Before you ask,
the honest answer.
64 questions, answered the way we’d answer them on WhatsApp at eleven at night, because that’s usually when they get asked. Money, food, where you’ll sleep, how to get here, and what happens if your plans change.
How this website
actually works
Open the package, retreat or class you want and tap Book now. The booking wizard walks you through three short steps: your details, optional add-ons, then review and pay. You get a booking reference straight away and a confirmation email, and from that moment you're talking to a person rather than to a form.
Packages, yoga classes and Build my trip take arrivals from 1 November 2026 onwards. Wellness retreats take arrivals from 1 January 2027 onwards. Everything is browsable and bookable today. It's only the calendar that's locked, so you can read every page, choose your room and hold your dates right now for a date on or after those.
To arrive tomorrow, book before 2 PM India time today. After that, the earliest we can take is the day after tomorrow. It isn't a rule for the sake of one: your host has to find you a room, a car and a teacher, and an afternoon is genuinely the least that takes.
Every retreat group starts together on a Friday, settles in that evening, and goes white water rafting together on the first Saturday, whichever retreat length you booked. Groups run 10 to 12 guests and never larger, so starts stay personal. The booking form accepts Friday arrival dates and suggests the next three Friday starts you can book.
Add-ons are the optional extras: scooty rental, taxi and pickup, Ayurvedic massage, sound healing, treks and day trips. You pick them at checkout, in the second step of the wizard, and you can add more at any point during your stay. Every add-on has a fixed price shown before you book. The price you see is the price you pay, and it never changes later.
Yes, once, by yourself. Your dashboard will move a booking to a new date up to 3 months out, as long as you're not already inside the last 72 hours before arrival, the new date has the usual notice on it, and a retreat still lands on a Friday. Past any of those, message your host on WhatsApp. That's not us being difficult. It's a person having to ring a hotel, which a form can't do.
Yes. Message your host on WhatsApp with your booking reference and say what changed: guests, add-ons, or simply what you feel like doing. Adjustments are handled in conversation, not through forms. Anything that costs money comes to you as a payment link, so you're never asked for cash.
One booking covers up to 6 guests on a package and 6 on a retreat. That's not a limit on your group, it's Rishikesh's hotels. They're small, and 6 people is three rooms almost anywhere in town. A bigger group books in blocks and we keep you together. Tell us the real number when you first message and your host will work out per-person pricing and a simple way to split it.
Yes. Build my trip lets you pick experiences day by day and shape your own Rishikesh. Every experience carries its real time slot, so two things can never clash in the same hour. Nothing is assumed on a custom trip: you choose the days, the experiences, and where you sleep. Retreats are the one thing that stays fixed, because they run as a group on a set Friday. Once your trip is built, your host prices it with you and you pay from your dashboard.
Yes. Save my trip keeps what you've chosen (the trip, the room, the add-ons) so you can close the tab and come back to it. Saved trips live in your own browser, so you don't need an account to use one, and nothing you picked is lost while you think it over.
Every product page has a Share button. On phones it opens your native share sheet; on a computer it lets you copy the link or send it straight to WhatsApp. Send it to whoever you're travelling with and you're both looking at the same page in seconds.
You can book without one. Creating an account gives you a dashboard: your bookings and itinerary in one place, the self-service date change, and somewhere to keep things like a dietary preference so you're not retyping them every trip.
You can still book, and you'll still be looked after properly. Everything that matters reaches you by email too (the confirmation, the itinerary, the receipt, the packing notes), and you can simply reply to any of it. Or write to hello@bookmyrishikesh.com and a person answers. WhatsApp is where most guests prefer to talk because it is already open on their phone, not because it is the only door.
Money, upfront
and honestly
On a package: the trip itself (your host, the activities on the schedule, and getting you to them). Find Your Flow and Live Like a Local also include a hostel bed for every night; First Hello is a single day with no night in it. Meals aren't included on packages: you eat where you like and pay for it there. On a wellness retreat, everything is in: your room for the whole stay, all satvik meals every day, and the programme itself. The retreat pages list a few optional sessions you can book separately if you want them, and add-ons are the same: optional, each with a fixed price shown before you book. Nothing optional is ever added without you choosing it. The one thing to carry cash for is the Beatles Ashram gate: entry is included for Indian guests, and international guests pay Rs. 1,000 at the gate. Your host covers everything else there.
