5 Days: Kathmandu and Nepal
Five days lets you stack two proper hill excursions instead of one, which is exactly what separates a real taste of Nepal’s trekking culture from a single viewpoint stop. This carries over the whole spine of the 4-day itinerary , arrival, Everest flight, Nagarkot overnight, the Changu Narayan descent, then adds a second hike out toward Dhulikhel before you fly home. If pure city and monument time is what you’re after instead, the in-city guide covers that properly.
Book these before you go
- The Everest scenic mountain flight on GetYourGuide : clear-weather morning slots go first.
- A Nagarkot hotel with a mountain-facing room on Booking.com : sunrise-view rooms are the first to sell out.
| Day | Focus | Est. cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Visa, gear, agency check | $30-125 visa |
| 2 | Everest scenic flight, Nagarkot overnight | $165-300 |
| 3 | Nagarkot sunrise, Changu Narayan descent | - |
| 4 | Dhulikhel, Namobuddha hike | ~$70 guided or NPR 90 bus |
| 5 | Chandragiri cable car or rest, depart | ~NPR 1,360 |
Day 1: land and get organized
Visa on arrival before baggage claim: $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30 days, $125 for 90 days, cash US dollars only, the card readers here are unreliable enough to plan around. Prepaid taxi counter into Thamel is a fixed NPR 700-800, skip curbside touts quoting NPR 1,500 while holding your bags for leverage.
Spend the afternoon setting up properly: grab a tourist SIM from Ncell or NTC (bring your passport), and if a trek is anywhere in your future beyond these five days, confirm your agency is TAAN-registered with a genuine office. This matters more than it used to, a fake-helicopter-rescue insurance fraud scheme is currently working through Nepal’s courts, and a vetted operator is the entire difference between a real trek and a real problem. Dal bhat for dinner, early night.
Day 2: Everest flight, then up to Nagarkot
The Everest scenic mountain flight goes first thing, 50-60 minutes, roughly $165-300 depending on airline and season, departing around 6:30-8am with a guaranteed window seat and a mid-flight rotation so both sides get the view. Weather delays happen often enough on this route to keep the rest of your day loose.
Head out to Nagarkot by early afternoon, 1.5-2 hours from the city at 2,175 meters, and settle in for the evening. Watch the sunset over the range, but pace yourself, tomorrow morning is the real reason you’re here.
Day 3: sunrise, then the Changu Narayan descent
Up before dawn for Nagarkot’s genuine payoff, a ground-level Himalaya sunrise, Everest included on a clear day, that I’d honestly rate above yesterday’s flight for the price. Hike down toward Changu Narayan instead of driving, roughly 12 kilometers over 4-5 hours through Newar farmland, ending at the valley’s oldest Hindu temple site, quiet and genuinely uncrowded since most itineraries skip it entirely. Transfer back into Kathmandu by evening.
Day 4: Dhulikhel and Namobuddha
Head east to Dhulikhel, about 1.5 hours from Kathmandu, a quieter hill town with its own Himalaya views and a genuinely good jumping-off point for a second hike, the roughly 4-hour walk to Namobuddha, an important Buddhist pilgrimage monastery at around 1,750 meters. It’s a completely different pace and crowd from Nagarkot, worth doing precisely because almost nobody pairs the two in one trip. Arrange a road transfer back to Kathmandu for the evening.
Day 5: a light day, then depart
Give yourself an easy last day after two hiking days back to back. The Chandragiri Hills cable car is a low-effort half-day option if you want one more mountain view, about an hour to the base station then ten minutes up to 2,551 meters. Otherwise, use the morning to sort last-minute gear or souvenirs in Thamel before heading to Tribhuvan International.
Before you go
No metro exists here, taxis and ride apps (Pathao, InDrive) are standard, both let you lock a fare in advance. Wear real hiking shoes both trail days, not sandals. If five days still isn’t quite the trip you’re after and you want a genuine bite of Nepal beyond the valley, the 6-day itinerary trades some of this for a flight down to Pokhara instead.