Nepal's biggest festival is also its deadliest time to be on the road. During this year's ten-day Dasain holidays, Nepal Police recorded 134 road deaths nationwide, with another 2,988 people injured across 1,339 reported incidents on the country's roads and highways. Of those killed, 83 were men, 39 were women, and 12 were children — seven boys and five girls.
The numbers follow a familiar pattern. Dasain, Nepal's largest Hindu festival, sends millions of people out of Kathmandu and other cities to their family villages, often travelling long distances on buses, motorbikes and overloaded vehicles. Highways that are busy year-round become intensely congested, drivers push through the night to make family gatherings, and drink-driving and speeding tend to spike during the festivities. The result is that the festival season reliably ranks among the most dangerous stretches of the year on Nepali roads — and this year's toll fits that grim rhythm.
For anyone visiting Nepal in autumn, this matters directly. Dasain usually falls in September or October, coinciding with the start of the peak trekking season, so foreign travellers are often in the country — and often on the same highways — during exactly this window. Tourist buses running between Kathmandu, Pokhara, Chitwan and the Indian border share roads with festival traffic at its most chaotic.
The practical takeaways are straightforward. If your trip overlaps with Dasain, book intercity transport early, since seats sell out and operators add extra departures of variable quality. Prefer reputable tourist bus companies or flying for long hauls such as Kathmandu–Pokhara, and avoid night buses on mountain highways, where darkness, rain-slicked surfaces and tired drivers compound the risk. Expect cities to partially shut down during the festival itself — shops, offices and some services close as people return to their home districts — so build slack into any itinerary.
There is a flip side worth knowing: Dasain is also one of the most atmospheric times to be in Nepal, with swing frames erected outside homes, family reunions, blessings and feasts across the country. Travelling smart — daytime journeys, vetted operators, and a healthy margin for delays — lets you see the festival rather than become part of its road-safety statistics. This year's figures are a blunt reminder that in Nepal, the journey deserves as much caution as the destination.
