Heritage Homestay — Bhelupur

This is the Varanasi address people write home about: a century-old haveli in quiet Bhelupur, still lived in by the family that built it. Four guest rooms open onto a shaded inner courtyard; the woodwork on the balconies is original, the mattresses and bathrooms are decidedly not.

Your hosts serve a proper Banarasi breakfast — kachori-sabzi or poha, fruit, bottomless chai — and are the best trip-planners in this catalog: which aarti to see on which day, which lanes to eat in, which to avoid. Kashi Vishwanath is ten minutes by auto; Assi Ghat is a fifteen-minute walk through the old city.