Where to Stay in Rishīkesh, State of Uttarākhand

What is Rishīkesh known for?

Rishīkesh is known as a yoga capital and a pilgrimage town for Hindus, set where the Ganges comes down from the Himalayas. Yoga draws the world here. The town holds numerous temples and ashrams built along the banks of the Ganges river, and it has long been associated with sages and yogis.

It hosts the International Yoga Festival each year. Rishīkesh is a vegetarian-only and alcohol-free city in Uttarakhand, and Western visitors first came in numbers after the Beatles stayed at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram.

What are the main landmarks in Rishīkesh?

Rishīkesh's landmarks are its temples and ashrams, built along the banks of the Ganges river through the town. The river ties them together. Numerous temples stand at the water's edge on the right bank of the Ganges, and the ashrams among them draw students of yoga from across the world, one of them the ashram where Maharishi Mahesh Yogi taught.

Above the town the Himalayas rise, and the Garhwal Himalayas begin here where the Ganges leaves the hills.

What is the history of Rishīkesh?

Rishīkesh grew as a pilgrimage town for Hindus on the Ganges river, long associated with sages and yogis who came to the water where it leaves the Himalayas. Temples and ashrams rose along the banks. The place drew seekers for centuries.

The town became a centre of retreat and study, and the numerous temples and ashrams built along the Ganges gave it a name across India as a place of yoga and prayer, a reputation that reached far beyond the Dehradun district. In the twentieth century Rishīkesh drew the wider world when the Beatles stayed at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, and Western fame followed. Visitors came in growing numbers.

The town held to its older character even so, remaining a vegetarian-only and alcohol-free city bound to the Ganges river. It began hosting the International Yoga Festival, and the name of yoga capital took hold. The Himalayas still rose above the ashrams.

Through all of it the river ran the same course, and Rishīkesh kept its place at the foot of the Garhwal Himalayas.

Where is Rishīkesh?

Rishīkesh lies in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, on the right bank of the Ganges river where it comes down from the Himalayas. The town stands where the hills meet the plain. Above it the Garhwal Himalayas rise steeply, and below the town the Ganges spreads wider as it reaches flatter ground in the Dehradun district.

The river cuts the setting in two. Rishīkesh sits at the edge of the mountains, the last town of any size before the Ganges leaves the Himalayas.

What is the climate of Rishīkesh?

Rishīkesh has a subtropical climate softened by the Himalayas above it. Summers before the rains are warm on the banks of the Ganges river, cooler than the plain below because the town sits at the foot of the hills. Then the monsoon arrives.

The rains run hard off the Garhwal Himalayas and swell the Ganges as it passes Rishīkesh, and the river rises fast before the water settles. Winters are cool and clear in the Dehradun district.

How do you get to Rishīkesh?

Rishīkesh is reached overland from across the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, up the valley of the Ganges river toward the hills. Roads climb from the plain to the town. Pilgrims and yoga students fill them through the year, most of all during the International Yoga Festival.

The way in runs through the Dehradun district and up to the right bank of the Ganges, where the ashrams and temples wait at the edge of the Himalayas. The mountains close the road.