India · Uttar Pradesh
Varanasi
The oldest living city in India, where an entire Hindu life cycle plays out in public on a stone stair above the Ganges.
Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously lived-in cities on earth, and it makes no concessions to visitors. A stone stair of ghats runs for kilometres along the Ganges, and the whole of life happens on it in the open: bathing, laundry, wrestling, prayer, business and the cremation of the dead. Behind the river sits a maze of lanes too narrow for cars, layered with shrines, silk shops and sweet stalls, and the city asks you to witness all of it rather than sample it.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
Hindi, English
Currency
INR
Timezone
UTC+5:30
Why you'll love Varanasi
The river at dawn a slow boat downstream past kilometres of steps while the city bathes, washes and prays in the first light
Faith in the open pilgrimage, ritual and the rites of the dead happen in public here, and nobody is performing them for you
The lanes a car-free maze of temples, brocade shops and sweet stalls where getting lost is the whole method
Banarasi eating kachori-and-jalebi mornings, clay cups of thick lassi and a winter-only milk froth made nowhere else
Best time to visit
Oct-Mar
22-33° days
25.336° N, 83.008° E
UTC+5:30 · Asia/Kolkata
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Weather & when to go to Varanasi
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Oct-Mar
Watch for Apr-Jun extreme heat risk · Jul-Aug monsoon flooding risk
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Varanasi
Apr-Jun on the Gangetic plain is punishing heat, and the Jul-Aug monsoon lifts the river until the lower steps and the walk along them vanish under water. The cool-season catch is not the weather but the fog that settles on the plain around dawn in the deep winter months: it holds up trains and flights for hours and can hide the sunrise you got up for.
Top things to do in Varanasi
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Dashashwamedh Ghat - the evening Ganga Aarti
culture arts 👍 PopularPriests in formation swing tiered brass lamps at the river while bells, conches and a thousand-odd onlookers fill the steps and the boats raft up offshore. Arrive about an hour early for a seat on the stone, or watch from a rowboat, which is calmer and takes in the whole tiered scene at once.
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Sunrise boat ride - the ghats from the water
scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedThe riverfront only makes sense from midstream, and only at first light: an hour's slow pull past bathers, laundry beaters, buffalo in the shallows and palace facades going gold. Rowboats leave from every ghat and negotiating one the night before saves the pre-dawn haggle.
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The ghat walk - Assi to Raj Ghat on foot
scenicSome six kilometres of steps and platforms link around eighty named ghats, past the Nepali pagoda temple at Lalita, the maharaja's stone observatory at Man Mandir, wrestlers' akharas and endless laundry. It only connects when the river is low, so the dry months are the ones that let you walk it end to end.
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Manikarnika Ghat - the city's main cremation ground
culture artsPyres burn here around the clock, and for many Hindus dying in Kashi and being burnt on this bank is the entire reason the city matters: it is believed to end the cycle of rebirth. This is a working funeral ground rather than a sight. Stand well back on the upper steps, keep your camera in your bag - photographing the pyres or the mourners is never acceptable - and walk on past the men who steer you to a viewing balcony and then ask for a donation towards wood for the poor. There is no fee, and no official guide.
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Kashi Vishwanath Temple - the golden Shiva shrine
culture arts 👍 PopularThe most visited of the twelve jyotirlingas, its spire plated in gold and its queue reached through a broad cleared corridor running down to the river. Security is airport-grade, phones and bags go into lockers before you enter, and early morning is when the line moves. The Gyanvapi mosque stands immediately beside it, on the site of the temple Aurangzeb pulled down.
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Sarnath - where the Buddha first taught
history 👍 PopularThe deer park where the Buddha preached his first sermon after enlightenment, now a green ruin field around the huge brick Dhamek Stupa. The archaeological museum holds Ashoka's lion capital, the sculpture that became India's state emblem, and monasteries built by Thailand, Japan, Tibet and others ring the site.
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Banarasi street food - kachori mornings to winter malaiyo
food ⭐ Highly recommendedStart where locals do, with kachori sabzi and hot jalebi in Kachori Gali, then chaat around Godowlia and thick lassi in a clay cup. In the cold months the lanes sell malaiyo, a saffron-flecked milk froth whipped in the night dew that exists nowhere else and disappears when the weather warms. Finish with a banarasi paan; the thandai shops sell a bhang version that is legal here and considerably stronger than visitors expect.
