Kathmandu Valley and Bardiya National Park Tour

You will be met in the arrivals hall at Tribhuvan International Airport and driven to your hotel, usually 30 to 45 minutes depending on traffic. Nepal issues visas on arrival: fill in the form at the electronic kiosks before the payment desk, and bring a passport photograph and cash in a major currency to speed it up.

Once you have settled in, your guide comes to the hotel for a briefing on the days ahead. Kathmandu sits at about 1,400 m so there is no altitude concern tonight. If you land early enough, the walk from Thamel down towards the Durbar Square area is a good first hour in the city.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

A full day in Kathmandu with a licensed cultural guide and a private vehicle.

Kathmandu Durbar Square is the old royal complex of the Malla kings and later the Shah dynasty, a dense cluster of pagoda temples, courtyards and palace wings built between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries. The Kumari Ghar here houses Nepal's living goddess, a young girl chosen from the Newar Shakya community who appears at her carved window most afternoons. Much of the square was damaged in the 2015 earthquake and the restoration, done with traditional joinery and reused timber, is itself worth watching.

Pashupatinath is the most important Hindu temple in Nepal and one of the great Shiva shrines of the subcontinent, a UNESCO site on the banks of the Bagmati. Non-Hindus cannot enter the main temple, but the far bank gives an open view across the ghats where open-air cremations take place through the day. It is confronting the first time and also completely ordinary here, a public part of life rather than something hidden.

Swayambhunath sits on a hill west of the city, reached by 365 stone steps through a forest full of rhesus macaques, which is where the nickname Monkey Temple comes from. The stupa is one of the oldest religious sites in the valley, with the Buddha's eyes painted on all four sides and a spire of thirteen gilded rings. The terrace gives the best single view over Kathmandu.

Boudhanath is one of the largest stupas in the world and the centre of Tibetan Buddhist life in Nepal, particularly since 1959 when refugees settled around it. The white dome is 36 m across, ringed by prayer wheels and surrounded by more than fifty gompas. Walk the kora clockwise at dusk with the local crowd as the monks come out of evening puja: it is the most atmospheric hour in Kathmandu.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

Patan in the morning, Bhaktapur through the afternoon, then up to the valley rim for sunset.

Patan, or Lalitpur, holds the finest concentration of Newar architecture in Nepal. Its Durbar Square has the Krishna Mandir, carved from stone in 1637, the Golden Temple with its gilded facade and resident tortoises, and the Patan Museum, widely considered the best museum in the country. The surrounding lanes are still full of working metalworkers and thangka painters.

Bhaktapur is the best preserved of the valley's three medieval cities and the one where the old town still functions as a town rather than a monument. Brick lanes open into Durbar Square, Taumadhi Square with the five-tiered Nyatapola temple, and Dattatreya Square with the Peacock Window. Pottery Square is a working pottery. Try the juju dhau, the local king curd served in a clay bowl.

Nagarkot is a ridge village at about 2,175 m on the eastern rim of the valley, an hour and a half from Kathmandu, and it is where people go for the Himalayan sunrise. On a clear morning the view runs from Ganesh Himal and Langtang across to Gauri Shankar and, on the best days, Everest on the far eastern horizon. October to March are the clear months.

Altitude: 2,175 m  |  Overnight: Hotel  |  Meals: Breakfast

Early flight west to Nepalgunj in the Terai, then a drive of two to three hours north to Thakurdwara on the edge of Bardiya National Park. The change from the hill air of Kathmandu to the heat of the lowlands is abrupt and is part of what makes this trip work.

Bardiya National Park in the far west is larger, wilder and far less visited than Chitwan, and it holds Nepal's highest density of Bengal tiger. Sightings here are realistic rather than lucky, particularly from the river beds between February and April. Wild elephant, rhino, swamp deer and Gangetic dolphin in the Karnali are the other draws.

The afternoon is for settling into the lodge, a briefing from your naturalist and a first walk along the buffer zone as the light goes.

Altitude: 300 m  |  Overnight: Lodge  |  Meals: Breakfast

A full day in the park. Depending on conditions your naturalist will choose between a full-day jeep safari deep into the reserve and a walking day along the river beds, which is where the tiger sightings happen.

Walking in Bardiya is done with two licensed naturalists and it is a genuinely different experience from a vehicle: you read tracks, listen for the alarm calls of langur and spotted deer, and move quietly. The briefing on what to do if you meet a rhino on foot is not a formality and you should listen to it.

Late afternoon is usually spent at a machan or sitting quietly at a river bend, which is how most good sightings actually occur.

Altitude: 300 m  |  Overnight: Lodge  |  Meals: Breakfast

A second full day in the park, using whichever of the jeep, the walk or the float safari you did not do yesterday.

The float safari drifts down the Karnali in a raft or dugout, past gharial and mugger crocodile on the sandbanks, with a real chance of Gangetic river dolphin in the deeper pools. It is the quietest way to move through the park and often the most productive.

In the evening there is time in the Tharu villages around Thakurdwara. The Tharu are the indigenous people of the Terai, with their own language and longhouse architecture, and the community museums are worth doing properly rather than as an evening show.

Altitude: 300 m  |  Overnight: Lodge  |  Meals: Breakfast

A final dawn drive or walk if the timings allow, then the road back to Nepalgunj and the flight to Kathmandu.

The afternoon is free in the city. This is the point where most people buy the things they had been looking at all week.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Overnight: 3-5 Stars  |  Meals: Breakfast

Transfer to the airport about three hours before your international flight. If you have a late departure we will hold a day room or arrange a final few hours in the city rather than leave you sitting in the terminal.

If you would rather not go home yet, this is the easy point to extend: a few days in Pokhara, a wildlife stay in Chitwan or Bardiya, a short Bhutan add-on, or a trek. Tell us before you travel and we will build it in at cost.

Altitude: 1,350 m  |  Meals: Breakfast