Kathmandu Nepal 6 Day Itinerary

Six days is enough to stop compressing Patan and Bhaktapur into one rushed afternoon, which is the recurring flaw in shorter itineraries. Separate them, and you’ll actually remember which square had which temple.

Day 1: arrive and do nothing heroic. Clear visa-on-arrival with crisp USD ready since the card readers are unreliable, take the prepaid taxi counter into town instead of a curb tout who’ll quote you double, and check into Thamel. Rest. Have a simple dinner and go to bed early; you’ll want the energy for tomorrow.

Day 2: Kathmandu Durbar Square and Thamel. Spend the morning at Kathmandu Durbar Square, largely reconstructed since the 2015 earthquake though a little scaffolding remains here and there. Hanuman Dhoka Palace and Kumari Ghar, home of the Living Goddess, deserve slow attention rather than a fast lap. Spend the afternoon in Thamel itself, useful for shopping and logistics, but go in knowing the restaurants here are aimed at tourists who haven’t yet found better options, which by day three you will have.

Day 3: Swayambhunath and Pashupatinath. Morning at Swayambhunath, the real Monkey Temple, climbing the roughly 365 east-side steps for the payoff view. In the afternoon, Pashupatinath, the Hindu cremation temple on the Bagmati. Non-Hindus can’t enter the inner pagoda, but the cremation ghats are visible and worth genuine time from across the river rather than a quick glance and a retreat. If a sadhu offers a tika, decide your answer before he’s close enough to ask; the donation demand comes right after. Try Tibetan food back near Thamel for dinner.

Day 4: Patan, uninterrupted. Cross the Bagmati into Patan and give it the entire day, not a morning squeezed in before Bhaktapur. Patan Durbar Square is better preserved than Kathmandu’s own and draws smaller crowds, which by itself makes the case for spending real time here. Eat Newari food properly: somewhere serving actual chhoila and bara, not a westernized version. This is consistently the best meal of any Kathmandu trip, and it’s worth the detour from Thamel to get it right.

Day 5: Bhaktapur, its own separate day. Bhaktapur is 45 to 90 minutes out, and its entry ticket, the highest of the three durbar squares at NPR 1,800-2,000, covers the whole medieval town rather than a single plaza, which is exactly why it deserves a dedicated day instead of an afternoon tacked onto Patan. Nyatapola Temple survived the earthquake largely intact. Wander the pottery square without a fixed plan, eat lunch there, and don’t rush the return to Kathmandu.

Day 6: Boudhanath, then Nagarkot as a proper overnight, or skip straight to departure. If your flight timing allows it, spend the morning at Boudhanath Stupa for a slow kora walk, then head up to Nagarkot in the afternoon for a genuine sunrise the following morning, best on a clear October-November or March-April day. If your schedule doesn’t stretch that far, use the day for a last visit to whichever site deserved more time earlier in the trip, and head to Tribhuvan International with a comfortable buffer built in.

Getting around. There’s no metro, so budget real time between neighborhoods. Taxis dodge the meter regardless of the law, so agree the fare up front or use Pathao or InDrive for a locked-in price. Carry small notes, since change is chronically scarce, and stick to bottled or filtered water throughout.