Below is a proposed itinerary. Please note that this itinerary is subject to change and a final program itinerary will be provided to participants before our departure at the pre-trip meetings.
Day 1 | 18 May 2027 (Tue) — Arrival in Kathmandu Valley
- Arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport at approximately 10:00 pm
- Settle into accommodation and rest after the flight
Day 2 | 19 May 2027 (Wed) — Kathmandu Valley
The sacred and the everyday: bazaar, palace, and stupa
- Breakfast at hotel
- Late morning start to allow for rest and adjustment
- Visit Kathmandu Durbar Square, the Malla royal complex, including Hanuman Dhoka, the Taleju Temple, and Kumari Ghar, home of the Living Goddess — a young girl from the Buddhist Shakya community venerated as a Hindu goddess
- Lunch in the old city
- Bazaar walk through the streets that have been the commercial heart of Kathmandu for centuries.
- Late afternoon at Swayambhunath Stupa (The Monkey Temple), a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the central Buddhist pilgrimage site in the Kathmandu Valley. Students will learn how the stupa maps the path from the human condition to full awakening, and how Buddhist and Hindu devotion share a single shrine of Harati Devi, a Hindu goddess served by Newar Buddhist priests.
- Sunset over the valley from the hill.
- Welcome dinner with traditional Nepali music
Day 3 | 20 May 2027 (Thu) — Kathmandu Valley
Birth, death, and the birthless and deathless
Buddha Jayanti, a national public holiday and the most sacred day of the Buddhist year
- Early breakfast at hotel
- Morning at Kopan Monastery for Buddha Jayanti puja with the Tibetan Buddhist community
- Visit Boudhanath Stupa and spend the day among pilgrims
~Walking the kora as the stupa is repainted and hung with fresh prayer flags
~Observances and processions at the monasteries surrounding the stupa
~Offerings of butter lamps, incense, and khata scarves
- Lunch at a restaurant overlooking the stupa
- Remain at Boudhanath into the evening for the lighting of the lamps
- Dinner near Boudhanath
Day 4 | 21 May 2027 (Fri) — Kathmandu Valley
Cosmic beginning and mortal ends
- Breakfast at hotel
- Visit Budhanilkantha Temple during morning worship, home to the great reclining stone image of Vishnu resting on the cosmic serpent in a sacred pond — one of the most important Vaishnava sites in the Kathmandu Valley
- Lunch at a local restaurant
- Visit Pashupatinath Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the principal Shiva temple of Nepal. Students will observe pilgrimage, ascetic practice, and open-air cremation along the Bagmati River
- Visit meditation caves of Buddhist masters Naropa and Tilopa
- Remain for the evening Bagmati Aarati, the nightly fire and lamp offering to the river
- Dinner in Thamel
Day 5 | 22 May 2027 (Sat) — Kathmandu to Bandipur
Religion, Tourism, and Conservation
- Early breakfast at hotel
- Depart Kathmandu and drive to Thankot on the western rim of the valley
- Cable car ride to Chandragiri Hill, roughly 2,550 meters, with panoramic views across the entire Kathmandu Valley and north to the Himalaya — Langtang, Ganesh Himal, Dorje Lakpa, and on clear days the Everest range.
- Visit Bhaleshwor Mahadev Temple on the summit, associated in Shakta tradition
- Travel west along the Prithvi Highway through the Trishuli river gorge and terraced hillsides.
- Lunch en route at Kurintar or Mugling
- Continue to Bandipur, a preserved Newar trading town on a hilltop ridge with views of the Annapurna and Manaslu ranges
- Evening walk through the car-free bazaar and along the Tundikhel ridge
- Dinner at the guesthouse
- Overnight in Bandipur
Day 6 | 23 May 2027 (Sun) — Bandipur to Pokhara
What a community carries with it: Migration, Trade, and Lifestyle
- Breakfast at hotel
- Sunrise from the Tundikhel viewpoint
- Visit Khadga Devi Temple and walk the town, learning how Newar merchant families carried the religious culture of the Kathmandu Valley into the hills along the old India–Tibet trade route
- Lunch in Bandipur
- Drive to Pokhara; Free evening and dinner by the famous Phewa Lake
Day 7 | 24 May 2027 (Mon) — Pokhara
The possibility of inner and outer peace
- Pre-dawn departure to Sarangkot for sunrise over the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges
- Breakfast at hotel on return
- Visit Bindhyabasini Temple, the hilltop shrine to the goddess Bhagwati that serves as the ritual center of old Pokhara
- Lunch near Phewa Lake
- Boat across Phewa Lake to Tal Barahi Temple, the island shrine at the heart of the lake, to consider how sacred and natural landscapes overlap.
