Kathmandu 7 Day Itinerary

A week in Kathmandu is enough to slow down, which is exactly what most visitors refuse to do. If you’re going to rush three temples into one afternoon anyway, you didn’t need seven days. Here’s a pace that actually uses the time.

Day 1: land and do nothing ambitious. Kathmandu sits at roughly 1,350 meters, which isn’t extreme altitude but is enough to leave you sluggish after a long flight, so treat today as recovery, not sightseeing. Get through visa-on-arrival with crisp USD ready, take the prepaid taxi counter into town rather than negotiating with a curb tout, and if anyone claims your hotel is closed or burned down, ignore them and call the hotel directly. Settle into Thamel, walk a couple of blocks, eat something simple, sleep early.

Day 2: Kathmandu Durbar Square and Swayambhunath. Morning at Kathmandu Durbar Square, largely rebuilt since the 2015 earthquake with a bit of scaffolding still visible in places. Take your time at Hanuman Dhoka Palace rather than treating it as a walkthrough. In the afternoon, Swayambhunath, the actual Monkey Temple, not to be confused with Pashupatinath, which some lazy write-ups still get wrong. Climb the roughly 365 east-side steps for the payoff view over the valley.

Day 3: Pashupatinath and Boudhanath. Go early to Pashupatinath, the Hindu cremation temple on the Bagmati. You won’t get past the inner pagoda as a non-Hindu, but the ghats are visible and worth your attention from across the river; this isn’t a site you rush through or skip because of the access restriction. If a sadhu offers a tika, know your answer before he reaches you. Afternoon at Boudhanath Stupa, one of the largest stupas anywhere, and worth a genuinely slow kora walk rather than a single fast loop.

Day 4: Patan gets a full day, not an afternoon. Cross into Patan and stay there. Patan Durbar Square beats Kathmandu’s for preservation and crowd levels, full stop, and the Golden Temple and Krishna Mandir deserve unhurried time. Eat lunch and dinner here too: Newa Lahana or Honacha for real chhoila and bara, streets ahead of anything back in central Thamel.

Day 5: Bhaktapur, properly. This is a separate medieval town about 45 to 90 minutes out, and its entry ticket, the priciest of the three squares at NPR 1,800-2,000, covers the whole town rather than one plaza, which is why it deserves the whole day. Nyatapola Temple came through the earthquake largely intact. Wander the pottery square, eat lunch there, don’t rush back for an evening in Thamel you don’t need.

Day 6: Nagarkot, or swap it for Dhulikhel if you want fewer crowds. Nagarkot at 2,175 meters delivers genuine Himalaya sunrise views on a clear October-November or March-April morning, and it’s worth the overnight rather than a rushed round trip. If Nagarkot sounds oversubscribed, Dhulikhel to the east covers similar ground with a quieter, less touristed hilltop and its own short hikes. Either way, this is a proper overnight, not a half-day tour squeezed between breakfast and dinner back in the city.

Day 7: wind down and leave. Head back to Kathmandu with time to spare, since traffic on the return leg is unpredictable and you don’t want to be sprinting for Tribhuvan airport. Use the extra hours for anything you skipped rather than forcing in one more monument. A calm last dinner on Durbar Marg beats one more scramble through Thamel’s crowded lanes.

Throughout the week: there’s no metro, so pad your transit time between stops. Taxis dodge the meter on principle, so agree fares up front or use Pathao or InDrive. Keep small notes on hand, since change is perpetually short everywhere you go.