Practical Information for visiting Nepal

Roads are slow. Distances are short and journey times are not — the 200 kilometres from Kathmandu to Pokhara takes six to eight hours on a good day. Plan in hours, never in kilometres, and assume delays in the monsoon.

Tourist coaches between Kathmandu, Pokhara and Chitwan are comfortable, cheap and worth the small premium over local buses. Local buses go everywhere and are slow, crowded and an experience.

Domestic flights save whole days and are how most people reach Lukla for the Everest region and the far west. They are also weather-dependent: Lukla routinely cancels for days at a time, and building a tight international connection onto a Lukla flight is how people miss flights home. Leave slack. See the safety note in the warnings section before booking.

In Kathmandu, ride-hailing apps work and are cheaper and less stressful than negotiating taxi fares. Elsewhere, agree a price before getting in.

Beyond the roads, you walk. That is not a failure of infrastructure — large parts of Nepal have never had a road, and the trail network is the transport system.

The currency is the Nepalese rupee (NPR), pegged to the Indian rupee at a fixed 1.6 to 1. Indian rupees are accepted in some border areas, but Indian 500 and 2,000 notes are not legal to bring into Nepal.

Nepal runs on cash. Cards work in Kathmandu and Pokhara hotels, better restaurants and trekking agencies, often with a surcharge of around 3-4%. Almost everywhere else — and everywhere on trek — is cash only.

ATMs are common in the cities and charge a fixed fee of roughly NPR 500 per withdrawal regardless of amount, so take out larger sums less often. Withdrawal limits per transaction are low, which compounds the fee.

Take all the cash you need before starting a trek. There are no ATMs on most routes, the few that exist run empty, and prices climb with altitude because everything arrives on someone's back. Small notes matter; nobody has change for a 1,000 in a village.

Tipping is not a Nepali tradition but is now standard in tourism. On a trek, guides and porters are tipped at the end, usually pooled and given openly; around 10% of the trip cost is a common benchmark. In restaurants, a service charge is often already on the bill.

Most nationalities get a visa on arrival at Kathmandu airport and at land borders, paid in cash in hard currency, for 15, 30 or 90 days.

Two networks matter: Nepal Telecom (NTC) and Ncell. Ncell is generally better in Kathmandu and Pokhara; NTC has the better coverage in the mountains, which is the one that counts if you are trekking. SIMs are sold at the airport and in town, and need a passport photo and copy.

Coverage on the main trekking routes is far better than most people expect — there is a mobile signal at Everest Base Camp — but it is patchy between villages and disappears entirely on the less-travelled routes and over the high passes.

Teahouses sell wifi by the day, and in the Khumbu the Everest Link cards are the usual system. It works, and it is slow and not cheap.

Power in the cities is now reliable — the scheduled blackouts that defined the 2010s largely ended in 2018. On trek, lodges charge devices for a fee per hour, so a power bank pays for itself.

Nepali is the official language, written in Devanagari, and functions as the common tongue across more than 120 languages. English is widely spoken in tourism, in Kathmandu and Pokhara and along the main trekking routes, and much less so away from them.

Namaste — palms together — covers hello and goodbye at any hour and to anyone. Namaskar is the more respectful version for elders.

Worth knowing: dhanyabad (thank you), kati ho? (how much?), mitho cha (it's delicious), pani (water), ramro (good), pugyo (enough — useful when the dal bhat refills keep coming), bistarai (slowly).

One note that saves confusion: dhanyabad is used far less than "thank you" is in English. It is reserved for something genuinely significant, and saying it for every small transaction reads as oddly formal rather than polite. A nod, or hunchha ("okay"), does the ordinary work.

Didi (older sister) and dai (older brother) are how you address shopkeepers, lodge owners and guides of roughly your own generation, and using them properly is noticed.

Nepal is a safe country for visitors by most measures. Violent crime against tourists is rare, and the political instability that follows the country in headlines very seldom touches travellers. The genuine risks are altitude, roads and aviation.

• Altitude is the serious one and is covered in the health section. It kills trekkers most years, almost always after someone ascended too fast and kept going.
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• Air safety. The European Union has banned all Nepali-certified carriers from EU airspace since 2013 on safety-oversight grounds, and the ban remains in force. Domestic flying is routine in Nepal and many visitors do it without incident, but the record is what it is — it is a real risk to weigh, not a formality.
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• Roads. Long-distance bus crashes on mountain roads are the country's most common serious accident. Night buses on winding routes are the worst combination; travel those sections in daylight where you can.
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• Earthquakes. Nepal is seismically active and a major quake is a question of when. Know your building's exits; in a quake, drop, cover and hold.
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• Scams and petty theft. Thamel has the usual: fake trekking agencies, gem and carpet schemes, and "free" holy-man blessings that end in a demand. Book trekking through a registered operator you have checked. Pickpocketing happens in crowded festivals and buses.
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• Strikes (bandhs) can shut roads and shops at short notice. They are announced in advance and are an inconvenience rather than a danger; do not try to drive through one.
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• Solo women travel in Nepal routinely. Harassment is reported more often on remote trails with an unvetted individual guide than in towns, which is an argument for booking through an established agency rather than an argument against going.

