Kathmandu takes two days. The valley takes a week.
Which sunrise trip up to Nagarkot leaves early enough. What a mountain flight past Everest actually costs. Whether Bhaktapur or Patan is the better afternoon. Reviews of every tour you can book in the Kathmandu valley and everything that departs from it.
The valley circuit, the ridge at dawn, the trail to Base Camp, a kitchen in Thamel.
Four bookings a first week in Kathmandu is built around. What each one costs, how long it takes, and what the people who went say about it.
01The first full dayFull Day 7 UNESCO Tour with Lunch – Private/GroupSwayambhunath, Boudhanath, Pashupatinath and the Durbar Squares in one loop, with a driver between them and lunch built in.
02The 4am alarmNagarkot Sunrise View and Day Hiking from KathmanduUp to the Nagarkot ridge for first light on the Himalaya, then walked back down through terraces to Changu Narayan.
03The fourteen daysEverest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysLukla, Namche, the Khumbu glacier and back. The trek the whole city is a departure lounge for.
04The eveningLocal Women-Led Nepali Cooking & Momo ClassA women-run kitchen off Thamel, a bag of flour and about forty momos. You fold them, then you eat them.
The valley is three cities and a ring of ridges around them.
Kathmandu holds the stupas and the old bazaar. Bhaktapur kept its brick and its potters, Patan its bronze workshops. Nagarkot and Chandragiri sit up on the rim where the mountains show. Six starting points, and the day out that earns each one.
Everest three ways: on foot, in a helicopter, or through a window at breakfast.
Everything that goes near the mountain leaves from Kathmandu, and the three ways of doing it have almost nothing in common. One takes a fortnight and a permit. One takes a morning and a deposit the size of a flight home. One is back in time for lunch.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
The trek, twelve to sixteen daysLukla, Namche, Tengboche, the glacier. Guide, porter and lodges included.
The helicopter morningKalapatthar or the Everest View lawn, landed on, then back by noon.
The one-hour flightA window seat past Gaurishankar and Everest. Everyone gets the window.
All 100 trekking and hiking trips from Kathmandu →
The days out of Kathmandu that everybody books.
Every tour we have reviewed in Nepal →The trips more travellers take than anything else leaving this city, 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, a licensed English-speaking guide, porters, acclimatization days, and a Kala Patthar climb. Guides such as Maddy, Kishor, Chris, and Rajendra have led recent departures. Flights, permits, meals, and trail lodging are included.
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
Half day cooking class in Thamel kathmandu
from $28
5
Everest Base Camp Trekking
from $1,350
6
Nagarkot Sunrise View and Day Hiking from Kathmandu
from $45
7
Full Day 7 UNESCO Tour with Lunch – Private/Group
from $10
8
Annapurna Circuit Trek with Tilicho Lake
from $1,093
Seven UNESCO sites sit inside one valley, and a taxi can reach all of them.
Swayambhunath on its hill, Boudhanath and its kora, the cremation ghats at Pashupatinath, and three royal squares that were three separate kingdoms. Doing them alone means a day of haggling with drivers. Doing them on one ticket means lunch somewhere in the middle.
Nagarkot is a two-hour drive and a completely different country at dawn.
The valley rim holds the cloud below it, so the sunrise happens above the weather. Cars leave Thamel around four, the light comes up on Langtang and Ganesh Himal, and on a clear morning Everest shows as a grey tooth far to the east. Most trips walk you back down through the terraces afterwards.
Bhaktapur kept its bricks. Patan kept its bronze.
Both were kingdoms in their own right until the eighteenth century, and both squares survive better than Kathmandu’s own. Bhaktapur is car-free, ticketed and worth the whole afternoon. Patan is fifteen minutes over the river and full of working metal shops.
Every Bhaktapur and Patan day →
Chitwan is the other Nepal: rhinos, elephant grass and heat.
Six hours south the mountains stop and the Terai starts. Chitwan runs on jeep drives, dugout canoes on the Rapti and a walk through grass taller than you are. Nearly every listing is sold as two or three nights with the road included, and most of them pass through Pokhara on the way back.
