3 Days in Kathmandu and Nepal
Three days is enough to actually do this properly: get the paperwork sorted, get a real Himalaya sunrise, and get an Everest view without ever putting on a trekking boot. It is not enough to also do the valley’s monuments justice, so stop trying to bolt Durbar Square onto the itinerary as a footnote and just commit to what three days can genuinely deliver.
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Visa, Nagarkot transfer |
| 2 | Nagarkot sunrise, return, confirm Everest flight |
| 3 | Everest scenic flight, depart |
Book these before you go:
- A Nagarkot hilltop room on Agoda ; mountain-view rooms sell out fast on a clear forecast.
- Your first night in Thamel on Booking.com , before the visa queue eats your planning time.
- Confirm your Everest scenic flight seat directly with Buddha Air or Yeti Airlines days ahead, not the morning of.
Day 1: arrival, visa, and a straight answer on your trek. Clear visa-on-arrival before baggage: $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30, $125 for 90, cash only in any practical sense since the card readers are unreliable enough that relying on them is a bad plan. Take the prepaid taxi counter or a Pathao/InDrive booking into Thamel rather than negotiating with whoever grabs your bag first in the parking lot. If a trek beyond this trip is even a possibility, spend part of the afternoon locking it in with a TAAN-registered agency that has a real office here, ideally one you contacted before landing. A Kathmandu court began hearing testimony in April 2026 against 32 people, including agency owners and helicopter operators, over a fake-rescue insurance fraud scheme that billed trekkers’ insurers more than $19.69 million for unnecessary evacuations, which is exactly why a same-day Thamel doorway deal is not the bargain it looks like. By late afternoon, head up to Nagarkot, about ninety minutes by road, and stay the night there rather than attempting a same-day round trip.
Day 2: sunrise, then the flight. Watch the Himalaya sunrise from Nagarkot, 2,175m up, with the best odds on a clear October-November or March-April morning, then head back down to Kathmandu with real time buffer for the drive. Back in the city by afternoon, use the rest of the day to confirm tomorrow’s Everest scenic flight booking and get an early night, since these flights depart at 6:30 to 8am and get bumped for weather often enough that you want to be rested and not scrambling.
Day 3: Everest by air, then depart. Buddha Air, Yeti Airlines, and Guna Air all run a roughly 50 to 60 minute morning flight past the Himalayan skyline including Everest, every seat rotated to a window view on both sides, for somewhere between $165 and $300 depending on carrier and season. Treat the whole morning as provisional; weather cancellations are common enough that you should not book a tight onward connection the same day if you can help it. Assuming it flies, you’ll be back at your hotel by mid-morning with the rest of the day free before your own flight out. Honest opinion: it’s a good experience but a genuinely expensive one next to just getting the Nagarkot sunrise you already banked on day two, so don’t feel short-changed if weather cancels it and you end up with an extra unplanned morning in Thamel instead.
Practical notes. There’s no metro here, and taxis dodge the meter regardless of what the law says, so agree a fare upfront or use an app that locks one in. Tap water isn’t safe anywhere in the valley, stick to bottled or a filter. If this three-day window is actually step one of a longer trek, note that TIMS has reportedly been dropped in the Khumbu region in favor of a local municipality fee, while Annapurna-bound trekkers still nominally carry TIMS alongside the more actively checked ACAP permit, and confirm current rules with your agency rather than trusting last year’s blog post. If you’d rather spend these three days in the valley itself, Durbar Squares and Newari food included, that’s a different trip; that version lives here instead. For the same gateway trip with Pokhara added on, see the 4-day itinerary , or drop back to the 2-day version if the flight isn’t worth the extra day to you.