Top 10 Family Resorts in Rishikesh

This list is ten places in and around Rishikesh that hold up when you actually arrive with children, or with your parents, or with both at once.

One thing said plainly at the top: the first entry, Himalayan Ganga Retreat, is a Pahadi House property, and it’s marked as such in its section. The other nine have nothing to do with us.

Rates, child policies and distances checked August 2026 · they move by season, so confirm before booking

Where you stay decides the rest of the trip

The first thing is the bridge, and this one changed recently enough that older guides still get it wrong. Lakshman Jhula was shut on 12 July 2019 after an IIT structural audit found the towers leaning and the components failing. The old bridge dated from 1929 and was carrying far more people and two-wheelers than it was built for. It has not reopened.

What has changed is that the crossing itself is back. Bajrang Setu, a 132-metre cable suspension bridge built beside the old one at Tapovan, opened to the public earlier in 2026 and was formally inaugurated on 28 February. It carries pedestrians and two-wheelers, with a 5-metre steel deck down the middle and glass-floored walkways on both sides, which children tend to find either thrilling or unbearable. A user fee for the glass sections has been approved and may be in place by the time you visit. Ram Jhula, two kilometres downstream, and Janki Setu are still there and still useful.

The second thing is traffic. Weekend arrivals from Delhi-NCR and Uttar Pradesh, plus the Char Dham season and the rafting season on top, jam the same few points every time: Nepali Farm, Shyampur Junction, Kora Devi Chowk, the Chandrabhaga bridge, and the Tapovan stretch. Five kilometres can take three and a half hours on a bad Saturday. A four-lane bypass from Teen Pani to Tapovan has been proposed. It isn’t built yet.

So the choice comes down to this. Stay in Tapovan or the town and you can walk to the ghats and the market, but you get engine noise and horns from early morning. Stay out at Narendra Nagar, Singthali, Bhairgarh or Byasi and you get quiet and clean air, but every outing becomes a planned drive with a car and a driver.

Neither is wrong. Families with toddlers and grandparents usually do better out of town, because the resort has to carry most of the day anyway. Families with older kids who want to be in the middle of things do better in Tapovan.

1Himalayan Ganga Retreat, Rattapani

Himalayan Ganga Retreat is a Pahadi House property at Rattapani on Neelkanth Road, 8 km past Laxman Jhula and about twenty minutes out of the busy part of town. The Ganga is fifty metres from the cottages.

The useful thing for families is that these are cottages with proper air conditioning and solid walls, not the canvas tents a lot of places downriver call camping. Deluxe cottages are 16 by 12 feet, take two adults and an extra bed, and run ₹6,000 a night. The Maharaja cottages are 22 by 18 and sleep up to six for ₹12,000, which is the number that matters if you are five people or if grandparents are coming along. Breakfast and dinner are included on the MAP plan, with tea and coffee morning and evening.

Across all the cottages the property takes 70 to 75 people, so it also works for the bookings most resorts on this list cannot handle: a full family reunion, three or four households travelling together, or a small wedding party that wants everyone on one site instead of split across hotels.

Days run on the lawn, mostly. Cricket and badminton on the grass, guided walks on the forest and riverside trails, and a mountain-fed natural pool. Evenings there’s a bonfire with music from seven to ten, and a guide takes guests down for the Ganga Aarti. Dogs are welcome, which rules a lot of other places out for families who travel with one. There’s parking, power backup, CCTV and security through the night, and pickup from Rishikesh if you’d rather not drive the last stretch.

Rishikesh station is 18 km, about forty minutes. Jolly Grant airport is 35 km, about an hour.

2The Westin Resort & Spa, Himalayas, Narendra Nagar

If a family wants the resort to be the holiday, this is the one. Twelve acres in the Shivalik hills above Narendra Nagar, 141 rooms, and enough inside the gate that nobody has to get back in a car for three days.

Hakuna Matata is the gaming zone, with a bowling alley, air hockey and a pool table, and supervised activities for younger children like origami and pot painting. The outdoor pool is billed as the largest in Uttarakhand and has a separate children’s pool, so small kids are not sharing water with lap swimmers. Westin Family Rooms give you 700 square feet. The Royal Garden Villas run to 2,500 square feet with a private plunge pool if the budget allows it.

Four places to eat, which matters more than it sounds when a fussy eight-year-old and a grandmother on a restricted diet are at the same table. Akasa does all-day dining with a Garhwali thali on the menu, Toya is Asian with a teppanyaki counter that doubles as entertainment, Pebbles is the poolside grill, and Haven Lounge in the lobby does light bites.

For anyone travelling with a wheelchair or a walking frame, this is the strongest property on the list by a distance. Step-free entrances, wide pathways, ramps, lowered sinks, raised toilets, grab rails in the bathrooms, and Braille and tactile signage. Very few resorts in Uttarakhand have all of that.

