Kathmandu-7-day-itinerary

A week in Kathmandu is enough time to stop treating it like a checklist and start treating it like a place, complete with two hilltop escapes, three separate old royal cities, and enough Newari food to permanently ruin Thamel’s version for you. Here’s how to structure it.

Day 1: Arrival and a slow first look

Land at Tribhuvan International, get through visa on arrival with crisp cash dollars (15 days $30, 30 days $50, 90-day multi-entry $125), and use the prepaid taxi counter inside the terminal for a fixed NPR 700-800 into Thamel rather than negotiating with whoever grabs your bag first. Spend the rest of the day easing in: wander Thamel’s shop-lined lanes, get a feel for the haggling culture, and don’t try to see a monument today. Jet lag and Kathmandu traffic don’t mix well.

Once you’re checked in, use whatever daylight is left to walk a loop around your hotel block and get oriented. Thamel’s layout makes no logical sense on paper, all narrow diagonal lanes stacked against each other, so a slow orientation walk on day one saves confused backtracking for the rest of the week. Note where the ATMs are, where a pharmacy sits, and which street food stall has a line of locals rather than tourists; that line is a better recommendation than any guidebook star rating.

Day 2: Boudhanath and Pashupatinath

Start at Boudhanath Stupa, NPR 400, and walk its full circumference slowly rather than snapping one photo and leaving. From there head to Pashupatinath, NPR 1,000, Nepal’s most sacred Hindu site and an active cremation ground on the Bagmati. Non-Hindus can’t enter the inner pagoda, but the cremation ghats are fully visible from across the river, so it’s a real visit, not a locked gate. Keep cameras down near grieving families, and if a sadhu offers a blessing, agree a price first or decline before contact.

Day 3: Kathmandu Durbar Square and the real Monkey Temple

Morning at Kathmandu Durbar Square, roughly NPR 1,000, mostly rebuilt since the 2015 quake with Kasthamandap reopened since 2023-24. Afternoon at Swayambhunath, the actual Monkey Temple (not Pashupatinath, a mix-up that shows up constantly in lazier guides). NPR 200 gets you up the roughly 365 east-side steps to genuinely excellent monkeys and a sweeping valley view. Spend the evening back in Thamel, though save your appetite; better food is coming later this week. If you want a break from temple-hopping, the market streets around Asan are worth a slow evening walk too, thick with spice vendors, textile shops, and the kind of everyday commerce that has nothing to do with tourists at all. It’s a useful reminder that Kathmandu is a working city first and a heritage site second.

Day 4: Bhaktapur, properly

This is a full-day trip, not an add-on. Bhaktapur sits 45 to 90 minutes out, charges its own entry around NPR 1,800-2,000 covering the whole town for multiple days, and rewards unhurried wandering more than any other stop on this itinerary. Morning in the pottery square while the light’s good, afternoon through the preserved Newari streetscape, lunch on-site rather than rushing back. Its Nyatapola temple survived the earthquake standing, a rarity worth appreciating up close. Bring cash for Bhaktapur specifically; smaller vendors and pottery stalls here take rupees only, unlike the more card-friendly restaurants back in central Kathmandu and Patan. If you have energy left in the late afternoon, the walk between the main square and the pottery quarter passes through residential lanes that see almost no tourist traffic, which is its own kind of sightseeing.

Day 5: Patan and finally, good food

Cross the Bagmati into Patan, a separate city called Lalitpur, and spend the morning in its Durbar Square, the best-preserved of the valley’s three and my pick if forced to choose only one. Browse the metalwork shops, then have lunch at Newa Lahana or Honacha for a proper Newari thali with chhoila and bara, NPR 500-1,200. This is the food Kathmandu actually eats, and it makes the Westernized Thamel restaurant strip look like an airport food court by comparison. Spend the afternoon at Patan’s slower pace before heading back. Thakali Bhanchha Ghar back in Thamel is a reasonable fallback at NPR 400-700 on nights you don’t want to cross the river again, but treat it as the understudy, not the headliner; once you’ve had real Newari food, the Thamel version reads as a translation rather than the original.

Day 6: Nagarkot sunrise, or Dhulikhel if you want quieter

Head up to Nagarkot the evening before, or early this morning if you don’t mind a shorter window: at 2,175 meters it delivers the valley’s best Himalaya views, Everest included on a clear October-November or March-April day. If Nagarkot’s crowds don’t appeal, Dhulikhel offers similar mountain views with noticeably fewer people and some short hikes around town. Either way, give the day to it rather than rushing back for an afternoon activity; the views are the whole point. Pack a layer regardless of season; hilltop temperatures at 2,175 meters drop fast once the sun’s not directly overhead, and sunrise viewing means standing around in the cold for a good twenty minutes before the light does anything interesting.

Day 7: Chandragiri and departure

On your last day, if you haven’t already fit in a cable car, the Chandragiri Hills option is the fast payoff: about an hour to the base, a ten-minute ride up for around $13 one-way or $23 round-trip, and a temple plus panoramic views at the top. It’s a half-day commitment, which makes it the right closer before heading to the airport. Budget extra time for Kathmandu traffic on the way to Tribhuvan International; rush hour here lives up to its reputation. If the cable car isn’t calling to you after six days of sightseeing, a simpler closing move is one last unhurried loop through the Thamel markets for souvenirs, now armed with a week’s worth of bargaining practice and a much better sense of what a fair price actually looks like.

Practical notes for the week

Taxis are legally metered and drivers ignore that reliably, so negotiate before getting in or use Pathao or InDrive for a fare locked into the app. There’s no metro system in the valley; local buses serve residents more than tourists and shouldn’t be your main transport plan. Dust and pollution peak March through May and again in dry winter stretches, so a mask isn’t excessive. October-November brings the clearest mountain views and the Dashain and Tihar festivals, though Dashain’s roughly two-week run closes plenty of businesses; March-April is the other good window before pre-monsoon haze arrives. Keep valuables secure in crowded market streets, and vet any trekking agency through TAAN or NTB registration before booking anything beyond a casual day hike; a friendly Thamel storefront salesperson is not a substitute for a licensed operator. Load-shedding, the old rolling blackouts that used to define Kathmandu trip reports, has eased substantially since hydropower expansion picked up around 2016; hotels still keep backup generators for the occasional cut, but don’t plan your week around it like it’s still a daily certainty, because it isn’t anymore.