Kathmandu-4-day-itinerary

Four days is the sweet spot where you stop sprinting between temples and start actually noticing the city, plus it’s the first itinerary length here with room for a proper mountain sunrise. Here’s how to spend it.

Day 1: The two big pilgrimage sites

Kick off at Boudhanath Stupa, open early and worth NPR 400, then spend real time doing the kora, the slow clockwise walk pilgrims make around the base, rather than snapping one photo and moving on. From there head to Pashupatinath, roughly NPR 1,000, Nepal’s most sacred Hindu temple and an active cremation site on the Bagmati River. Non-Hindus can’t enter the inner pagoda, but the ghats themselves are fully visible from across the water, so don’t skip it thinking you’ll see nothing.

Base yourself in Thamel for the night, eat something simple nearby, and take an evening walk through the district once the shopfronts light up. It’s chaotic but it’s the good kind of chaotic.

Day 2: Monkey Temple and the old royal quarter

Correcting a common mix-up here: Swayambhunath, not Pashupatinath, is the actual Monkey Temple, and today’s the day for it. Climb the roughly 365 steps on the east side for NPR 200 and watch both the resident monkeys and the sweeping city views compete for your attention. Afterward, head into Kathmandu Durbar Square, about NPR 1,000, where most of the 2015 earthquake damage has been rebuilt at this point, Kasthamandap reopened since 2023-24, with only occasional scaffolding left standing.

Spend the afternoon wandering the market streets around Asan, thick with spice stalls and vendors selling everything from prayer beads to kitchenware, and grab dinner somewhere with a bit more polish than yesterday’s quick meal.

Day 3: Bhaktapur, given the time it deserves

Don’t rush this one. Bhaktapur is a separate medieval town about 45 to 90 minutes by road, with its own entry fee around NPR 1,800-2,000 that covers the whole town for multiple days. Its Nyatapola temple survived the 2015 quake intact, which is more than most Durbar Square structures can claim. Spend the morning in the pottery square watching potters throw and dry clay pots in the open sun, then wander the preserved Newari streetscape through the afternoon; it’s the best-looking medieval townscape in the valley and deserves more than the rushed afternoon add-on most tour buses give it.

Eat lunch in Bhaktapur itself rather than heading back to Kathmandu first. Return in the evening tired in the good way.

Day 4: Up to Nagarkot for the mountains

This is the day the earlier three days were building toward. Nagarkot sits at 2,175 meters, about 1.5 to 2 hours from central Kathmandu, and delivers the best Himalaya views anywhere near the city, including Everest itself on a clear October-November or March-April morning. Most visitors go up the afternoon before and catch sunrise the next day, so if your schedule allows, consider heading up on the evening of day 3 instead and treating today as the descent and wind-down. Either way, budget the whole day for it rather than squeezing it into a half-day loop; the views are worth the unhurried pace.

Head back into Kathmandu by evening for a final dinner, ideally somewhere that isn’t another Thamel tourist menu. If you skipped it earlier in the trip, this is also a reasonable moment to try Newari food properly; a short ride to Patan gets you a real thali with chhoila and bara for NPR 500-1,200, worlds better than anything the Thamel restaurant strip is selling. My honest take after four days of comparison eating: Thamel exists to feed tourists efficiently, not memorably, and the good food in this valley is a taxi ride away in every direction.

Getting around and practical notes

Taxis are legally metered but drivers ignore that in practice, so agree a fare before getting in, or use Pathao or InDrive for a price locked in through the app. There’s no metro system anywhere in the valley. Nepali is the official language and English covers most tourist interactions, though “namaste” and “dhanyabaad” go a long way with locals outside the main tourist strips. The Nepalese rupee is standard currency; carry some cash for smaller vendors and Bhaktapur stalls that don’t take cards. Keep valuables secured in crowded market streets, and if anyone tries to steer you toward a trekking agency you haven’t researched, check for TAAN or NTB registration before handing over a deposit.

One more thing worth building into day one before any of this starts: the visa-on-arrival counter at the airport wants cash US dollars, not cards, so arrive with clean, unfolded bills ready. Fifteen days runs $30, thirty days $50, and the ninety-day multi-entry option is $125. From the terminal, the prepaid taxi desk inside charges a fixed NPR 700-800 into Thamel, a far calmer start to the trip than negotiating with whoever grabs your bags first outside the doors.