Top 15 Things to Do in Varanasi That Every Indian Must Experience

Ayush Singh
May 28
14 min read

Here's something that doesn't get said enough.

Varanasi is not just a destination for Indians. It's a debt we owe ourselves.

Every ancient text, every story your nani or dadi ever told, every mention of Kashi in scripture or song — it all points to this one city. The place Lord Shiva himself chose to call home. The city where the Ganga bends north — the only place on the river it does — as if even the water pauses to pay respect.

We travel to Goa for beaches. To Manali for snow. To Jaipur for forts.

But Varanasi? You go to Varanasi to remember who you are.

This isn't a generic "top things to do" list you'll forget by tomorrow. These are 15 experiences — some overwhelming, some quiet, some deeply spiritual, some just delicious — that will stay with you for the rest of your life.

Let's begin. 🙏

1. Take a Sunrise Boat Ride on the Ganga

Let's start with the one experience that changes people.

Set your alarm for 4:30 AM. You won't want to. Do it anyway.

By 5:00 AM, you're on the ghats. It's still dark. The city is just beginning to wake — you can hear it before you can see it. A conch shell somewhere. The distant sound of a bell. The soft slap of the river against the stone steps.

You get into a wooden rowboat. The boatman starts rowing. And then the sky starts to change.

Darkness goes to deep blue. Blue turns slowly to grey. Then, somewhere far across the river to the east, a glow starts building — slow, deliberate, almost reluctant — and suddenly the entire Ganga turns gold.

On the ghats, hundreds of people are in the water. Pilgrims waist-deep, facing the rising sun with folded hands. An old man doing yoga alone on the steps. A priest completing the morning ritual he has done every single day for thirty years. Flowers from last night's offering drifting past the boat.

You pass Manikarnika Ghat. The cremation fires are still burning — they never stop. The orange glow reflects on the water.

And you think: this city has been doing this exact thing, every single morning, for five thousand years.

Nothing in travel quite compares to this hour in Varanasi. Not Taj Mahal at dawn. Not Hampi at sunset. Nothing.

Cost: ₹150–₹300 per person on a shared rowboat. Negotiate respectfully — this is the boatman's livelihood. Best time:October to March. November–February, the mist sits low on the water and makes it even more extraordinary.

2. Watch the Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat — From a Boat

Yes, the Ganga Aarti gets a separate entry. Because it deserves one.

Every evening, as the sun sets over the city, seven priests take their positions on the stone steps of Dashashwamedh Ghat. They have been doing this ritual since childhood. The movements are precise, rehearsed, sacred — large brass lamps moving in arcs, incense rising in spirals, conch shells blowing, bells ringing, hundreds of voices joining in the chant.

It is choreographed devotion at a scale that no performance can replicate because it is not a performance. It is the city's daily prayer, offered every single evening whether ten people are watching or ten thousand.

The mistake most first-timers make is watching it from the ghat steps. Don't. Get on a boat.

Arrive at the ghats by 4:30–5:00 PM and hire a boat for the evening — ₹200–₹300 per person is fair. Your boat anchors on the river, facing the ghats, and you watch the whole thing unfold with the skyline of temples and havelis behind the priests as the sky darkens and the lamps glow brighter. The sound travels across the water differently. The whole river seems to be listening.

Afterwards — and this is important — don't rush away immediately. Sit for a while after the aarti ends. Watch the diyas (lamps) floating downstream. Let it settle.

Timing: Between 6:00–7:00 PM depending on the season. Always verify on the day.

3. Lose Yourself in the Galis of the Old City

No map will save you here. That's the point.

The old city of Varanasi — the area around Vishwanath Gali, Thatheri Bazaar, Lahurabir, Chowk — is a labyrinth of lanes so narrow that two people can barely walk side by side. Motorcycles somehow navigate them. Cows stand in the middle of intersections with total confidence. The lanes are ancient enough that GPS simply gives up.

Walk in. Turn left for no reason. Follow the smell of incense into a temple courtyard. Find a chai stall wedged between a brass shop and a shrine. Sit. Drink the chai. Watch the city move around you.

Every few steps, there is something extraordinary happening with complete normalcy — a pundit reciting mantras at a roadside shrine, a silk weaver working on a handloom that takes up most of his living room, schoolchildren in uniforms weaving between sadhus and tourists, a flower seller stringing marigolds at a pace that seems meditative.

The old city is not a heritage museum. It is a living neighbourhood that has been continuously inhabited since before Rome was founded. People were born in those houses. Grew old in them. Died in them. And will do so for generations more.