Altitude sickness is the health risk in Nepal and it is the one that kills people. Acute mountain sickness can begin above about 2,500 metres, and its severe forms — fluid on the lungs or the brain — can develop within hours and are fatal without descent. The rules are simple and widely ignored: above 3,000 metres, gain no more than roughly 500 metres of sleeping altitude a day, take a rest day every 1,000 metres, and if symptoms do not improve, go down. No fitness level protects you and no schedule is worth it.

The Himalayan Rescue Association runs seasonal aid posts at Pheriche in the Khumbu and Manang on the Annapurna Circuit, with free daily altitude talks. Both are worth attending.

Insurance must explicitly cover helicopter evacuation and trekking to your maximum altitude. Read the altitude ceiling in the policy; many stop at 4,000 metres, which is below most of the route. Note also that Nepal has had a documented problem with unnecessary helicopter evacuations billed to insurers, so claims are scrutinised — keep documentation.

Stomach illness is near-universal on long trips. Drink only treated or boiled water, including for teeth. Filter, tablets or a UV pen all work; bottled water creates waste and is not always what the seal suggests.

Routine vaccinations should be current, and hepatitis A and typhoid are commonly advised. Rabies is present and Nepal has a large free-roaming dog population; any bite, scratch or lick on broken skin needs immediate medical attention, and pre-exposure vaccination is worth discussing given how far treatment can be from a trail. Malaria risk exists in parts of the Terai, not in the hills or mountains.

Kathmandu's winter air pollution is a genuine health consideration rather than an aesthetic one, particularly for asthma.

Trekking permits are mandatory. You need a TIMS card plus an entry permit for each national park or conservation area, and restricted areas such as Upper Mustang, Manaslu and Dolpo need a separate, much more expensive permit and a licensed guide. Checkpoints do check.

Nepal introduced a requirement for a licensed guide for trekking in national parks and conservation areas in 2023. Enforcement has been inconsistent since, and parts of the Everest region operate under their own local permit system. Check the current position with the Nepal Tourism Board or a registered agency before assuming you can walk in solo — the rule has changed in both directions.

Temple etiquette. Remove shoes before entering. Walk clockwise around stupas, temples and mani walls. Leather — belts and bags included — is barred from some Hindu temples, and non-Hindus cannot enter Pashupatinath's main courtyard. Do not point the soles of your feet at a person, a shrine or an offering, and do not step over someone.

Use the right hand for giving, receiving and eating. The left is for washing.

Public affection between couples is not usual and reads as inappropriate; a hug or a kiss in public will draw attention. Dress modestly away from tourist streets — covered shoulders and knees, particularly at religious sites.

Cow slaughter and beef are illegal. Buffalo is eaten and is a different animal under the law.

Cannabis grows wild and is illegal to buy, sell or possess despite its visibility and its history here. Penalties are real. Exporting antiques requires a clearance certificate from the Department of Archaeology, and genuinely old religious objects cannot leave the country.

Ask before photographing people, cremations at Pashupatinath, and inside temples. A cremation is a family's funeral, not a sight.

Nationwide emergency numbers: 100 for police, 101 for fire, 102 for an ambulance. Response times vary a great deal outside the Kathmandu Valley.

The Tourist Police in Kathmandu are reached on 1144 and handle theft, disputes with agencies and lost documents. They are a more useful first call than the general police line for most visitor problems.

For medical care, Kathmandu has hospitals used to treating foreigners, including the CIWEC Clinic and Norvic International Hospital, both with a long record in travel and altitude medicine. Pokhara has adequate facilities; outside those two cities, serious care means being moved.

On trek, the Himalayan Rescue Association aid posts at Pheriche and Manang are staffed in season. Helicopter evacuation is the realistic means of getting out of the mountains quickly and is expensive — your insurer generally needs to authorise it, so carry the policy number and emergency line somewhere reachable without a phone signal, and leave a copy with your agency.

Register your trek details and expected return with your agency or lodge, and tell someone at home. On the less-travelled routes there may be no one to notice you are overdue.