Best of Nepal Tour

You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you outside the arrivals hall with a name board and drives you to your hotel in Thamel.

Your guide joins you in the evening for the full briefing: the valley, the rim, Pokhara, the Buddha's birthplace and the jungle, over ten days and one domestic flight.

The rest of the day is yours to rest off the flight or wander the alleys of Thamel. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Swayambhunath in the morning light, up the stairway to the hilltop stupa above the city.

Kathmandu Durbar Square next — the Malla palace, the Kumari Ghar and the temples being rebuilt in original timber after 2015.

Pashupatinath after lunch, from the terrace across the Bagmati, with the ghats and the sadhu compound.

Boudhanath at dusk for the kora and the butter lamps. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Patan Durbar Square and its museum in the morning — the stone Krishna Mandir, the sunken royal bath at Sundari Chowk, and a collection of Hindu and Buddhist bronzes that is the best-labelled in South Asia. The lanes behind hold the metalworkers' courtyards where bronze is still cast by the lost-wax method.

Bhaktapur after lunch, car-free inside its walls: the 55-window palace, the Golden Gate, the five-tiered Nyatapola and the potters' square where clay is thrown on hand wheels and dried in the open. A bowl of juju dhau, the king of curds, is worth stopping for.

The road then climbs east out of the valley to Nagarkot (2,175 m) on the rim, arriving in time for sunset over the ridges with the Himalaya on the northern horizon. Overnight at Nagarkot.

Sunrise from the rim — Ganesh Himal, Langtang and, on the clearest mornings, the Everest massif on the eastern horizon.

After breakfast the long drive west on the Prithvi Highway, following the Trishuli through gorge country with a lunch stop at a riverside restaurant.

Pokhara (822 m) in the late afternoon, on the shore of Phewa Lake with the Annapurnas behind it.

The evening is free on the lakeside. Overnight in Pokhara.

An early drive to Sarangkot (1,592 m) for the Annapurna dawn — Dhaulagiri first, then Annapurna South, Hiunchuli and Machhapuchhre.

Back for breakfast, then Devi's Fall, the Gupteshwor cave and the International Mountain Museum.

The afternoon is a rowing boat across Phewa Lake to the Tal Barahi temple, and the rest of the day is yours.

Overnight in Pokhara.

South-west out of the hills on the Siddhartha Highway, dropping through the Butwal gorge onto the Terai plains — five to six hours with a lunch stop.

The change is total: flat, hot, intensely green farmland after two days of mountains.

In the late afternoon the sacred garden at Lumbini (150 m). The Maya Devi temple stands over the marker stone identifying the birthplace, with the Ashokan pillar beside it — erected in 249 BCE, and the oldest evidence that this is the place.

Pilgrims sit under the Bodhi tree by the Puskarini pool into the evening. Overnight at Lumbini.

A morning in the monastic zone, where more than twenty countries have each built a monastery in their own tradition — the Thai wat, the Myanmar pagoda, the German-built Great Lotus Stupa. Walking between them shows how differently one teaching is expressed.

The drive east along the Terai to Chitwan takes most of the afternoon.

You arrive at the jungle lodge in time for a briefing from the naturalists and a first walk to the Rapti riverbank for sunset, with the wall of sal forest across the water.

Overnight at Chitwan.

Tea before first light and down to the river for a dugout canoe, drifting past gharial and mugger crocodiles with the mist coming off the water. The best birding hour of the trip.

The canoe lands inside the park for a guided walk with two naturalists — slow and quiet, reading tracks, with rhino a real possibility at close quarters.

The middle of the day is deliberately free at the lodge; it is hot and the animals are lying up.

The afternoon jeep safari runs into the grasslands and river crossings until dusk, which is when rhino come out to feed. Chitwan holds around 700 of them and most visitors meet several.

A Tharu stick dance after dinner. Overnight at Chitwan.

A last early bird walk along the river with the naturalist — more than 500 species have been recorded in the park.

Breakfast at the lodge, then the vehicle leaves mid-morning, climbing off the plains at Mugling and following the Trishuli back into the hills.

You reach Kathmandu (1,400 m) in the late afternoon.

The evening is free, and Thamel is the place for last shopping. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The morning is free. Boudhanath at first light, when the local community walks the kora before work, is the best last hour in the city.

We collect you from your hotel three hours before your flight and drive you to Tribhuvan International Airport, where our representative sees you through to the check-in counters.

If your flight leaves late in the day, we can hold the room or store your bags and add a last few hours of shopping in Thamel — just let the guide know the evening before.