Varanasi

The journey in one line

One place in India. Arriving is the journey.

Varanasi is one of the oldest cities anyone still lives in. Its name in tradition is Kashi, the luminous, and its river frontage is a curve of about six kilometres with some eighty ghats stepping down to the water. People come to bathe at dawn. People also come here to die, because dying at Kashi is held to end the cycle of rebirth, and hospices near the burning ghats exist for that. Manikarnika and Harishchandra are cremation ghats. Fires burn there continuously and have for a very long time.

Kashi is one of the Sapta Puri and holds the Kashi Vishwanath Jyotirlinga, so it belongs to several journeys at once. But the reason it stands on its own is that it is not really a monument. It is a working city organised around death and the river, and that is what visiting it means.

October to March. The summer is brutal and the monsoon floods the lower ghats. The classic approach is a rowing boat at sunrise from Assi or Dashashwamedh. The evening Ganga aarti at Dashashwamedh is crowded and staged and still worth seeing. The old city lanes are narrow, and the Vishwanath Dham corridor now connects the temple to the river through what used to be housing.

Where it goes

The places on this journey

What a visit means here. A visit means being at the Varanasi ghats or in the old city. This is a place where people die and are burned, so it is recorded quietly.

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   Varanasi

   वाराणसी

   Varanasi, India

   

   Varanasi, called Kashi, is the fourth of the seven holy cities and among the oldest continuously lived in cities anywhere. Eighty odd ghats step down to the Ganga along a six kilometre curve. Manikarnika and Harishchandra are cremation ghats and are part of what the city is for.

   What counts as a visit

   The public ghats along the river and the lanes of the old city.

   Access

   Photography at the cremation ghats is not welcome and is often forbidden outright. Checked 2026-09-17.

   A place of reflection

   Check access · last checked September 17, 2026

Respect and access

Photography at the cremation ghats is unwelcome and often forbidden. Families are grieving a few metres from where you are standing. People who approach offering to take you to a good viewing spot at Manikarnika are asking for money and often a great deal of it. Do not step over or on offerings left at the water. Do not photograph people bathing.

A place of reflection

This is a memorial or a site of atrocity. Visitors are asked to be quiet, to follow the custodian's guidance on photography, and to treat it as somewhere people grieve.

Opening times, prices, permits and eligibility change. Nothing on this page is a statement about today. Follow the Check access link on a place before you plan around it.

Sources

• varanasi.nic.inhttps://varanasi.nic.in/ · checked September 17, 2026
• shrikashivishwanath.orghttps://shrikashivishwanath.org/

TravelDay selected and grouped these places. Naming a custodian, a government agency or UNESCO as a source is not a claim that any of them endorsed this journey.