Nepal, from the valley floor to 5,364m.
Which base-camp trek fits a fortnight. What the helicopter shortcut really costs. Where the rhinos are, and the month the cloud finally lifts. Every guided day in Nepal, reviewed.
The six days a Nepal trip gets built around.
The two base camps, the four-day sunrise walk, the seven heritage squares of the valley, the helicopter for people short on leave, and the grasslands down at 150m. Choose the spine first; everything else fits around it.
Sixteen days or four: the Nepal trek that fits your leave.
All 164 Everest Base Camp treks →
Almost every trekking decision in Nepal comes down to three questions: how many days you have, how high you are willing to sleep, and whether you want a flight to Lukla in the plan. These three carry the most travellers.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 2Everest Base Camp Trekfrom $1,790
- 3Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotelfrom $1,575
Everest Base Camp, twelve to sixteen days
Twin-otter into Lukla, then the Khumbu at walking pace — Namche, Tengboche, Dingboche — and the Kala Patthar dawn that most people actually came for.
Annapurna Base Camp, inside the amphitheatre
Up the Modi Khola through bamboo and cloud forest into a bowl of ice at the foot of Machhapuchhre. Stone stairs the whole way, and no domestic flight to miss.
Poon Hill in four days out of Pokhara
Ghorepani rhododendron, teahouse beds, one pre-dawn climb in the dark — and Dhaulagiri and Annapurna South lighting up end to end while your tea goes cold.
The days travellers in Nepal book before anything else.
Every review →From a $6 walk around Durbar Square to a fortnight above the treeline, these are the ones that fill up first — and what each one is really like.
1
Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
Small-group Everest Base Camp trek with a licensed guide, porters, flights, permits, most meals, and Kala Pattar views, all planned for you.
From · $1,800
Read our review →
2
Everest Base Camp Trek
from $1,790
3
Private Kathmandu Sightseeing Tour | UNESCO World Heritage sites
from $17
4
7 UNESCO Sites with Lunch
from $2
5
Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotel
from $1,575
6
ZipFlyer Nepal – The World’s Steepest Zip-line
from $165
7
Half day cooking class in Thamel kathmandu
from $28
8
Everest Base Camp Trekking
from $1,350
Kathmandu is three old cities and seven heritage sites in one valley.
Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur each kept their own durbar square, and the valley adds Boudhanath, Swayambhu, Pashupatinath and Changu Narayan on top. Most visitors give it one day before flying west. It rewards two.
Pokhara sits at 820m with 8,000m peaks in the window.
The lake town is where trekkers land, eat and go again. Fishtail fills the northern sky, the paragliders come off Sarangkot from mid-morning, and three of Nepal’s best short treks start within an hour’s drive.
Everest before lunch, for people who cannot spare the fortnight.
A shared helicopter lifts out of Kathmandu at first light, threads the Khumbu, sets down near Kala Patthar for a few thin-air minutes and lands for breakfast at 3,880m with the mountain across the terrace. The fixed-wing mountain flight does the same view through a window for a tenth of the price.
- 1Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotelfrom $1,575
- 2Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Hotel Everest Viewfrom $1,600
- 3Everest Base Camp Trek with Helicopter Return from Gorakshep to Luklafrom $3,000
Nepal runs from a $2 temple ticket to a $4,000 expedition.
Nothing splits Nepal like price. A guided day in the valley costs less than lunch at home; a fully supported trek is the biggest line on the trip. Every tour on the site, sorted by what you actually pay.
Durbar squares, momo classes, stupa walks, the Sarangkot sunrise jeep — the everyday Nepal, guide included.
Full valley days, Chitwan safari nights, paragliding, rafting, the fixed-wing mountain flight and the short teahouse treks.
Supported treks with permits, porters and Lukla flights — and the helicopter days that compress a fortnight into a morning.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 2Everest Base Camp Trekfrom $1,790
- 3Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotelfrom $1,575
Three Nepal days that do not exist anywhere else.
Temples and mountains are all over Asia. Landing a helicopter under Everest, stepping off a ridge above Phewa lake and tracking one-horned rhinos on foot are Nepal’s own.
