Base camp takes a fortnight. The valley takes a morning.
Which Everest flight seats everyone at a window. What a guided Annapurna trek costs once the permits are in. Whether Nagarkot or Sarangkot is the better sunrise. Reviews of every tour you can book in Nepal.
A first week in Nepal usually hangs off these four.
The trek everyone comes for, the day that explains Kathmandu, the hour that buys you Everest without the walk, and a Pokhara sunrise. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The fortnightEverest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysLukla, Namche, Tengboche, then the moraine to 5,364 metres. Book it for October or April and nothing else in the trip fits around it.
02The first dayPrivate Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sitesSeven monument zones in one valley, done in a day with a driver. Go before you fly out to the hills, not after.
03The hourMountain Everest Scenic Flight with Hotel Pickup and DropoffOne lap of the Khumbu skyline from a small jet, back before breakfast is cleared. Every seat is a window seat and the flight is the only thing on the ticket.
04The Pokhara wakeSarangkot Sunrise Himalayas TourUp the ridge in the dark, Annapurna and Machhapuchhre turning gold at your left. Down in time for coffee by the lake.
Fourteen days to Everest, or four to a hill above Ghorepani.
Almost every visitor walks something. The gap between the options is not difficulty so much as how much of your holiday it eats and what it costs once guide, permits and the flight to Lukla are counted. Three shapes of trek, and what each one starts at.
Everest Base CampTwelve to sixteen days, a flight into Lukla, nights at 4,000 metres and up.
Annapurna Base CampFive to seven days from Pokhara, into a glacier amphitheatre and back.
Poon HillThree or four days on stone stairs, rhododendron forest, one enormous sunrise.
All 124 treks and hikes in Nepal →
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
Nepal runs on two towns, and a bus between them.
One is a medieval capital with seven monument zones and every trailhead flight. The other is a lakeside town under a fishtail peak where the mornings start early and the afternoons are spent falling out of the sky on purpose. Pick a base, then pick a day.
The Nepal tours more travellers take than any other.
Every Nepali tour we have reviewed →Base camp treks, a valley full of temples, an hour beside Everest and a cooking class in Thamel. This is what the demand actually looks like.
1
Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
Review of the 14-day Everest Base Camp trek with Ace the Himalaya, covering guides, acclimatization, costs, flights, porter support, and trail conditions.
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
You can be level with Everest by half past six.
Not everybody has a fortnight, and not every knee wants the Khumbu. A dawn flight out of Kathmandu runs the length of the range and turns back at Everest. A helicopter goes further and puts you down for breakfast at 3,880 metres. Off a Pokhara ridge, a paraglider does the same job for the price of dinner.
Seven monument zones sit within an hour of Kathmandu.
Three durbar squares built by rival kings, a stupa on a hill full of monkeys, a bigger one ringed by butter lamps, the river temple where the fires burn, and a hilltop shrine older than all of them. A driver and a guide turn that into one long day.
What a day in Nepal actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by the price of one head. Nepal is cheap right up until the moment you need a permit, a guide and an aircraft.
Temple days, cooking classes, a rickshaw at dusk, the sunrise ridge and most of what happens in the valley.
Bhaktapur with a driver, the Everest flight, paragliding off Sarangkot, two nights in Chitwan.
Guided treks with permits and porters, helicopter landings under Everest, the long circuits.
Three things that only happen in Nepal.
Mountains and monasteries turn up all over Asia. A trail to the foot of the highest mountain on earth, a valley carrying seven separate World Heritage zones, and a forge still turning out the Gurkha knife do not.
Everest Base Camp
The trail starts with a landing at Lukla, on a runway built at an angle so aircraft slow down uphill. From there it is roughly eight days up the Dudh Koshi through Namche and Tengboche, gaining height slowly on purpose, and four days back down. Base camp itself is a field of rubble on a glacier with no view of the summit. Everyone climbs Kala Patthar at dawn for that.
- 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 Monument Zones
Nepal put a single valley on the World Heritage list and then named seven separate zones inside it. Three are royal squares built by kings of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, who spent three centuries trying to out-build one another. The rest are the stupas at Swayambhunath and Boudhanath, the river temple at Pashupatinath and the hill shrine at Changu Narayan.
- 1Private Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sites★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 756 reviews
- 2Full Day 7 UNESCO Tour with Lunch – Private/Group★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 415 reviews
- 3Full Day Top 4 UNESCO Tour with Lunch – Private/Group★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 269 reviews
The Khukuri Forge
The curved knife every Gurkha regiment still carries is made by hand in a village forge, hammered from a leaf spring over a charcoal fire and quenched with a thin stream of water down the blade. A morning at the forge gets you the whole process, and a blade with your own name filed into the tang.
- 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 Nepali bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast in Thamel the day before. These four run on permit offices, aircraft weight limits and a weather window that closes without asking.
- 01Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysGuides, permits and the Lukla flight are booked as one package, and in October the good outfits are full weeks out. Turning up to arrange it costs days you were going to spend walking.
- 02Mountain Everest Scenic Flight with Hotel Pickup and DropoffThe mountain flights all leave in the first clear hours after dawn and stop when the cloud comes up the valley. A cancelled seat is rebooked onto the next morning, so give it two mornings, not one.
- 03Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View HotelHelicopters fly to a strict weight limit, so seats are sold by the body and the aircraft goes when it is full. Groups that book late get split across two days.
- 04Jungle Towernight Stay In Chitwan National Park ,nepal-2 Nights 3 Days PackageThe park sells a fixed number of jeep and canoe slots a day and the lodges hold them in blocks. Arriving without one means watching the jeeps leave from the lodge gate.
What to do in Nepal when the monsoon shuts the mountain.
Three months of the year the cloud sits on the valley, the leeches come out on the trails and the flight to Lukla goes nowhere for days at a time. The high passes are hidden and the views are gone. What is left is the good half of Nepal that happens under a roof, and it is quieter and cheaper than it will be in October.
By trek, shortest first
Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan: the loop nearly everyone does first.
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