Mardi Himal is a trekking peak standing at 5,587 metres (18,330 ft) in the Annapurna region of Nepal.
Practical guides to trekking in Nepal — permits, costs, seasons, altitude and packing — written by the guides who walk these trails.
Government offices and banks shut for a week or more. Hotels, lodges, heritage sites and flights keep running. Local shops close for the main days and tourist districts mostly do not. A practical list of what a visitor can and cannot do during Dashain, service by service.
Nepal's two great autumn festivals fall about two and a half weeks apart. Dashain is longer, bigger and mostly private; Tihar is five days of lamps, garlands and street singing that a visitor can see from the pavement. Here is how they differ and which suits which trip.
Dashain falls in the best trekking month of the year, and on the trail itself very little changes: lodges are open and the weather is at its finest. What changes is everything around the trek — permits, transport, staff and who else is walking. A region-by-region guide.
The Khumbu is Sherpa country and Dashain passes it by, so the Everest Base Camp trek runs as normal through the festival. The pressure is at the edges: the night drive to the Lukla flight, full lodges in the busiest month, and a crew who are missing the holiday. Here is how to plan it.
The Annapurna foothills are where a trekker meets Dashain head-on: Gurung villages with swings at every corner, lodge owners handing out tika, and trails full of Nepalis on holiday. A route-by-route guide to Poon Hill, Annapurna Base Camp, Mardi Himal and the quieter ridges.
Government offices in Nepal close for a week or more at Dashain, and some trekking permits can only be issued by one of them, in person, on a working day. Which permits are affected, which are not, the 2026 timetable, and what to do if you arrive after the doors have shut.
The Dashain holiday gives most people in Nepal about a week, and October gives the weather for it. Eleven short treks from Pokhara and Kathmandu, compared by days, altitude and how crowded they get after the tika — with the altitude mistake that catches holiday trekkers every year.
For most trekking staff, Dashain is the one family gathering of the year — and it falls in the month with the most work. What it means for a guide or porter to be on the trail for the tika, what a fair festival bonus looks like, and how to plan a trek that respects the day.
Dashain is the largest movement of people in Nepal's year: the capital empties outward in the week before the tika and refills in the week after. When the highways jam, which days are clear, how buses, jeeps and domestic flights behave, and how to reach a trailhead through it all.
Kathmandu has two Dashains. Before Phulpati it is the busiest it gets all year; after it, the city empties and the mountains appear over the rooftops. Where to be for the parade, the one day the Taleju temple opens, the kites — and what to do with a capital that has no traffic.
Pokhara is where much of Nepal goes on holiday once the tika is done. Before it, the city is quiet and festive; after it, Lakeside fills. The Bindhyabasini temple, the island shrine on the lake, swings in the villages above, and how to time a trek from here around the rush.
Dashain does not make Nepal expensive, but it moves a few costs: flights into and around the country, vehicles on the tika day, and a festival bonus for the people working through it. What rises, what does not, when to book each part of a trip, and how to handle cash while the banks are shut.