6 Days in Kathmandu and Nepal
Six days is where you have to make an actual trade-off, not pretend you can do everything: Pokhara and Chitwan both matter, but six days isn’t enough to give both of them the two full days they deserve. This version gives Pokhara one solid day and Chitwan two, since a jungle safari without a dawn or dusk activity barely counts as a safari at all.
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival, visa |
| 2 | Nagarkot transfer, overnight |
| 3 | Sunrise, Everest flight, on to Pokhara |
| 4 | Pokhara |
| 5 | Transfer to Chitwan |
| 6 | Chitwan safari, return |
Book these before you go:
- Your Pokhara lakeside stay on Agoda , since rooms with a Phewa Lake view go first.
- A Chitwan jungle safari tour on GetYourGuide , arranged ahead of arrival rather than sorted from a lodge reception desk.
Day 1: arrive and get legal. Visa-on-arrival is $30 for 15 days, $50 for 30, $125 for 90, cash only in practice since the counter’s card readers are unreliable; filling in the online arrival form ahead of landing shaves real time off the queue. Take the prepaid taxi counter or a Pathao/InDrive booking into Thamel rather than negotiating with a curb tout. If a trek beyond this trip is on the table, use part of the day to book a TAAN-registered agency with a real Kathmandu office, ideally arranged before you landed rather than off a Thamel storefront; a Kathmandu court opened hearings in April 2026 against 32 people, agency owners and helicopter operators included, over a fake-rescue insurance fraud scheme worth more than $19.69 million in fraudulent evacuation billing, which is reason enough to skip the walk-in deal. Rest, and get an early night.
Day 2: Nagarkot overnight. Transfer up in the afternoon, about ninety minutes by road, for a proper sunrise the next morning rather than a rushed round trip that wastes the whole point of going.
Day 3: sunrise, the Everest flight, then Pokhara. Catch the sunrise from Nagarkot, 2,175m, best odds October-November or March-April, then head back to Kathmandu. If tomorrow’s Everest scenic flight is booked, get an early night; these depart 6:30 to 8am on Buddha Air, Yeti Airlines, or Guna Air, roughly $165 to $300 depending on season, and weather cancellations are common enough to plan around. Once it flies (or once you’ve accepted it might not), fly (about 25 minutes) or drive (6 to 7 hours) on to Pokhara, the actual gateway town for Annapurna trekking.
Day 4: Pokhara, the one day you get. Spend it properly: Phewa Lake in the morning, Sarangkot for the paragliding launch and valley views in the afternoon. This is the day the trade-off costs you the most; if a second Pokhara day matters more to you than Chitwan, the 5-day itinerary gives Pokhara the full two days instead.
Day 5: on to Chitwan. Travel southwest into the Terai lowlands, by flight to Bharatpur or a long overland transfer, and spend the afternoon and evening on a jungle walk or canoe ride before the following day’s proper safari. Arriving with time for even one activity beats showing up right before dark with nothing left in the day.
Day 6: the actual safari, then home. A dawn canoe ride and jeep safari genuinely likely to turn up rhino sightings, plus Tharu village culture that has nothing to do with the Newar heritage the valley runs on, is what a single rushed afternoon safari can’t deliver. Head back toward Kathmandu (or your onward flight) with real buffer, since this is a long travel day on top of an early wildlife start.
Getting around. There’s no metro anywhere in this country’s cities. Taxis dodge the meter regardless of the law, so agree a fare first or use an app that locks one in. If you’d rather spend six days in the valley itself, Durbar Squares and Newari food, that’s a different trip . For both Pokhara and Chitwan getting their full two days each, see the 7-day itinerary .