Four nights on the oldest street in India, dawn boats, the evening aarti from the water, Sarnath, and enough time between them to let the city work on you.
Varanasi is the trip Indian families keep postponing and then wish they had not. The city asks very little of you physically, the boat does the work at dawn, the aarti comes to you at dusk, and gives back more than any itinerary can hold.
We keep the schedule honest: one thing each morning, one each evening, and the middle of the day left alone, because Varanasi's middle hours belong to lassi, silk and naps. Our man in Kashi has walked these galis for twenty years and knows which shortcut ends at a temple and which at a cow.
This is our most requested journey for parents travelling with their own parents. Three generations on one boat at sunrise explains itself.
Five days, start to finish. The route, then the rhythm of it.
Arrive Varanasi. Evening aarti at Dashashwamedh, watched from the water.
Dawn boat past the waking ghats. Kachori breakfast. Vishwanath corridor darshan arranged and queued properly.
Sarnath in the morning, the museum first, then the stupa. Silk weavers of Peeli Kothi after tea.
A gali walk at your pace, Banarasi paan for the willing, and a farewell thali that requires no dinner after.
Depart.
The facts most itineraries leave out. We print them because they are what decides whether this trip suits your family.
A ghat-facing heritage hotel with a lift, five minutes' walk from the evening aarti, close enough to hear the bells, far enough to sleep.
Multi-generational families and anyone making the trip for a parent. The ghats involve steps; the boat and our routing keep them to a minimum. Wheelchair users should speak to us first, parts of the old city cannot be smoothed, but more is possible than people assume.
Journeys that suit the same travellers.
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.
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.
Five nights along Gujarat's temple coast, Dwarkadhish and Somnath with darshan arranged and queues managed, Beyt Dwarka by boat, and the Gir lions in between.