Wandermate Tip: The best gali walks happen at two times — just after sunrise (when the light comes in low and golden through the narrow gaps), and after 8 PM (when the day's tourists have thinned out and the lanes belong to locals and cats).

4. Do the Kashi Vishwanath Darshan at the Crack of Dawn

If you are Hindu — and even if you are not — the Kashi Vishwanath Temple carries a weight that is difficult to describe.

This is one of the 12 Jyotirlingas. Lord Shiva is believed to be present here not as an idol, but as an infinite pillar of divine light. People have been coming to worship at this spot for over 3,500 years. The golden spires above the old city skyline — 800 kg of pure gold donated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh — are the visual soul of Varanasi.

The Kashi Vishwanath Corridor has changed the experience dramatically. The approach from the river is now wide, grand, and genuinely moving. You walk through it and the weight of history comes down on you slowly.

Go for the early morning darshan — doors open at 3:00 AM for the first aarti of the day. The queue is shorter. The priests are performing rituals in near-silence. The city hasn't woken up yet. And standing in that inner sanctum, you understand something about this city that no travel guide can explain.

Deposit your phone at the cloak room outside — they won't let you in with it and honestly, you don't want the distraction anyway.

Tip for long queues: Arrive right at 3:00 AM or 4:00 AM. Avoid Mondays (Shiva's sacred day) if you want a shorter wait — or embrace the Monday crowd as part of the experience.

5. Sit Quietly at Manikarnika Ghat

This one is not comfortable. It is important.

Manikarnika Ghat is where the dead are cremated. The pyres burn here around the clock — day and night, rain and sun, festival and ordinary Tuesday. The fire itself is believed to be eternal, originating from a flame in the nearby Shiva temple that has reportedly never been extinguished.

Every few hours, a procession of men carries a body wrapped in white or saffron cloth through the lanes, chanting "Ram naam satya hai" — the name of God is truth. They set the body down. Wood is arranged. The fire is brought from the eternal flame. And the last rites begin.

Hindus believe that Lord Shiva himself whispers a mantra — the Taraka mantra — in the ear of those who die in Kashi. This liberates the soul from the endless cycle of rebirth. This is why people travel here to die. This is why families bring the terminally ill. This is why the fires never stop.

Standing there, as an Indian who has grown up with these beliefs, it hits differently than any description can prepare you for. It is not morbid. It is clarifying. You think about your own life. About what matters. About how much time you spend worrying about things that won't follow you into that fire.

Please: No photography. No phone. No talking loudly. Observe silently, at a respectful distance.

6. Eat Kachori-Sabzi for Breakfast in the Lanes

This is not just a meal. This is a ritual.

Somewhere between 7:00 and 9:00 AM, in a small shop in the lanes near Dashashwamedh or Thatheri Bazaar, a cook is pulling hot kachoris out of a kadhai of oil. They're crisp, golden, stuffed with spiced dal, and served with a thick aloo-tamatar sabzi that has been slow-cooking since before you woke up.

You stand at a small table — there are rarely chairs — and you eat with your hands from a dona (leaf plate). The sabzi is deeply flavourful in that particular way that only comes from cooking in a lot of ghee and a lot of time. The kachori shatters when you break it. You eat faster than you intended. You order another plate.

A glass of doodh or chai appears. You didn't ask for it. You drink it.

This breakfast costs you ₹40–₹60 and carries you till 2 PM.

Where: The lanes behind Dashashwamedh Ghat, near Thatheri Bazaar, and around Godaulia Chowk. Follow the crowd — the longest line outside any small shop is always your best indicator.

7. Try Malaiyo on a Winter Morning (October–February Only)

Most people have never heard of Malaiyo. That's a shame.

It is made by churning milk through the cold night air, whipping it into an impossibly light foam, flavouring it with saffron and cardamom, and topping it with pistachios and silver foil. The result looks like a cloud in a bowl. It dissolves on your tongue in about two seconds — faster than you can quite process it.

It exists only in winter. It is sold only in the morning. By 9:00 AM it's gone for the day. There are no shortcuts and no off-season substitutes.

The vendors appear in the lanes around Godaulia Chowk and Chowk area as early as 5:30 AM — and the best ones are sold out within a few hours. Locals line up before sunrise for this.

If you are in Varanasi between October and February, finding malaiyo on your first morning is not optional.

Cost: ₹30–₹50 per serving.

8. Drink Thandai (or Bhang Thandai) on Holi or Mahashivratri

India has cultural experiences that are unique to specific cities. Bhang thandai in Varanasi is one of them.