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Ramnagar Fort - the Maharaja's palace across the river
historyAn eighteenth-century sandstone fort on the far bank, still the seat of the Maharaja of Benares, with a gloriously dusty museum of vintage cars, palanquins, ivory work and an astronomical clock. In autumn the fort and the town around it host the month-long Ramlila cycle, an open-air retelling staged across the streets that draws crowds from the whole district.
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Banarasi silk - the weavers' quarter
shoppingThe brocade saris the city is famous for come off handlooms in Madanpura and Peeli Kothi, where the clack of the pit looms carries down the lanes. The showrooms around Vishwanath Gali and Godowlia are the tourist end; going to a workshop is the way to see what the work actually is, and to tell silk from the powerloom copies.
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Banaras Hindu University - campus temples and a museum
culture artsA leafy, orderly counterweight to the old city: broad avenues, the marble New Vishwanath Temple built by the Birlas, and Bharat Kala Bhavan, whose miniature paintings, textiles and Hindu sculpture are among the best collections in north India.
Best areas to stay in Varanasi
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Assi Ghat
First-time visitors $Traveller cafes at the calm southern end
Explore hotels in Assi Ghat →
Godowlia & the old city lanes
In the thick of it $Ancient alleys, temples and constant crowds
Explore hotels in Godowlia & the old city lanes →
Cantonment
Comfort & transit $$Wide colonial streets and bigger hotels
Explore hotels in Cantonment →
Lanka & BHU
Student quarter $Student streets by the university gate
Explore hotels in Lanka & BHU →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Varanasi
Getting to & around Varanasi
Getting there
Fly into Lal Bahadur Shastri airport or arrive by train at Varanasi Junction; either way the last stretch into the old city is on foot
Flight
Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS)
About 25 km northwest at Babatpur, with domestic flights from Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru plus a handful of regional international routes. Prepaid taxis take roughly an hour into town, longer in traffic, and no car reaches the ghat lanes: you finish the trip by e-rickshaw and then on foot.
Train
Varanasi Junction (Cantt)
The main station, a short ride from the ghats, with overnight and fast daytime services from Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata and Patna. Some long-distance trains use Banaras station instead, and many pass through Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction across the river to the southeast.
Coach
Cantt bus stand
State and private buses run from Lucknow, Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Gaya; slower and rougher than the trains but useful when berths are sold out
Drive
Hired cars link Varanasi with Bodh Gaya, Khajuraho and Lucknow on long, slow highway days; drivers rather than self-drive are the norm
Getting around
Walking
The old city and the ghats have no alternative - the lanes are too narrow for anything wider than a motorbike, and the riverfront links up on foot when the water is low
Free
E-rickshaw & cycle-rickshaw
The workhorses for short hops to the edge of the lanes; agree the fare before you get in, since nothing is metered
TBC
Auto-rickshaw
Best for longer runs to Sarnath, the university or the station, and shared autos run fixed routes along the main roads
TBC
Boat
Rowboats and motorboats hop between distant ghats far faster than the crowded lanes, and are hired by the hour
TBC
App cabs
Uber and Ola work for the modern city and the airport run, but they cannot get near the old city
TBC
Day trips from Varanasi
Sarnath
Half dayBuddhist pilgrimage site
The deer park where the Buddha gave his first sermon: a quiet field of excavated monastery foundations around the Dhamek Stupa, an archaeological museum holding Ashoka's lion capital, and modern temples built by Buddhist countries from Thailand to Tibet.
Getting there
car | bus | tour
30-45 min by auto or taxi, about 10 km northeast
Chunar Fort
Full dayRiverside hill fort
A sandstone fortress on a bluff over a bend in the Ganges, held in turn by Sher Shah Suri, the Mughals and the British. Half ruin and half garrison relic, breezy, largely empty, and paired well with the pottery town below it.
Getting there
car | train
1.5 hr by car or local train, about 40 km upstream
Prayagraj (Allahabad)
Full dayRiver confluence city
The Sangam, where the Ganges meets the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati, is the greatest bathing site in Hinduism and boats run out to the meeting of the waters. Akbar's fort, a Mughal garden tomb and wide colonial civil lines fill the rest of the day.
Getting there
train | car
2-3 hr by train or car, about 120 km west
Jaunpur
Half daySharqi-era mosques
The Sharqi sultans ruled a breakaway kingdom from here and left a cluster of stern fifteenth-century mosques with vast pylon gateways, plus a Mughal bridge over the Gomti. Almost no visitors make the trip.
