Women Going Places Together.
From the evening Ganga Aarti to sunrise at Assi Ghat, discover the stories of Banaras’s ghats and why this thoughtful journey belongs on every woman’s travel list.
At dusk, lamps begin to glow and the sound of chants carries across the water. Before dawn, Assi Ghat welcomes the day with music, Vedic chanting and sunrise rituals. Between these two moments, the ghats hold a city in motion: people gathering, praying, working, remembering and beginning again.
They are not simply steps beside the Ganga. They are places where devotion and daily life meet—and where stories emerge slowly, if you give them time.
For a woman travelling to Banaras, experiencing the ghats can be more than seeing a famous riverfront. It can be a chance to notice the details, listen to the people who know the city and feel the many layers of a place that resists a single explanation.
The journey opens with a private boat ride on the Ganges as evening settles over the city. From the water, you watch the Ganga Aarti unfold against the backdrop of the ghats: lamps raised, bells ringing, chants carrying over the river.
The ceremony is memorable, but so is everything around it. The changing light on the old buildings. The boats gathered on the water. Families and visitors turning their attention to the river.
After the aarti, the evening continues on foot with a guided food walk through the old city’s lanes and historic food corners. The shift from the river to the busy streets is part of the experience: Banaras is sacred, certainly, but it is also lived in, cooked in and enjoyed one bite at a time.
The next morning begins before dawn at Assi Ghat with Subah-e-Banaras. Devotional music, Vedic chanting and sunrise yoga offer a gentle way into the day.
Then board a traditional boat and watch the first light move across the ghats. With live classical music on board, the sunrise ride gives you time to take in the riverfront as the city starts its morning rituals.
From the boat, the ghats may appear to form one long stone edge. On foot, their differences become clearer. Each has its own associations, pace and purpose. Some are places for prayer and bathing; others are linked to particular histories, legends and rites. The riverfront is a living cultural landscape, not a monument frozen in time.
After the boat ride, a guided heritage walk through the narrow lanes of old Kashi brings the city’s riverfront into a wider context. The route includes darshan at Kashi Vishwanath Temple and a visit to a historic akhara, where you learn about Varanasi’s centuries-old wrestling traditions.
Later, the journey continues to Sarnath, where the Buddha delivered his first sermon. A visit to Mulagandha Kuti Vihar and the Buddhist monasteries is followed by meditation and chanting with resident monks.
These experiences show how Banaras’s stories extend beyond the river. The ghats may be the city’s most recognisable face, but its spiritual and cultural life reaches into its temples, lanes, training grounds and quieter places of reflection.
On the third day, the journey turns toward the people and traditions that shape everyday life. A morning visit to Sankat Mochan and Durga Kund temples is followed by time with artisan families in the Silk Weavers’ Colony. You meet the women and families preserving Banarasi craft and learn about the skill and stories behind the sarees.
A home-hosted lunch with a local family brings the experience to the table. Later, a walk through Banaras Hindu University and the city’s quieter by-lanes offers another view of local life. The day closes with a heritage dinner accompanied by live Banarasi folk music.
These encounters add something important to a journey centred on the ghats. They take you beyond watching the city and create space to meet some of the people who carry its traditions forward.
Banaras offers a rare combination: a riverfront that changes character through the day, rituals with deep histories, music, food, craft and personal encounters with local life. It can feel peaceful one moment and overwhelming the next. That contrast is part of what makes the city stay with you.
For Indian women, familiar rituals and crafts may take on new meaning when experienced in the place where they are practised and passed on. For international travellers, Banaras can open a window onto the richness and variety of India’s cultural and spiritual life.
A visit here does not need to be a race through landmarks. The most rewarding moments often come from slowing down: watching the sunrise from a boat, asking a guide about a ritual, or sharing a meal with a local family.
You don’t have to arrive with all the answers. Curiosity is enough.
Banaras rewards thoughtful planning. The ghats, old-city lanes and cultural visits each have their own rhythm, and local context can make the difference between simply passing through and understanding more of what you see.
Meraki’s Sacred Banaras: Ghats, Stories & Sunrise journey brings these experiences together over four days and three nights. The journey includes private airport transfers and sightseeing, a professional English-speaking local guide and a Meraki tour leader. It is designed so you can focus on the city, while the practical details are organised around you.
You can join independently and travel alongside other women. The group setting, local guidance and carefully planned experiences offer support as you explore at your own pace.
The journey includes a private sunset boat ride to watch the Ganga Aarti from the water, Subah-e-Banaras at Assi Ghat, and a sunrise boat ride past the ghats with live classical music on board.
It is a four-day, three-night journey, scheduled for 20–23 February 2027.
The journey also includes a guided food walk, a heritage walk through old Kashi, Kashi Vishwanath Temple, a historic akhara, an excursion to Sarnath, visits to Sankat Mochan and Durga Kund, time with artisan families in the Silk Weavers’ Colony, a home-hosted lunch and a farewell dinner with live Banarasi folk music.
No. Alongside rituals and temple visits, the journey includes food, music, local craft, neighbourhood walks and time with a Banarasi family. It offers several ways to encounter the city and its people.
Banaras will not give you one neat story to take home. Its stories are in the lamps at dusk, the first music at Assi Ghat, the movement of boats on the river and the people who continue to make the city their own.
Come for the ghats. Stay for the moments around them.
