortnight.
04The dropBungee Pokhara by HighGround AdventuresWater-driven bungee over a Pokhara gorge. Ninety seconds of walking out to the platform, rather longer of thinking about it.
05The eveningKathmandu Food and Drink Walking TourNewari kitchens, a momo counter and the spice lanes of old Kathmandu, eaten rather than photographed.
Fourteen days to Everest, five into Annapurna, or four to a sunrise at Poon Hill.
Trekking is what Nepal is for, and the only real question is how long you have. Three lengths of walk, what it costs to start each one, and which range it climbs into.
Two towns, two mountain ranges and a jungle in the south.
Nepal is a day’s drive wide and eight kilometres tall. The valley with the temples in it, the lake town everybody stages a trek from, the two ranges people come for, and the flat green south nobody expects. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
You do not have to walk for three weeks to see the Himalaya.
A dawn flight down the Everest range and back before breakfast. A helicopter that lands where trekkers arrive on day twelve. A cable car up Chandragiri, a ridge at Nagarkot, a paraglider off Sarangkot into thermals the raptors are already using. Nepal sells its skyline by the hour as well as by the fortnight.
Kathmandu: the temples early, the kitchens after dark.
Everything in Kathmandu →
Reach Swayambhunath before the tour cars and the monkeys are still the only crowd. Boudhanath fills at dusk with people circling the stupa. In between is a city that has been rebuilding its durbar squares by hand since 2015 and feeding everyone brilliantly throughout.
Seven UNESCO sites, one hire car
The valley holds seven World Heritage sites inside twenty kilometres, which is why the full-day loop exists at all. On foot it is four days of walking; in a car it is one long one, plus a set of entry tickets.
Boudhanath, and the Tibetan quarter behind it
The largest stupa in the country sits in a ring of monasteries and refugee-founded workshops. Come at dusk, when the kora fills with people walking clockwise and the butter lamps go on around the base.
Momo counters and the Newari plates behind them
Newari food is the valley’s own and barely leaves it: bara, choila, buffalo sekuwa and the sweet rice beer that goes with them. A walk through Asan and Indra Chowk gets you further than any menu will.
Nepal’s most-booked days and treks.
Every Nepali tour we have reviewed →The trips more travellers take than anything else in the country, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
Trek from Lukla to Everest Base Camp with a small group of up to 14 people, a licensed English-speaking guide, porters, mountain guesthouses, and planned acclimatization days in Namche and Dingboche. You’ll reach Kala Patthar at 5,555 meters, visit Tengboche Monastery, and return to Kathmandu by air.
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
Pokhara does the mountains without the altitude.
Eight hundred metres above sea level, a lake with the Annapurnas standing over it, and a strip of trekking shops staging half the walking in Nepal. Most people arrive to start something and stay an extra day because the town is easier than the mountain.
Every Pokhara day out →
South of the hills Nepal turns flat, hot and full of rhino.
An hour of descending off the hill roads and the country changes completely: sal forest, elephant grass taller than a jeep, and the subcontinent’s best odds of coming up on a one-horned rhino. Lumbini, where the Buddha was born, sits out on the same plain.
- 1Jungle Towernight Stay In Chitwan National Park ,nepal-2 Nights 3 Days Packagefrom $225
- 23-Day Chitwan National Park Jungle Safari Tour Package with Pick Upfrom $180
- 33-Day All-Inclusive Chitwan Safarifrom $149
What Nepal costs, from a morning to a fortnight.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. The gap between a day in the valley and a walk to Base Camp is the widest price spread in the country.
Valley heritage loops, momo classes, the sunrise runs up to Nagarkot and Sarangkot, and the short hikes off the ring road.
Mountain flights, Chitwan safari packages, paragliding, rafting, and the shorter Annapurna walks like Poon Hill.
Everest helicopter mornings and the long guided treks: Base Camp, the Annapurna Circuit, Manaslu, Langtang.
- 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
Three things that only happen in Nepal.
Mountains and monasteries exist all across Asia. Walking to the foot of the highest one, a single valley holding seven World Heritage sites, and rhino in grass over your head do not.