Everything is paid online, through this website. On a package or a retreat you can reserve with a deposit and pay the balance later, or pay the whole thing at checkout. Your choice. It costs the same either way. The balance is due 72 hours before you arrive, and the payment screen shows you the exact date and time rather than asking you to work it out. No money is ever collected on arrival, by anyone.
2 PM India time, 3 days before your arrival date. Check-in is 2 PM, so 72 hours before check-in lands at the same hour 3 days earlier. Arrive on a Thursday and the line is 2 PM on the Monday. We say India time out loud because it's your host's clock the room is held against, not yours.
Yes, right up to that line. Alongside the deposit there's a "Hold my dates, pay later" option that takes nothing today. We keep your dates and message you on WhatsApp to arrange the money when it suits you. Past the 72-hour line those options close: it's pay in full, or save the trip for another time.
Talk to us before the deadline rather than after it, and it very rarely becomes a problem. If the balance isn't paid by then we may have to release your dates, and what comes back to you at that point follows the same refund windows as any other cancellation, which is one more reason not to leave it late. A card that won't go through, a bank being difficult, a genuinely bad week: message your host and we'll work it out with you.
Yes, through the website. Payments run through Razorpay, so UPI, cards, netbanking and wallets all work on their own secure checkout, and your card details are entered there and never touch our server. The amount you see is the amount that leaves your account: no booking fee, nothing added later.
At some of them, yes, and it is better to hear it here than at a ticket window. Several places around Rishikesh charge Indian residents and foreign nationals different entry rates, and the Beatles Ashram is the one most guests meet: a foreign ticket costs a good deal more than an Indian one. That is set by whoever runs each site, not by us, and we take no part of it. Your host knows the current rates and will tell you what a day is likely to cost before you set off, so nobody is caught out at a gate.
No. Nothing we sell you is collected on arrival, not by your host, not by a guide, not at a front desk. Everything runs through the website, including anything you add after you've already landed: that arrives as a payment link, not as a hand held out. What you'll still spend money on is your own: food on a package, a coffee at the hostel café, parking if you've driven yourself. Each property page lists that kind of thing before you book.
You can send one for any amount from Rs. 500 to Rs. 50,000, and you choose how it arrives: we email it straight to them, or we give you a link to pass on yourself, whichever suits. You can put your own photo on the card too. They never expire. There's no date on them and no deadline to use them, so a card bought today still works in three years. When it's redeemed it becomes credit in their account, and that credit goes towards the trip itself: a package, a retreat or a yoga class. Add-ons like a trek, a taxi or a massage are paid the normal way alongside it, and there's always at least Rs. 1 charged online so the payment goes through. If the trip costs more, they pay the difference normally; if it costs less, the rest stays there for next time. Three honest things. Credit isn't cash. It can't be withdrawn or moved to somebody else's account once redeemed, and if a trip paid partly with credit is cancelled, that part comes back as credit rather than money, while whatever you paid yourself goes back to the account you paid from. Whoever holds the code and PIN, or the link, can claim it (we can't tell whether that's the person you meant), so pass it on privately, and message us rather than typing wrong PINs at it if a link goes astray. And if you lose the email, sign in with the address you bought it with and you'll find the card on your dashboard under Trips, with its link still there if nobody has claimed it yet.
Three windows, identical for packages, retreats and classes. Cancel 7 or more days before arrival and everything you paid us comes back. Cancel 3 to 6 days before and half comes back. Inside the last 3 days there's no refund. Those windows are counted in whole days on India's calendar rather than to the hour, so the day that falls exactly 3 days before you arrive is a half-refund day right through to midnight. The payment deadline sits inside that same day, at 2 PM India time. They are close neighbours, but two different lines, and we'd rather spell that out than have you discover it. Two things beyond that. If you book when your arrival is already inside that window, the booking is non-refundable from the moment you pay, and we tell you so at checkout rather than afterwards. And if we're ever the ones cancelling your trip, everything you paid comes back whatever the date. On the form it comes back in: money you paid on your own card returns to that card, usually in seven to ten business days, while anything paid with gift-card credit comes back as credit in your account. A gift card was bought on somebody else's card, and Razorpay can only refund the card that paid.
