Transportation for Travelers to Nepal with Sherpa Travel:
Sherpa Travel provides tourist buses, mini buses, Toyota mini buses, vans, land cruisers, jeeps and cars that are comfortable for traveling within the Kathmandu Valley or around the country.
We use the best available vehicles to insure safety and comfort for our clients.
Public Transportation for your information:
There are many forms of transportation available in the Kathmandu Valley. Local people ride buses, minibuses and vans (known as micro buses) that depart from different points in the valley. The three wheeler electric vehicle (EV) operated on battery is Nepal’s own invention and is used in the valley for commuters. These public transportation systems are not a convenient or comfortable mode of travel from one place to another for visitors, but they are cheap. If you really want to learn and experience how the locals live and do things, you might want to try the public transportation; although cheap they are not comfortable.
Tourist Bus Service:
If you are visiting Nepal on your own without the use of tour operator service, there are tourist buses and also public buses that provide service from Kathmandu to various part of the country. It is advisable to use a tourist bus between Kathmandu to Pokhara and to other popular tourism destinations as tourist buses get priority passage when passing police checkpoints. These tourist buses are slightly more expensive than public buses and are more reliable.
Caution: We do not recommend to riding jam packed mini buses and vans that travel at extremely high speed and are very dangerous on Nepal’s one lane mountainous roads.
Metered Taxi:
Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara have thousands of taxis these days, but they are not reliable transportation. By Nepal law, taxis must use meter to transport passengers from one place to another, but taxi drivers ask huge amount of fare without using the meter. This has become major problem for the traveling public with limited resources and visitors to Nepal. If you are traveling without the use of tour operators, you have no choice, but to use the taxi. The Indian made car used as taxi in Nepal is too small and too uncomfortable for most western travelers.
Private Vehicle Rent:
For reliable and comfortable service, rent a private car or jeep. All hotel counters should be able to help you to rent a reliable vehicle. All private vehicle rent comes with a driver. It costs little more to rent private vehicles, but it is worthwhile for your comfort, safety and reliability.
Domestic Flights:
Nepal has many rural airports throughout the country for flight services. Many domestic airlines operate regular scheduled flights and also provide charter services to popular destinations.
Sherpa Travel makes all domestic air ticket and flight arrangements for our clients and domestic airport departure taxes are included in the package program.
Airports to avoid catching a flight out are:
Phaplu and Rumjatar Airports. Whether bad cloudy day or a sunny day, the local airline staff will be very challenging by giving you excuses there is never a seat available on a flight even if you have a confirmed ticket. You will end up waiting for days before you could get flight out or they will tell you that the flight coming now is a chartered flight and you need to pay extra if you want to flight out. If you do not pay the extra money, your chances of boarding a flight are unpredictable, and eventually you will likely be frustrated enough to call a helicopter rescue. The countryside airport employees have been doing this malpractice for years and have made a fortune for themselves. They don’t seem to care whether you have an international flight to miss or missing an extension trip. The best use of these airports is to fly in and trek out to a road head so that a bad weather or malpractice of airport employees does not affect your timely return to Kathmandu.