3Taj Rishikesh Resort & Spa, Singthali

Singthali village, thirty kilometres past the town, directly on the Ganga with deciduous forest on all sides. The architecture copies Garhwal village houses and temple forts using local materials, and it works. 79 rooms and villas, from 409 square feet up to a 2,368 square foot Presidential Villa.

Read the bedding policy before you book, because it catches people out. Baby cots are available on request. Rollaway and extra beds are not available at all. Children under five stay free on existing bedding, and from six upward there’s a substantial per-night charge. A family of four with two nine-year-olds is booking two rooms here, not one.

What families get in return is a private pebble beach and a sunset Ganga Aarti performed on it by the resort’s own priest, every evening, with nobody else there. For anyone who has tried to hold a four-year-old’s hand on the steps at Triveni on a Saturday, that alone can justify the drive. There’s a children’s pool, an outdoor play area, a shelf of board games and a children’s menu.

Rock Flour does all-day regional food, and Riverside has an open-air pizza and salad bar looking straight at the water. One small operational thing: guests have to check in at reception before using the spa, pool or gym.

4Aloha on the Ganges, Tapovan

Aloha is the pick for a big group, and the reason is the room type. Alongside 24 superior rooms it has one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, twelve of them facing the Ganga, with a separate sitting room, more than one bathroom and a working kitchenette. The two-bedroom apartments sleep six.

That kitchenette does real work on a family holiday. Warming milk at two in the morning, making khichdi for a child who won’t eat what the restaurant is doing, keeping fruit and curd in the fridge for grandparents who eat early. Three days in, most families stop noticing it and would not go back to a hotel room.

There’s an infinity pool facing the river, a separate children’s pool, a game room, a playground, a playroom and art classes. Latitude does international food and there’s a bakery and coffee shop on site.

The access is good too. A wheelchair-accessible path to the lift, an accessible registration desk and accessible public washrooms. Between this and the Westin, it’s the better of the two for anyone who wants to be within reach of Ram Jhula rather than an hour up a hill.

5Divine Resort & Spa, Tapovan

Divine is five minutes’ walk from Laxman Jhula and two kilometres from Ram Jhula, and it has been fitted out with a specific kind of guest in mind: three generations in one booking.

The list of what they’ve done reads like someone actually thought about it. Slip-resistant bathroom floors. Rounded corners on the furniture. Child-safe locks. A fenced pool. Gated entry with CCTV. A lift to every floor. A doctor on call who can be there within twenty minutes. Cribs are free and connecting rooms can be requested.

Seven room types, and the family ones are clearly labelled rather than left for you to work out. The Family Executive sleeps three at ₹25,959. The Family Suite sleeps four with a sofa-bed and a small living room at ₹29,499. The Maharaja Suite sleeps five across two bedrooms at ₹37,759. Executive rooms start at ₹17,699 for a city view and ₹20,059 facing the Ganga. Those are the published direct rates including GST as of August 2026. Children under five stay free, six to twelve get half off an extra bed, and thirteen and over pay the full extra-bed rate.

Three places to eat: Tattva from seven in the morning to eleven at night with Sattvic and Jain options, the Divine Café and Bakery with a children’s menu, and the Machaan rooftop terrace in the evenings. From the balconies you can see the aarti lamps going down the water.

6Anand Kashi by the Ganges, Bhairgarh

A former royal residence in Bhairgarh, twenty-eight kilometres from the town, run by IHCL under the SeleQtions label. Twenty-four rooms in mango and lychee orchards with a private white-sand beach.

This one suits a particular family rather than all of them. There is no kids’ club, no bowling alley and no arcade. What there is, at twenty-four rooms, is staff who know your children’s names by the second morning and remember that one of them won’t eat anything with coriander in it. For families with one or two young kids who find big resorts overwhelming, that trade is usually worth making.

The Premium Grand Ganges View Room is the family room, with mountain-themed interiors and enough floor for a cot. The Luxury Tent Suites are the other option if the children are old enough to think canvas is exciting. There’s a temperature-controlled infinity pool and the Amrit Kashi Spa. Ana Rasa does global and Garhwali food, Amrit Tara does drinks and small plates.

The private evening aarti on their own beach is the same advantage the Taj has, at a smaller scale.

7Lemon Tree Premier, Tapovan

Lemon Tree Premier is off Laxman Jhula Road in Tapovan, 65 rooms, four-star, and about two kilometres from Laxman Jhula with the Ganga beach right there. It’s the most straightforward booking on this list, and for a lot of families that’s the point.

Rooms run from a 250 square foot Superior up to a two-bedroom Deluxe Suite. There’s a children’s play area, an outdoor pool with a kids’ pool, and babysitting on request if the parents want one dinner on their own. Citrus Café is entirely vegetarian and does Indian, Western and pan-Asian, which removes an argument that comes up in a lot of mixed families. Citrus Patio is the outdoor version.

The detail worth knowing is the resort’s own ghat, where a private aarti can be arranged. Grandparents who want the ceremony but cannot manage steps and crowds get it here without the walk. There’s also a free shuttle to Dehradun airport.

