Local

Nepal is small on a map and large in practice. The road, the season and the altitude decide a journey far more than the distance does, and two cities a hundred kilometres apart can feel like different countries.

These pages are about what each place is actually like to live in - rent, air, commute, who else is there, and what you give up by choosing it. How the country's systems work, wherever you are, is at Nepal.

The short version

Place	Suits
Kathmandu	Anyone who needs embassies, hospitals, offices or international schools
Lalitpur	The same access, quieter streets, the development and long-stay crowd
Bhaktapur	Cheaper rent and real heritage, at the cost of a commute
Pokhara	Mountains, clean air, remote work, and trekking on your doorstep
Chitwan	Wildlife tourism and warm winters, in the Terai
Bharatpur	A fast-growing city with medical and transport links
Hetauda	Industry, and the shortest road to Kathmandu
Biratnagar	Eastern manufacturing, trade and the Indian border
Butwal	Highway commerce, and the gateway to Lumbini
Dharan	Hill air, a major teaching hospital, strong diaspora ties
All Nepal	Rules and services that apply wherever you are

The three decisions that actually matter

Valley or outside it. Almost everything administrative happens in the Kathmandu valley: immigration, embassies, the specialist hospitals, the universities, the international schools. If your life involves any of those regularly, living three hundred kilometres away means days of travel rather than an afternoon.

Air, in winter. The valley's winter air quality is genuinely bad, and it is the reason a number of long-stay residents eventually leave or decamp for part of the year. Cities outside the bowl are better. If you have asthma or small children, weight this heavily rather than treating it as a detail.

Heat, in summer. The Terai cities are hot and humid in a way the valley is not. Hill towns are cooler and wetter. Neither is a small matter over four years.

What rent buys, roughly

Kathmandu and Lalitpur are the most expensive in Nepal, and within them the areas where foreign residents and affluent Nepalis cluster command a substantial premium over ordinary neighbourhoods two streets away. Bhaktapur and the valley rim are cheaper. Outside the valley, the same money buys considerably more space.

The pattern worth knowing: what you pay for is access and air, not floor area. Living and housing covers the national picture, and housing covers the rules for a foreign national including the ownership restriction.

Getting between them

Domestic flights, long-distance buses and private vehicles, in descending order of speed and ascending order of reliability. The East-West Highway is the spine of the Terai; the roads into the hills are slower than their length suggests and worse in the monsoon.

Plan journeys by season. The monsoon affects road surfaces, landslides and flights, and the festival weeks fill every seat and every road in the country. Transportation covers the networks and events and festivals the dates to avoid.

Outside the valley, what you gain and lose

Worth being even-handed, because the valley is not automatically the right answer.

You gain space for the money, cleaner air, a shorter commute to everything local, and in several cities a genuinely pleasant climate. You also gain the thing nobody mentions: being the only foreigner in a neighbourhood means you learn Nepali, because there is no English-speaking alternative to fall back on.

You lose the institutions. Visa extensions, embassy appointments, specialist medicine, international schooling and long-haul flights all mean travelling to Kathmandu, and that is a day each way from the east or the far west. You also lose the ready-made foreign community, which is support when something goes wrong.

The honest rule: count how many times a year you will need the valley. Four times is fine from anywhere. Monthly is a reason to live in it.

How to choose, practically

• Start with the non-negotiables. A child who needs an international school, a condition that needs a specialist, a job that needs an airport.
• Then weigh air and heat, by season, against how you actually live.
• Then visit in the worst month, not the best one. Kathmandu in February and the Terai in June tell you more than either does in October.
• Rent before you commit. A short lease in one area beats a long one in the wrong area.
• Ask people who live there, not people who visited.

Where this goes wrong

• Choosing on rent alone, and discovering the commute or the air.
• Living outside the valley while needing valley institutions monthly.
• Underestimating winter air in Kathmandu, or summer heat in the Terai.
• Assuming a short distance is a short journey.
• Moving in the monsoon, when roads and flights are least reliable.

Where to go next

Kathmandu is where most people start, and all Nepal covers what applies wherever you end up.

Renting before deciding

The single best piece of advice on this page, and the one most people skip.

Take a short let first, two to four weeks, in or near the area you think you want. A guesthouse or serviced apartment is cheap by the month and it buys you the thing no amount of reading provides: the commute at the real hour, the neighbourhood at night, the water pressure, the noise, the walk to a shop.

People who sign a year's lease in week one almost always discover something they would have caught in week two. People who rent short first choose better and move once.

Hotels and guesthouses covers short stays, and housing covers the deposit convention before you commit to anything longer.