- Learn about ongoing efforts to protect the lake's water quality and biodiversity against encroachment and sedimentation
- Visit the Shanti Stupa (World Peace Pagoda), built by Nipponzan-Myōhōji, a pacifist Japanese Buddhist order that has built peace pagodas around the world since the bombing of Hiroshima
- Dinner: traditional Thakali dal bhat set
Day 8 | 25 May 2027 (Tue) — Pokhara
The role of ritual in human flourishing
- Breakfast at hotel
- Visit Ganden Yiga Chozin Meditation Center to observe Tibetan Buddhist ritual and attend a teaching lecture
- Lunch at the monastery
- Visit Davis Falls and the adjoining Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave, where an underground Shiva shrine sits beside the falling water
- Sunset at the Pumdikot Shiva statue above Pokhara Valley
- Dinner by the lakeside
Day 9 | 26 May 2027 (Wed) — Pokhara to Ghandruk
Nature and well-being: flourishing at the foothills of the Annapurna range
- Breakfast at hotel
- Drive through scenic mountain roads into the Annapurna region towards the beautiful Gurung village of Ghandruk, a stone-built Gurung village facing Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, and Machhapuchhre
- Arrive Ghandruk and settle into the guesthouse; lunch at the guesthouse
- Afternoon walk through the village , learning how the Gurung community practices a blend of Hinduism and Buddhism alongside older shamanic traditions
- Dinner at the guesthouse
Day 10 | 27 May 2027 (Thu) — Ghandruk to Pokhara
Can a village flourish when its children must leave?
- Sunrise over the Annapurna range from the village
- Breakfast at the guesthouse
- Visit the Gurung Museum and the village monastery
- Walk through the terraced fields: subsistence agriculture, out-migration to the Gulf and Malaysia, and the remittance economy reshaping village life
- Lunch in Ghandruk
- Return to Pokhara
- Dinner in Pokhara
Day 11 | 28 May 2027 (Fri) — Pokhara to Lumbini
Descending to the plains: landscape and the vision of a good life
- Breakfast at hotel
- Depart south on the Siddhartha Highway, descending from the middle hills to the plainsof the Terai
- Mid-route stop in Tansen (Palpa): visit the Amar Narayan Temple and walk the hill bazaar, a Newar town that served as the seat of the Sen kings
- Lunch in Tansen
- Continue to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha and a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- Evening walk in the Sacred Garden at dusk
- Dinner at hotel
Day 12 | 29 May 2027 (Sat) — Lumbini
The Awakened One
- Early breakfast at hotel
- Early morning at the Sacred Garden while pilgrims are present and temperatures are moderate:
~Maya Devi Temple and the marker stone identifying the exact birthplace
~The Ashokan Pillar, inscribed in the third century BCE — the earliest physical evidence identifying the site
~The Puskarini, the sacred pond
~The Bodhi tree and prayer flag grove
- Return to hotel; lunch and midday rest
- Afternoon meditation instruction with a Theravada monk (ānāpānasati, mindfulness of breathing)
- Late afternoon visit to the Lumbini Museum and meeting with faculty at Lumbini Buddhist University
- Dinner at hotel
Day 13 | 30 May 2027 (Sun) — Lumbini
Pilgrimage as a transformative journey
- Early breakfast at hotel
- Morning excursion to Tilaurakot (Kapilavastu Durbar), the archaeological site of the Shakya capital where Siddhartha Gautama was raised and which he left at twenty-nine.