Thandai is a cold milk drink made with almonds, fennel seeds, rose petals, cardamom, and poppy seeds — delicious and completely harmless. During Holi and Mahashivratri, a bhang-infused version is consumed openly across the city. Bhang (a preparation of cannabis) has been offered to Lord Shiva here for centuries — it is not recreational in the way the word suggests. It is deeply embedded in the city's Shaivite culture.

Government-licensed bhang shops operate openly near the ghats. The one near Dashashwamedh Ghat is the most well-known. You can ask for plain thandai or the bhang version — be honest about which one you're ordering and drink responsibly if you go for the latter.

Even during ordinary months, plain thandai is available year-round and is one of the great cold drinks of UP. But if you happen to be in Varanasi for Holi or Mahashivratri — when the entire city turns electric and stays awake through the night — drinking thandai on the ghat steps with the city swirling around you is an experience that is genuinely unrepeatable elsewhere.

9. Witness Dev Deepawali — The Night the Ghats Become Heaven

If there is one festival in India you have not seen yet, make it this one.

Dev Deepawali falls on the full moon of Kartik month — fifteen days after Diwali, usually in November. It is Varanasi's own festival, celebrated nowhere else at this scale. On this night, every single one of the 84 ghats is lit with earthen diyas — over a million of them — from the waterline all the way up the steps to the tops of the havelis above.

The reflection of a million lamps on the Ganga, stretching as far as you can see in both directions, with the dark sky above and the deep river below — there is no adequate photograph. There is no adequate description. It is the kind of thing that stops your breath.

The Ganga Aarti on this night is its grandest version of the year. Classical musicians perform on the ghats. Fireworks go off over the river. Priests stand in rows at every ghat, not just Dashashwamedh. And thousands of boats full of people glide silently across the water between the reflections.

Dev Deepawali 2026 falls in November. Book your accommodation and train at least 3 months in advance — the city fills up completely.

Best vantage point: A boat on the river, anchored mid-stream, around 6:30–7:00 PM.

10. Walk Every Ghat from Assi to Raj Ghat

The full ghat walk — from Assi Ghat in the south to Raj Ghat in the north — covers roughly 6.5 kilometres and all 84 ghats.

Do it in the morning. Start at Assi Ghat around 6:00–6:30 AM with a chai in hand. Walk north at whatever pace feels right. There's no need to rush and no reward for speed.

What you'll see along the way: a barber shaving a man's head as part of a ritual for a family that arrived to do last rites. Boys playing cricket on the steps of a ghat. A sadhu sitting completely still, eyes closed, seemingly unaware that three thousand people have walked past since he sat down. A group of women from Tamil Nadu bathing together, laughing. A dhobi (washerman) pounding clothes against the stone steps as he has done every day of his working life. A child learning to row a boat in a small eddy near the shore.

This is not a heritage walk in the museum sense. This is just life — extraordinarily, impossibly concentrated.

Time needed: 2.5 to 4 hours depending on how often you stop. Footwear: Proper sandals or shoes. The ghats are uneven, sometimes wet, often slippery near the waterline.

11. Attend a Classical Music Performance

Varanasi gave India the Banaras Gharana — one of the most celebrated schools of Hindustani classical music. Ustad Bismillah Khan learned the shehnai in these lanes. Pandit Ravi Shankar's roots run through this city. The traditions of tabla, vocal, and thumri that emerged from Banaras shaped the entire arc of Indian classical music.

That musical heritage hasn't died. It lives in the early morning ragas that drift from windows before sunrise. In the impromptu performances that break out on rooftops near the ghats. In the organised concerts and recitals that happen throughout the year.

The Banaras Gharana Music Trail — a guided heritage walk that takes you to the homes and practice halls of legendary musicians — is one of the most unexpectedly moving experiences in the city. And several guesthouses and rooftop cafés near Assi Ghat host informal evening performances where you sit on a mat with perhaps twenty other people and listen to a tabla master play until midnight.

If you're travelling during Ganga Mahotsav (the annual cultural festival on the river), concerts happen on floating stages on the Ganga itself. That combination — classical music, the Ganga, a full moon, and a December night — is the kind of memory you carry for decades.

12. Visit Sarnath and Understand Why It Matters

Varanasi is Hindu. Sarnath, just 10 km away, is Buddhist. And the contrast is everything.

After the Mahaparinirvana at Kushinagar, the Buddha walked to Sarnath — the deer park called Isipatana — and sat with his five disciples. What he taught them that day set in motion a tradition that spread across Asia and shaped the lives of hundreds of millions of people over the next 2,500 years.