- 13-Day Chitwan National Park Jungle Safari Tour Package with Pick Upfrom $180
- 23-Day All-Inclusive Chitwan Safarifrom $149
- 33-Day Chitwan Safari Tour with Hotel Transfersfrom $151
What a day out of Kathmandu actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The valley is cheap enough that the guide costs less than the entrance tickets. The mountains are not.
Heritage loops, Durbar Square walks, momo classes and the sunrise run up to Nagarkot.
Full private days with a car, the Chitwan road trip, the aarati evening, rafting on the Trishuli.
Treks with permits and lodges, the helicopter mornings, and the retreats that run for a fortnight.
- 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 this valley.
Temples and viewpoints exist everywhere in the Himalaya. A cremation ghat with an evening ceremony, a forge that still makes khukuri knives by hand, and a kitchen that teaches you to pleat a momo do not.
The Pashupatinath Aarati
Every evening at the Hindu cremation ghats on the Bagmati, priests move oil lamps in slow arcs over the water while the pyres burn on the terraces opposite. It is a working crematorium and a nightly ceremony at the same time. Visitors watch from the far bank, which is the correct side, and guides here are worth having because nobody explains the rites on a sign.
- 1Pashupatinath Temple Evening Aarati Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 36 reviews
- 2Pashupatinath Temple Aarti Night Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 29 reviews
- 3Pashupatinath Temple, Hindu Crematorium and Aarati in-depth Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 25 reviews
Khukuri, Clay and Silver
Bhaktapur’s pottery square still dries thousands of pots in the open, and in the lanes behind it smiths beat out khukuri blades over charcoal. The workshops that take bookings put a hammer or a wheel in your hands for half a day, and you leave with the thing you made. They are small, so they run on fixed days rather than on demand.
- 1Knife (Khukuri) Making Workshop- Forge of the Gurkhas★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 143 reviews
- 2Knife Khukuri Making Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 38 reviews
- 3Gurkha Knife Making★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 19 reviews
The Momo Class
A momo is a dumpling with a pleated seal, and the pleat is the whole skill. The classes run out of homes and small kitchens around Thamel, most of them led by women’s cooperatives, and they start at the market stall for the buffalo mince and the timur pepper. You make around forty. You will not eat forty.
- 1Half day cooking class in Thamel kathmandu★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 607 reviews
- 2Local Women-Led Nepali Cooking & Momo Class★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 360 reviews
- 3Local Lead Nepali Cooking & Momo-Making Class★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 212 reviews
Four Kathmandu bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this valley can be arranged over breakfast for the same morning. These four run on permits, weather windows and aircraft that only fly when the cloud lets them.
- 01Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysSagarmatha park entry and the rural municipality permit are issued in Kathmandu before you fly to Lukla, and the two clear seasons, March to May and late September to November, fill the trail lodges months out.
- 02Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View HotelHelicopters fly to a weight limit, so seats are sold in fives and a single traveller only flies when four others have already booked the same morning.
- 03Everest Flight , Mountain Flight in Nepal , Everest ExperienceMountain flights leave at first light because the cloud builds by mid-morning. A grounded flight moves to the next clear day, not the next hour, so it belongs at the start of a trip rather than the end.
- 043-Day Chitwan National Park Jungle Safari Tour Package with Pick UpJeep drives and canoe slots inside the national park are issued against a daily quota, and the monsoon closes stretches of the park outright between June and September.
The monsoon hides the mountains, and Kathmandu carries on regardless.
Rain here mostly arrives late in the day and in short, heavy bursts, which ruins ridge views and leaves mornings usable. The trekking season stops, the valley season does not. Kitchens, workshops, temples and the covered lanes of the old bazaar are all indoor bookings that do not care what the sky is doing.
By place — the valley, the rim and the road out
By kind of day — ridge, temple, kitchen or trail
Valley, ridge, jungle, lake: the run most first visits to Nepal end up doing.
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