Senior travellers.

You can get a decent hotel for $30/double. Food, maybe $20/day if eating in western style places, can survive for a lot less if you find the local eateries. Guide for a day possibly $20-30, same as trekking guides. Taxis are fairly cheap, $3 across the town, valley tour whole day maybe $25. Chitwan packages are cheap of you take a local bus there and back, used to be around $100 in today's money (if my memory serves, last time was 2006) for 3 days 2 nights, full board, elephant ride, canoe trip and jungle hike included.

I go to Nepal every winter.
Look into Green Line Bus to Chitwan. Not too expensive, but quite comfortable. I take it all the time its like $20 or $25 USD. to get to Chitwan from Kathmandu or Phokara. It is a tourist bus with big seats and they give you a great lunch. Their office is near Thamel.
After you take the Green Line Bus to Chitwan, There are lots of Hotels in Chitwan(Suaraha) and they are about $10 a night, or more if you want to splurge, and there are many of them to choose from. Chitwan is a nice place, and not too expensive to hang out.
you can get a guide to the jungle once you are there. One time I saw a tiger.
In kathmandu, in the Thamel backpacker area, A guide can easily be arranged through your hotel to look around the sites of Kathmandu. Or just do it yourself, kathmandu and Nepal are pretty safe places. I have never heard of anyone being hurt. I spend 4 months a year there and have done so about 20 times.
'Thamel' that I mentioned above is the backpacker area in Kathmandu. You can get a cab there from the Airport for about $5. OR, as you leave the airport, there is a stall where they sell you a taxi ticket directly to where you want to go for a couple dollars more. In your case, this might be best. Once you step out the front door of the airport, the taxi drivers are like a school of Piranas, and it takes some doing to deal with this if you havent experienced it before. Yes, there is a desk just after customs where they sell you the ticket to your place in Thamel, and then deliver you there. You can easily find a hotel on your own, it is not necessary to hire someone to show you one. There are hundreds of hotels.
In the area named Thamel, there are hundreds of hotels. If you are budget minded, they will be available for about $10 a night, although there are nicer ones for $15, or $20, or up. But dont worry, there are plenty of them. January is low tourist season, there are not too many tourists then, and so getting a hotel in Thamel is easy and you can bargain them down a little or a lot. But do not worry about finding a room in January, the hotels are mostly empty then.
I spend every winter goofing off in Nepal. I spend a total of about $20 a day, but I am pretty frugal, but that would give you an idea of how cheap it could be if you needed to. Plenty of people travel there on $20 or even less. That will depend on how much comfort you want.
Dont get a guide with a car, maybe look for a taxi driver that can guide you. There are plenty of taxis, but if you talk to the taxi drivers that hang out in Thamel, they could show you around the city fairly economically. Set the price before you get in the car! They are masters at manipulation. Or, anyway, try to find a driver you like. They are nice guys, and speak English. Nepal is my favorite country, have a nice trip.

Thank you. Great to get advise. Appreciate your help.

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