No. The amount on the payment screen is the amount charged: no booking fee, no service charge, nothing appearing at the end. Every add-on carries a fixed price shown before you book, and your host has no authority to change it later. You're never quoted one number and charged another, and nothing gets renegotiated once you're standing in Rishikesh.
Every package and retreat has a fixed price published on its page. You can see it, and book it, without speaking to anyone. Only a fully custom trip is priced in conversation, because there's nothing standard to price. Either way, what you're shown is what you pay, with no renegotiating on arrival.
Which trip is
actually yours
A package is a trip. A fixed schedule of Rishikesh (rafting, the aarti, a sunrise, the cafés) with your host arranging all of it, you choosing your own room, and you eating wherever you fancy. A wellness retreat is a programme. One group, arriving together on a Friday, staying in one place, with yoga, meditation, the river and all satvik meals included from start to finish. Put plainly: a package is Rishikesh shown to you; a retreat is Rishikesh done with you, at one rhythm, with nothing left to decide each morning.
Groups of 10–12. Never larger. And it isn't a soft promise. The booking system refuses the 13th guest on a departure, so the group you booked into is the group that turns up.
Message us with your dates and what you're hoping to get out of the trip (sleep, adrenaline, quiet, or all three), and your host will suggest a starting point instead of making you guess from a list. If a retreat isn't right for you we'll say so. A wrong trip sold well is still a wrong trip.
Three days and two nights is where most trips land, and there's a reason: it's long enough to raft, catch a sunrise, sit through an evening aarti and still have an afternoon doing absolutely nothing. One full day works if that's genuinely all you have. A week changes the trip completely. You stop sightseeing somewhere around day four and start living there instead.
Yes, and plenty of guests do: a few days of a normal itinerary before or after the retreat. Mention it upfront so your host can plan the whole stay as one thing rather than two bookings that happen to touch.
Yes. Choose the private travel style at checkout and the day is yours alone: nobody else joining your rafting, nobody else sharing your host. It adds a flat surcharge for the whole booking rather than per person, because what you're buying is your host's undivided day, and that costs the same whether one of you turns up or six. The amount is shown before you pay.
Where you’ll
actually sleep
Whichever you'd rather. Where You'll Stay lists every property we book into, with real photographs of the actual room type, the real per-night rate, and an honest good-to-know list: riverside hotels with balconies looking straight at the Ganga, and backpacker hostels with dorm beds (mixed and women-only) plus private rooms if you want a hostel's company without a bunk. Nothing on those pages is a stock photo of somewhere else.
It depends on the trip. Find Your Flow and Live Like a Local include a hostel bed for every night, already in the price. And if you'd rather have a hotel room, we take the value of that included bed off the total first, so you only pay the difference. On a wellness retreat the stay is fixed and fully included: one property, the whole group together, nothing to choose and nothing to add. First Hello is a single day and has no night in it. On Build my trip nothing is assumed: you pick the nights and the room yourself.
Anywhere between a minute and about half an hour, depending which one you pick, and every property page states its own, measured on foot rather than guessed. The closest is about 79 metres from the bridge: a flat one-minute walk. The furthest is around 1.8 km, roughly 33 minutes, with a real climb in it. Where a property sits up a hill we say so and we give the height too, because a suitcase and a hundred metres of climb is a thing worth knowing beforehand.
You choose the property and the room at checkout, and you can see exactly what it looks like before you do. Your hotel confirmation follows within 24 hours of booking. If you want to move after that, message your host. It's a phone call to a hotel, not a fight with a form.
Yes, at several of the hostels: a female dorm with its own secure lockers, listed by name and photographed on that property's page like every other room. Look for it when you're choosing your room, or just say so to your host and they'll point you at the properties that have one.
Yes, and each property page lists its own. Dull reading now is better than a surprise with a suitcase in your hand. Real examples from the current list: one hotel has no lift, so every room is up stairs; one hostel is a steep 450-metre walk up from where a car can drop you; several have no parking on site; several run quiet hours from 10 PM; one has hot water only between set times; one doesn't take under-18s at all and doesn't allow alcohol on the premises; and at least one asks every guest for a government photo ID at check-in. If any of that would be a problem, tell us and we'll put you somewhere else.