Getting there
car | train
1.5-2 hr by car or train, about 60 km northwest
Bodh Gaya
1-2 daysBuddhist pilgrimage
The Mahabodhi Temple and the descendant of the bodhi tree under which the Buddha reached enlightenment, ringed by monasteries from across the Buddhist world. Too far to rush in a day, and the natural pairing with Sarnath for anyone following the Buddhist trail.
Getting there
train | car
5-7 hr by train or car via Gaya, about 250 km east
A little history of Varanasi
Kashi, Benares, Varanasi: the city has carried all three names and a claim to be the oldest continuously inhabited place in India, with settlement on the Ganges bank going back roughly three thousand years. Sacred to Shiva, it grew as a seat of Sanskrit learning, a market for fine silk, and above all a place to die - Hindus have come here for centuries to end their lives or bring their dead, in the belief that cremation on this bank releases the soul from rebirth.
Its other great religious moment happened just outside town, where the Buddha gave his first sermon at Sarnath and Ashoka later raised a stupa and a pillar over the spot. The city itself was sacked and rebuilt repeatedly: temples were levelled in the twelfth century and again under Aurangzeb, whose Gyanvapi mosque still stands where the Vishwanath temple had been, and the shrine and most of the stone ghats you walk today were financed by Maratha and princely patrons in the eighteenth century. The modern layers are a university founded to teach Indian learning in Indian hands, and a broad corridor cut through the lanes to open the great temple to the river.
Settlement at Rajghat on the Ganges makes Kashi one of the oldest continuously lived-in cities in the world
The Buddha preaches his first sermon at Sarnath, setting out the middle way
Ashoka raises a stupa and inscribed pillar at Sarnath; its lion capital later becomes India's state emblem
Qutb al-Din Aibak's army sacks the city and destroys its temples
Aurangzeb orders the Vishwanath temple demolished and the Gyanvapi mosque built on the site
Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore builds the Kashi Vishwanath temple that stands today
Madan Mohan Malaviya founds Banaras Hindu University on the city's southern edge
A cleared corridor opens between the Kashi Vishwanath temple and the riverfront, replacing a warren of lanes and houses
Know before you go
Payment
Cards & cash mixed
English
Widely spoken
Wifi
Workable
Power
Type D / M
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+91
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Monsoon flooding risk in this window; check current conditions before you go.
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
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FAQs about Varanasi
▸ When is the best time to visit Varanasi?
Oct-Mar is the season: the plain cools, the river drops back and the ghats connect end to end on foot. November carries the biggest night of the ghat year, when the whole riverfront is lined with oil lamps for Dev Deepawali on the Kartik full moon. Apr-Jun is punishing heat and Jul-Aug is the monsoon, when the water climbs over the lower steps.
▸ Can you watch the cremations at the burning ghats?
They happen in the open and nobody will stop you standing quietly on the upper steps nearby, but treat it as a funeral rather than an attraction, because that is what it is. Photographing the pyres or the mourners is not acceptable at any distance. The men who offer to walk you to a viewing balcony and then press you for a donation towards wood for the poor are running a well-worn routine: there is no fee and no official guide, and a firm no works. Leave the guided cremation tours alone.
▸ How many days do you need in Varanasi?
Two full days covers the ghats at dawn and dusk, the old city lanes and Sarnath. A third lets the rhythm of the place work on you, which is the real reason people stay, and leaves room for the fort across the river or the confluence at Prayagraj.
▸ Is Varanasi overwhelming?
For most people, yes, on the first day. The lanes are narrow, loud and shared with cows, motorbikes and funeral processions, touts work the main ghats hard, and the poverty is not tucked out of sight. It eases quickly: stay within walking distance of the river, decline offers firmly and often, and do not let anyone attach themselves to you as a guide.
▸ Can you bathe in the Ganges at Varanasi?
Pilgrims do, in their thousands, every morning, and there is nothing stopping you joining them. The river here is badly polluted with sewage and industrial run-off despite decades of clean-up programmes, so most visitors watch instead; if you do go in, keep your head above the water and rinse off properly afterwards.
▸ Is the Ganga Aarti worth seeing?
The nightly fire ceremony at Dashashwamedh Ghat is a genuine spectacle and genuinely mobbed. Come about an hour early for a place on the steps, or take a rowboat and watch from the water, which is calmer and frames the whole tiered scene at once. Assi Ghat runs a smaller, quieter version at its southern end if the crowd defeats you.
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