The walk to Base Camp
The trail starts with a twenty-minute flight onto a sloping runway at Lukla and climbs for eight days: suspension bridges strung with prayer flags, the Sherpa town of Namche built into a bowl, the monastery at Tengboche, and a last grind over glacial moraine. Base Camp itself is a field of stones. What people come back talking about is the acclimatisation days and the walking.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,499 reviews
- 2Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotel★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 668 reviews
- 3Everest Base Camp Trekking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 485 reviews
The Kathmandu World Heritage sites
Three durbar squares, two Hindu temple complexes and two Buddhist stupas are inscribed together as a single site, all inside twenty kilometres. The 2015 earthquake brought down towers in every one of them, and the rebuilding has been done by hand in original timber and brick, often by the same carving families.
- 1Full-Day Tibetan Cultural Tour to Tibetan Settlements Pokhara★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 184 reviews
- 2Afternoon Tibetan Cultural Tour to Tibetan Settlements Pokhara★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 106 reviews
- 3Morning Tibetan cultural tour to Tibetan settlements Pokhara★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 66 reviews
Rhino in Chitwan
The Terai grasslands grow six metres in a season, which is why the greater one-horned rhino survived here and why you look for it from a jeep or a canoe rather than on foot. The park also holds tiger, sloth bear and gharial. The grass is cut every January, and for a few weeks afterwards you can see across it.
- 1Jungle Towernight Stay In Chitwan National Park ,nepal-2 Nights 3 Days Package★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 186 reviews
- 23-Day Chitwan National Park Jungle Safari Tour Package with Pick Up★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 184 reviews
- 33-Day All-Inclusive Chitwan Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 133 reviews
Four Nepali bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before over dal bhat. These four run on permit offices, weather windows, a mountain airstrip and a pass that closes with the snow.
- 01Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysTwo permits, a guide and a seat on the Lukla flight, all of which tighten right through October and April. In peak season the flight moves to Ramechhap, which adds a pre-dawn drive on top.
- 02Mountain Everest Scenic Flight with Hotel Pickup and DropoffMountain flights only leave in the clear air of early morning, and they are cancelled outright when cloud sits low on the range. Take the first slot and keep a spare day behind it.
- 03Annapurna Circuit Trek with Tilicho LakeThorong La is over 5,400 metres and closes with the winter snow. The walking season either side of the monsoon is short, and the teahouses near the top fill first.
- 04Jungle Towernight Stay In Chitwan National Park ,nepal-2 Nights 3 Days PackagePark permits, a lodge inside the buffer zone and the jeep seats all move together as one package. January to March, once the grass is cut, is when everyone wants it.
June to September the mountains sit behind cloud and the trails have leeches.
The monsoon does two things to a Nepal itinerary. It hides the skyline for weeks at a stretch, so mountain flights and sunrise ridges become a lottery, and it turns the low trekking routes wet, slippery and genuinely leech-ridden. Both have the same answer: stay in the valley, and go indoors and uphill rather than out and along.
Durbar squares, a stupa the size of a hill, and the smoke at Pashupatinath.
The Kathmandu valley carries seven World Heritage sites inside one ring road, which no other capital manages. Take the temple loop in the morning, the stupa at dusk, and leave the carving detail for the walk between them.
By place — valley, lake town, ranges and plain
By kind of day — trail, temple, kitchen or thermal
Kathmandu, Nagarkot, Pokhara, Chitwan: the loop almost everybody does first.
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Private Jeep Safari (8-10 hrs.)inside Chitwan National Park.
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Jeep safari (4-5 hrs. Sharing) inside Chitwan National Park.
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Canoeing and Nature Walk in Chitwan National Park
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2 Nights 3 Days Chitwan National Park Package with Jeep Safari
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Jungle Towernight Stay: 4-Day Tour in Chitwan National Park
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Discover Pokhara in Style: Private Vehicle Service with Driver
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Pokhara in 5 Hours: Lake, Museum, Cave, Falls & Pagoda Hill
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Annapurna Base Camp Trek from Pokhara and Kathmandu
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