What you’ll
actually eat
On a wellness retreat, yes, all of it. Satvik breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, cooked for the group, with no extra ordering and nothing to settle at the end. On a package, no: your host points you at the cafés and the places locals actually eat, and you pay for your own food there. That's a deliberate choice. Half the pleasure of Rishikesh is eating your way along the river, and we'd rather not put you on a fixed menu for it.
Retreat meals are satvik: simple vegetarian cooking, the food this valley has eaten for a very long time. Several of the hostels' in-house cafés are vegetarian too, though those are pay-as-you-go and not part of the room rate. Rishikesh itself is an easy town to be vegetarian in and genuinely good at it: the riverside cafés are half the reason people stay longer than they planned to.
In the notes box at checkout. It's right there, and it says so: dietary needs, must-dos, anything you'd rather skip. If you have an account you can also save a dietary preference on your profile so you're not retyping it every trip. Your host reads it before you land, not on the day. And if something genuinely can't be done, you'll hear that before you travel rather than at the table.
Ask your host. That's a real part of what a host is for, and the honest answer shifts with the season, the hour and what you're in the mood for. We've also written up the cafés we actually send people to, rather than the ones with the best signage.
Yoga, even if
you’ve never tried
Not in the slightest. Every level is welcome, including a first class ever. You're guided through it, not left at the back to work it out from the person in front. Come to one morning, see how it lands, and decide about the next one afterwards. Nobody is watching you, and the river is far more interesting than anyone's posture.
Morning yoga runs 6:00 – 7:30 AM, every day, at Sai Ghat, Lower Tapovan, near Laxman Jhula. Evening meditation is 7:30 – 8:00 PM, at Freedom Ghat, a five-minute walk across Laxman Jhula. Those are the same sessions our retreat guests attend: a drop-in joins the real class, not a separate one laid on for visitors.
Yes. A drop-in class is Rs 1,000 per person for that one session: yoga in the morning or meditation in the evening, decide tonight and practise tomorrow. A private one-to-one session is Rs 2,000 per person per session, at whatever hour suits you, at your stay or riverside where possible, with our own in-house teacher rather than a stranger from a listing. Book five mornings and it is five sessions, so five times the price.
No, and we'd rather say so plainly than let you find out later. Teacher training and standalone courses came off this site in August 2026, and we don't run, arrange or partner on one in any form. What we do run is packages, wellness retreats, and our own drop-in and private yoga and meditation classes. Ask us about the schools in town and we'll tell you honestly what we know; we just won't be booking one for you.
A day with a shape to it: practice in the morning, food you didn't have to think about, the river in the afternoon, a sitting at dusk. It isn't a bootcamp, and it isn't a holiday with yoga bolted onto the side. If you've never been on one, we've written an honest description of what the days actually feel like from the inside.
The part we take
most seriously
It's who I built this for first. You know exactly who you're meeting before you land. Me, personally, reachable on WhatsApp for your entire trip. Not a call-centre queue, not an unknown guide assigned on the day. There's also a longer, more honest piece on the blog about Rishikesh itself for a woman travelling alone: what genuinely changes after dark, the one thing I'd actually watch for, and what I do and don't do about any of it.
Because the person booking is the person entering the agreement and paying, and that has to be an adult. It is not a rule about who can come. Younger travellers are very welcome on a booking an adult makes, and that is exactly why we ask for everyone's date of birth rather than just yours: a few of the adventure activities have their own minimum age set by the operator running them, and rafting and bungee crews will not take a minor without a guardian present. Knowing the ages before you arrive means your host can build the days around what your group can actually do, instead of somebody being turned away at the riverbank.
For anything needing a specialist (the rafting crew, a trek guide), every guide and partner we bring in is reviewed for safety practices and reliability before they ever join one of our trips, and it's revisited on an ongoing basis, not as a one-time check. Your own host is held to the same standard: one named person for your whole booking, and you get their name, photograph and number the evening before you arrive. What you see on this site is exactly who shows up.
Your host first. They're one WhatsApp message away for the whole trip. On the day you travel you also get an emergency contact alongside their number, so there's always a second person to reach. The solo-travel guide on our blog lists the numbers worth putting in your phone before you land, whoever you happen to be travelling as.
Your host has standing authority to adjust or delay an activity for safety without asking permission first, and will always explain what's changing and why. Moving an activity never costs you anything extra and never shortens your trip. And in the rare case where we cancel the trip itself rather than reshuffle it, everything you paid us comes back, whatever the date.