- Lunch at the hotel
- Late afternoon tour of the Lumbini Development Trust monastic zone by electric rickshaw — a microcosm of the Buddhist world, where communities from Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Germany have built temples and perform ritual in their own traditional styles
- Evening sitting practice in the Sacred Garden
- Dinner at hotel
Day 14 | 31 May 2027 (Mon) — Lumbini to Chitwan
Giving back: charity and merit-making
- Early breakfast at hotel
- Early departure east along the Mahendra Highway
- Visit CG Shashwatdham in Kawasoti, a Hindu and Buddhist religious complex developed within the past decade by one of Nepal's most successful industrialists:
~Guided visit to the temples and grounds, considering how a sacred site is made in the present day — in direct comparison with Lumbini's twenty-six centuries of accumulated sanctity
~Session at the Sri Sri Centre for Meditation and Yogic Sciences, including their "happiness program"
~Visit the organic farm on the complex grounds
- Lunch at Shashwatdham
- Continue to Sauraha and check in to jungle lodge at Chitwan National Park, Nepal's first national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site
- Dinner at the lodge with Tharu cultural program, including the traditional stick dance
Day 15 | 01 June 2027 (Tue) — Chitwan National Park
The interdependence of human and natural flourishing
- Early breakfast at lodge
- Dawn canoe on the Rapti River: gharial and mugger crocodiles, kingfishers, and river birdlife
- Guided jungle safari — greater one-horned rhinoceros, spotted deer, and over 500recorded bird species
- Briefing at the National Trust for Nature Conservation Biodiversity Conservation Center: participatory and community forestry projects, the rhino conservation program, the Elephant Breeding Centre, and human–wildlife conflict in the buffer zone
- Lunch at the lodge; midday rest
- Afternoon interaction and cultural immersion with the local Tharu community: stick-and- mud architecture, agricultural and fishing livelihoods, and the community's changing relationship with the park since its founding
- Dinner at the lodge
Day 16 | 02 June 2027 (Wed) — Chitwan to Nagarkot
Out of the Terai: a day for taking stock
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Breakfast at lodge
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Birdwatching walk before departure
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Depart early for the drive north into the hills, climbing out of the Terai toward the eastern rim of the Kathmandu Valley
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Lunch en route at Mugling or Kurintar
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Arrive Nagarkot in the late afternoon
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Ridge walk and sunset over the Himalaya, with views toward Langtang, Ganesh Himal, Dorje Lakpa, and on clear days the Everest range
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Dinner at hotel
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Overnight in Nagarkot
Day 17 | 03 June 2027 (Thu) — Bhaktapur in Kathmandu Valley
What is worth preserving, and what should be allowed to change?
- Sunrise over the Himalaya from the Nagarkot ridge
- Breakfast at hotel
- Descend to Changu Narayan, the oldest temple in the Kathmandu Valley and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, holding an outstanding collection of ancient stone sculpture
- Continue to Bhaktapur, a well-preserved medieval city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site: Durbar Square, the five-tiered Nyatapola Temple, Taumadhi and Dattatreya Squares
- Lunch in Bhaktapur, including juju dhau, the "king curd" for which the city is known
- Hands-on pottery session at Pottery Square, working the wheel with local potters
- Transfer to Kathmandu and check in to hotel
- Early-evening walk through New Road and Durbar Marg — the commercial city built in the last century
- Dinner in the city
Day 18 | 04 June 2027 (Fri) — Lalitpur in Kathmandu Valley
Between the changing and the changeless
- Breakfast at hotel
- Morning in Patan (Lalitpur), a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the historic center of Newar Buddhist art and craft:
~Patan Durbar Square and the Patan Museum, an outstanding collection of Hindu and Buddhist iconography
~Visit Krishna temple
~Hiranyavarna Mahavihar, the Golden Temple, a living Newar Buddhist monastery
- Lunch: traditional Newari bhoj in Patan
- Afternoon in Bungamati and Khokana, two Newar villages in Lalitpur district — near the city but centuries apart from it in daily life:
~Rato Machhindranath, a deity claimed and worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists alike
~Woodcarving workshop with village artisans
Day 19 | 05 June 2027 (Sat) — Dhulikhel and Namo Buddha
The ideal of compassion
- Breakfast at hotel
- Drive east to Dhulikhel
- Continue to Namo Buddha, one of the most sacred Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Nepal. A Jataka tale records that in a previous life the Buddha was a prince who came upon a starving tigress and her cubs in a cave and offered his own body to feed them; this is believed to have taken place at Namo Buddha
- Lunch at Thrangu Tashi Yangtse Monastery
- Attend afternoon prayers and walk the kora around the relic stupa
- Walk to the hilltop stupa above the monastery with views across the Kavre hills toward the Himalaya
- Dinner at the family home of Professor Bishal Karna, hosted by his family
- Overnight in Kathmandu
Day 20 | 06 June 2027 (Sun) — Kathmandu
Embodying awakening: the path made visible
- Breakfast at hotel
- Visit the Arya Tara School, where girls from across the Himalayan region are educated, for classroom interaction with the students
- Visit Dhamma Kirti Bihar, a Theravada monastery for women, to learn about the revitalization of Theravada Buddhism in Nepal and the rebuilding of female monastic traditions
- Lunch in Kathmandu
- Afternoon at Thangka Gallery and Art School:
~Lecture on the Kalachakra Mandala and how it represents the pathway to full awakening in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy
~Introduction to thangka painting and its place in Buddhist practice
~Paint your own thangka under the guidance of a working artist
Day 21 | 07 June 2027 (Mon) — Departure
Carrying it home
- Breakfast at hotel
- Transfer to Tribhuvan International Airport for flight home
- Meals in transit