The Kala Patthar Landing
Helicopters shuttle from Kathmandu to Lukla, then up the Khumbu in groups of four or five. The landing near Kala Patthar sits above 5,000m, so passengers get a strictly rationed few minutes on the ground before the machine lifts again — bodies straight off a plain at 1,400m cannot stay. Breakfast happens lower down, on the terrace of a hotel at 3,880m, with Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam in the same frame.
- 1Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View Hotel★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 668 reviews
- 2Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Hotel Everest View★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 218 reviews
- 3Everest Base Camp helicopter tour with landing★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 61 reviews
The Sarangkot Thermals
Sarangkot rises straight off Pokhara’s lake shore, and by mid-morning the sun has pumped enough warm air up its face to keep a tandem wing circling with the Himalayan griffons. You run four steps off the grass and the ground drops 1,000m to Phewa lake. Flights land on the lakeside; the winter months are the steadiest and the clearest.
- 1Paragliding★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 91 reviews
- 2Paragliding at Sarangkot Pokhara★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 50 reviews
- 3Paragliding Adventure with Photos and Video★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 44 reviews
Chitwan’s Rhino Country
Nepal is not only vertical. The Terai plain along the Indian border is hot, flat, and holds the elephant grass and sal forest of Chitwan National Park, where about 700 greater one-horned rhinos live. Mornings are canoe and jungle walk, afternoons are jeep tracks and a river sunset. Sightings are genuinely likely; tigers are the lottery ticket.
- 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
- 3From Kathmandu/Pokhara: 3-Day All-Inclusive Chitwan Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 133 reviews
Nepal’s best hour is the one before breakfast.
All sunrise tours →
Nagarkot Sunrise View and Day Hiking from Kathmandu
Read our review →
Mountain Everest Scenic Flight with Hotel Pickup and Dropoff
Read our review →Book these before you fly into Kathmandu.
Most of Nepal can be arranged from a Thamel shopfront the day before. These cannot: they run on restricted-area permits, guide rules and weather windows that do not care when your flight lands.
- 01Manaslu Circuit TrekA restricted-area permit, arranged by a registered agency, and a minimum of two trekkers with a licensed guide. Nobody issues it at the trailhead.
- 02Trekking in Annapurna/Langtang/Everest/Upper Mustang regionsUpper Mustang is restricted too, at US$500 per person for ten days, and the permit is issued in Kathmandu or Pokhara before you go anywhere near Jomsom.
- 03Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysIndependent trekking in the national parks ended in 2023: a licensed guide is required, and the October and April beds fill months ahead.
- 04Everest Base Camp Helicopter Tour landing at Everest View HotelEverest helicopter seats are shared and weather-bound — one clear morning can absorb three days of grounded passengers, so the queue only moves forward.
October is the clearest month, and it is not the only one.
Post-monsoon October and November give the sharpest air of the year and the busiest trails. March and April swap a little haze for rhododendron forests in full bloom. December and January stay clear but freeze the high passes, which is exactly when the valley, the Terai and the low walks come into their own — and June to September belongs to the monsoon, cloud, leeches and cancelled Lukla flights.
By region — where you will actually be
Kathmandu1,043 tours
Pokhara315 tours
Annapurna Region26 tours
Everest Region7 tours
Chitwan54 tours- All tours in Nepal →
By kind of day — what are you actually doing?
Two weeks in Nepal, the way most first visits run.
Bhaktapur
Nagarkot
Poon HillLatest Nepal tour reviews.
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Jeep safari (4-5 hrs. Sharing) inside Chitwan National Park.
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Private Jeep Safari (8-10 hrs.)inside Chitwan National Park.
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Jungle Towernight Stay: 4-Day Tour in Chitwan National Park
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Mission Tiger, 4 days tour inside Chitwan National Park.
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Canoeing and Nature Walk in Chitwan National Park
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Discover Pokhara in Style: Private Vehicle Service with Driver
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45 Minutes Canoeing at Rapti River in Chitwan National Park
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2 Nights 3 Days Chitwan National Park Package with Jeep Safari
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Pokhara in 5 Hours: Lake, Museum, Cave, Falls & Pagoda Hill
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