You tell your host, or you reach us directly. Recovery matters more to us than pretending everything went perfectly, and we'd far rather know quickly and fix it than have you stay quiet and write about it later.
Getting here,
and when to come
Three ways in. By air, Jolly Grant Airport in Dehradun is the nearest at around 21 km, roughly a 45-minute drive, with direct flights from Delhi, Mumbai and most Indian metros, and international guests usually connecting through Delhi. By train, Haridwar Junction is about 25 km away and the best-connected railhead in the region; Yog Nagari Rishikesh station is closer but has fewer direct trains. By road it's about 240 km from Delhi, five to seven hours by car, and comfortable overnight buses run daily and get in around sunrise.
Yes, as an add-on: airport, railway station or bus stand, at a fixed price shown upfront. Add it at checkout or any time later. However you arrive, somebody is expecting you, which on a first night in an unfamiliar town is worth considerably more than the fare.
We plan around your actual arrival time, not an idealised one. A very late arrival usually means checking in, sleeping, and your host meeting you the next morning instead of that same night. Tell us the flight or train you're on and the first day gets built around when you genuinely get in.
It depends what you're coming for, and that isn't a dodge. September to November is the safest single bet: the hills are at their greenest, the Ganga runs full and clean, and rafting is in full swing. December to February is genuinely cold in the mornings, and pays you back with clear skies, thin crowds and an aarti that feels far more intimate. March and April warm up before the peak crowds return. May and June are hot, which is quiet on the water and rather good for a yoga-shaped stay. July to mid-September is the monsoon: heavy rain, high water, landslides on the hill roads, and rafting typically pauses.
You won't have to guess. A week before you arrive your host sends a short, specific message: what to pack, what the weather is actually doing that week, and anything worth knowing before you fly. The one thing worth saying in advance is that a winter sunrise here is properly cold. If you're coming between December and February and going up to Kunjapuri for the sunrise, bring real layers, not optimism.
No. Mats, bolsters and blankets are all here, for the morning classes at Sai Ghat and for anything your host arranges. Don't carry one across the world. Bring clothes you can move and sit cross-legged in, and that's the whole requirement.
Once you’ve
actually landed
Eight moments, and you're told about each one before it arrives. The confirmation lands the minute you book, carrying your arrival card, your receipt and a calendar invite. If a stay is part of your booking, the property's own written confirmation follows within 24 hours. Packing and weather notes a week out. Every number you might need (host, guide, hotel) the evening before you fly. Then you arrive and settle in at your own pace, your host walks you through the days ahead, and from there they're present at what matters and absent at what doesn't. A proper goodbye rather than an invoice, and a thank-you once you're home with an honest ask for feedback.
No. Your confirmation, your receipt and everything in writing arrive by email. Your host is on WhatsApp for anything you want to ask (the app you already have open), so there is nothing to install either way.
Confirmations, receipts and anything in writing come by email. On WhatsApp there is one number that matters: +91 97600 86713, read by a person, for a question before you book, a change of plan, help on the morning you arrive, or just to say hello. If you ever get an automated message from a second number, that one sends and does not chat, so a reply there may sit unread.
Present at what matters, absent at what doesn't. Your host shows up for arrival, for the big things, and for moments like the evening aarti. For the far-off ones (a Kunjapuri sunrise, the Beatles Ashram, the secret waterfall), they travel with you. Rafting is a taxi and a professional river crew. A morning class is a short walk you make yourself. In between you get real space, and WhatsApp is always one message away.
Expected, honestly. Itineraries are built to flex around your mood and your energy, and "I'd rather sleep than see a temple this morning" is a perfectly acceptable sentence to say out loud. Tell your host and the rest of the trip rearranges itself around it. Anything that costs extra comes as a payment link before it happens, never as a bill afterwards.
Yes. Once you're home your host sends a thank-you along with the photos and memories gathered up from the trip. Most bookings also pick up a small unannounced gesture somewhere along the way: a dessert, a coffee, a free scooty day, a mini photo session. We'd rather surprise you than discount you.
Just ask us directly.
A specific question deserves a specific answer, not a search through more FAQs. Ask us anything, however small. We genuinely prefer it to you guessing.