Six nights across Srinagar, Gulmarg and Pahalgam in the fortnight the tulips are actually out, with a houseboat night your children will talk about for years.
Everyone goes to Kashmir in June. The tulips do not wait for them. For about three weeks in April, Asia's largest tulip garden sits below the Zabarwan hills in full colour, the air is still cold enough for pheran, and the gardens are half as crowded as they will be in eight weeks.
We have been taking families in this exact window for years. The trick is not the tulips, it is the order. Gulmarg before Pahalgam, the houseboat at the end and not the start, and shikara rides at seven in the morning when the lake is glass and the vendors are still asleep.
One person from Zubilant is with you throughout. When the weather turns, and in April it sometimes does, the plan bends instead of breaking.
Seven days, start to finish. The route, then the rhythm of it.
Arrive Srinagar. An easy afternoon in the Mughal gardens, dinner early. Nothing ambitious on day one, that is deliberate.
Tulip garden at opening time, before the buses. Afternoon at Hazratbal and the old city bakeries.
Drive to Gulmarg. The gondola to Kongdoori if the sky is clear; snow underfoot most Aprils.
Gulmarg to Pahalgam through saffron country, with a stop at Avantipora. Evening walk along the Lidder.
Betaab Valley and Aru in the morning. Back to Srinagar by evening, onto the houseboat.
Shikara at dawn, floating vegetable market, then a slow day. Kahwa on the deck.
Depart Srinagar.
The facts most itineraries leave out. We print them because they are what decides whether this trip suits your family.
Four nights in a garden-facing Srinagar hotel we have used for over a decade, one night at a Gulmarg property near the gondola, and one night on a Category A houseboat on Dal Lake, from the small handful of houseboat families we return to each season.
Families with children of any age, and grandparents who want to come along, the pace is gentle and the altitude modest. Not for travellers wanting nightlife; Srinagar sleeps early and so will you.
Journeys that suit the same travellers.
Nine days over the high passes to Nubra and Pangong, at a pace that lets everyone sleep well at altitude, oxygen in every vehicle, doctors' numbers in every driver's phone.
Seven unhurried nights from Kochi through Alleppey to Kumarakom and the hills, a houseboat, a spice garden, and afternoons with nothing in them, on purpose.
Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Udaipur in eight nights, the right four cities in the right order, with the forts before lunch and the markets after tea.