The Dhamek Stupa stands on the exact spot where that first teaching happened. It is a 43-metre cylindrical brick structure, built in the 5th century CE, and it has a quiet presence that is genuinely hard to describe. After the intensity of Varanasi, this place feels like a held breath. Green lawns. Birdsong. Monks from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan, and Tibet walking slowly around the stupa in meditation.

The Sarnath Archaeological Museum has the original Lion Capital of Ashoka — the sculpture you have been looking at your whole life on every Indian government letterhead, passport, and currency note. Standing in front of the actual thing is something else.

Practical note: Auto-rickshaw from Varanasi takes 25–30 minutes and costs ₹100–₹200. Budget half a day. Museums open 9 AM–5 PM.

13. Watch a Silk Weaver at Work in Sonarpura

Banarasi silk is GI-tagged. Legally, if it doesn't come from the looms of Varanasi, it cannot be called Banarasi silk. Like Darjeeling tea. Like champagne.

The tradition goes back over 500 years, refined under Mughal patronage and passed down through generations of Muslim weaving families who make up the backbone of this industry. A single complex Banarasi saree with intricate zari work can take weeks to complete. The finest ones take months.

Most tourists buy from the tourist shops near the ghats. That's fine — but if you want to understand what you're actually buying, go to Sonarpura or Madanpura, the weaving districts of Varanasi. Walk into the lanes. You'll hear the rhythmic clatter of handlooms from inside people's homes. Ask if you can watch. More often than not, someone will invite you in.

Watching the speed and precision of a skilled weaver — hands moving faster than logic suggests possible, the zari thread catching light as it loops through the silk — is genuinely extraordinary. You will look at every Banarasi saree differently for the rest of your life.

Buying tip: Authentic hand-woven sarees start at ₹3,000–₹5,000 for simpler designs. Anything sold cheaper than ₹1,500 near the tourist ghats is almost certainly machine-made. Always ask to see the weave closely — handloom has a distinctive irregularity that machines can't replicate.

14. Have Banarasi Paan at the End of Every Day

This is not optional.

Varanasi's paan is not the tobacco-stuffed, red-stained variety you've been trying to avoid elsewhere. The sweet Banarasi paan is a different creature entirely — a bright green betel leaf folded around gulkand (rose jam), fennel, cloves, cardamom, coconut flakes, and silver varq. It is fragrant. It is fresh. It is the perfect ending to a day of walking, eating, and temple-going.

Watch the paan-wallah make it. The whole process — opening the leaf, spreading each ingredient with different tools, folding the parcel with practiced precision, offering it to you as a finished thing — takes less than two minutes and looks like ceremony.

Eat it in one bite. Chew slowly. Walk towards the ghat. Watch the Ganga.

That's the Varanasi evening, perfectly complete.

Cost: ₹20–₹50. Ask specifically for the meetha paan (sweet paan).

15. Just Sit. Do Nothing. Let Kashi Come to You.

This is the hardest one for most people. It's also the most important.

At some point during your time in Varanasi — ideally more than once — put away the itinerary. Don't go anywhere. Don't have a plan. Find a step on a ghat that isn't too crowded, sit down, and just stay there.

Watch the river. It doesn't stop moving. It hasn't stopped moving in millions of years.

Watch the people. A family doing a puja. A child in school uniform eating a banana. An old man in a white dhoti staring at the water with an expression you can't quite read.

Something happens in Varanasi when you stop moving and let the city move around you. The noise stops feeling like chaos and starts feeling like rhythm. The smoke from Manikarnika drifts across the water and you don't flinch anymore. A flower from an offering bobs past your feet.

The city has been here for five thousand years. It was here before your great-great-great-grandparents were born. It will be here long after everything you know has changed.

There is something deeply settling about being in a place that old. A perspective that only stillness can give you.

That stillness — quiet, unhurried, unplanned — is what people mean when they say Varanasi changed them.

Sit. Stay. Let it.

Before You Pack Your Bags

Varanasi rewards slowness. The travellers who come with a rigid two-day plan and rush through every item on a checklist see the city. The ones who linger, wander, and let the rhythm of the ghats set their pace — they feel it.

You don't need to do all 15 things on this list. You need to do the ones that call to you, and do them slowly.

Take the sunrise boat. Eat the kachori. Sit at Manikarnika and think. Watch the aarti from the water. Get lost in the galis. That's already more than most people allow themselves.

And if you come back — and you will want to come back — Varanasi will have something new waiting. It always does.

Har Har Mahadev. 🙏

Written by the Wandermate Varanasi team — locals, storytellers, and people who have walked these ghats more times than we can count. Need help planning your Varanasi trip? We build personalised itineraries, recommend guesthouses, and guide you through the city like a friend who grew up here. Reach us at [wandermatevaranasi.com]