9 nights, 3 stops. This is one of the routes we actually run across Nepal. It is the spine of a trip, not the trip. Tell us how you travel and the plan reshapes it into yours.
Each stop earns its nights. The quiz decides how long you stay in each, and whether a stop drops off entirely because it is not you.
Brick temple squares and tiered pagoda roofs at Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur, the white dome and painted eyes of Boudhanath, cremation fires on the river steps at Pashupatinath.
Flat farmland around a walled garden holding the Maya Devi temple and a 3rd century BCE stone pillar, with two zones of national monasteries split by a long canal.
Nepal's largest undisturbed Terai park on the Karnali river, 968 square kilometres of grassland and forest with tigers and river dolphins, and behind it Rara lake at 2,900 metres.
From the Nepal file. Real places, filed by people who went, not scraped from a Top 10 list.
An hour of Himalayan flying out of Kathmandu at first light, with a guaranteed window seat and the eastern range passing at eye level.
The great white stupa with its painted eyes, walked clockwise with the evening crowd as the butter lamps go on around the base.
The best preserved of the three royal squares, rebuilt after the 2015 earthquake, and the town around it is still a working brick and pottery city rather than a museum.
The Maya Devi temple over the traditional birthplace, a stone pillar inscribed in the 3rd century BCE, and two monastic zones where each country built its monastery in its own architecture.
The Kathmandu Valley's own cooking, built on buffalo, rice flour, black lentils and fermented vegetables. A spread of small plates rather than one dish.
King curd. Thick sweetened buffalo-milk yoghurt set in a clay pot, the thing Bhaktapur is known for outside its temples.
Five short questions, about three minutes. The plan starts from this route and a library of Nepal trips we have tested, then reshapes the nights, the food and the days to your pace and budget.
No sponsored stops, no filler days. If a place stays on your plan, it earned the spot.