Rishikesh with Kids: What They Can Actually Do

The 9 km Brahmapuri rafting run is the family stretch — a few Grade I–II rapids, lots of flat water, short enough that nobody gets cold or bored. Camping is the other reliable win: tents, a bonfire, open space and other children.

On land, the rope courses, wall climbing, water zorbing and go-karting all take younger children. The waterfall trek to Neer Garh is an easy walk with a payoff at the end, and the ghats at aarti time hold children's attention better than most sightseeing.

Bungee, the giant swing, the scad jump and the reverse bungee all carry minimum age and weight requirements, and children below them cannot do these regardless of how keen they are or who signs. Ask us for the current figures before you build a day around one, because a teenager turned away at the platform is a bad afternoon.

The longer rafting stretches, the 26 km and 36 km, are also not children's trips — a full day in a raft on Grade III water is a different proposition from the 9 km run.

Two nights at a camp, the 9 km raft on one morning, a rope course or the waterfall walk on the other, and the aarti one evening. That fills the time without anybody being dragged along.

If the group mixes ages — a nine-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, say — split one morning rather than compromising both. One parent takes the teenager to the swing while the other does the gentle raft, and everybody gets the trip they came for.