8Ganga Kinare, Virbhadra Road

Ganga Kinare sits on Virbhadra Road on the riverbank, in the town rather than out of it, and it is the only hotel in Rishikesh with its own private Ganga ghat. For a family that came here to be on the river and not to look at it from a hillside, that changes the whole stay.

The Family Room is 430 square feet with two queen beds, sleeps four, and has a mini-fridge, a sitting area and a partial river view from the balcony. Breakfast is included, so are welcome drinks and the morning yoga session from seven to eight. Ghat access comes with the room, and they provide jackets and robes for anyone taking a dip.

There’s a gaming zone, which occupies teenagers for an hour or two, and a jacuzzi subject to availability. The property is wheelchair accessible and parking is free. Check-in is two in the afternoon and checkout is noon.

Being in the town cuts both ways. Everything is close. So is the traffic.

9Atali Ganga, Byasi

Atali is at Byasi, up the Badrinath road past Shivpuri, and it is not a lounging-by-the-pool resort. Twenty-two cottages on a hillside above the river, no televisions in any of them, private terraces, and a Reserved Forest around it with actual wildlife in it.

The reason it’s on a family list is the activity programme, which is properly run rather than bolted on. A professional high-ropes course, a climbing wall, kayaking, mountain biking, guided hikes, astronomy sessions and camping laid on for children. Rafting starts from the doorstep. For a family with children of ten, twelve, fourteen, this is a better week than any pool.

Cottage occupancy is worth checking against your group before booking. Independent cottages take three, two adults and one child. Duplex units take five in a two-plus-two-plus-one arrangement. Interconnected units take four. Children of six and above are charged as adults, so it is not a cheap booking for a family of five.

Quiet hours run from ten at night to six in the morning. Families with a baby who cries at two should know that before arriving. If your group includes infants or anyone unsteady on their feet, ask for cottages near the café, because the site is on a slope.

10The Roseate Ganges, Bhairgarh

The Roseate Ganges is twenty-four kilometres out in the foothills, sixteen private villas of 212 to 260 square feet, each with a balcony over the forest or the valley. There’s a temperature-controlled pool, a white sand beach, and a restaurant called Chidiya Ghar that people travel for.

It’s at ten rather than higher because of two honest problems. The site is steep and cliffside, which is hard work with a pram and harder with a knee replacement. And the whole place is built around quiet, with no dedicated child entertainment at all, so an energetic six-year-old will be both bored and a nuisance to other guests within a day.

The child policy is workable. Infants up to three and children four to twelve stay free on existing bedding, extra beds are charged, and anyone thirteen or over is billed as an adult.

Book it if your children are teenagers who are happy with a book, a pool and good food. Skip it if they are not.

The ten side by side

Two to skip if you have small children

Both of these are excellent properties. Neither is a family holiday, and both turn up on “best of Rishikesh” lists where they don’t belong.

Taking children to the Ganga Aarti

Parmarth Niketan and Triveni Ghat are the two people go to, and they are nothing like each other.

Parmarth Niketan, near Ram Jhula, is the one to pick with young children or elderly parents. The ceremony is led by the ashram’s own students and resident teachers rather than commercial priests. It’s organised, there’s somewhere to sit, and there’s none of the pushing. The Shiva statue standing in the water behind the steps makes it the better one for photographs too.

Triveni Ghat is older, bigger and much louder. Conch shells, heavy drumming, and a crowd of local devotees rather than tourists. It is the more powerful of the two and the harder one to manage with a toddler or anyone unsteady. There’s one way around that: hire a small wooden boat, roughly ₹50 to ₹150 a person, and watch the whole thing from the water with nobody in front of you.

Those times are approximate and shift with the sunset through the year, so check on the day. Arrive thirty to forty-five minutes early if you want to sit. Most people turn up at the listed start time and find every step taken.

The one almost nobody does is the morning aarti, around half past five to half past six. Locals and monks, cold mist off the water, and no tourists. Older children sleep through it and teenagers hate being woken, but if your parents are travelling with you, take them to that one. Current Ganga Aarti timings are worth a look before you go.

Rafting with children: what the rules actually say

The state lowered the minimum rafting age from fourteen to twelve in a 2019 cabinet decision, and removed the upper age limit of sixty-five at the same time. That’s the law. In practice, good operators still keep under-fourteens on the mildest Grade I water, and anyone over sixty needs to be genuinely fit for it.

Three stretches, and the difference between them matters. Brahmpuri to Rishikesh, 9 km, Grade I and II, is the family run and the only one to book with twelve-year-olds or with grandparents in the boat. Shivpuri to Rishikesh, 16 km, Grade II and III, is the standard commercial trip, real rapids, fine for healthy adults and older teenagers who are comfortable in moving water. Marine Drive to Rishikesh, 24 km and up, is Grade III and IV, sustained and tiring, and not a family trip.

Rafting is prohibited for pregnant women and for anyone with asthma, epilepsy, a heart condition, a neurological disorder, osteoporosis, a recent fracture or severe hypertension. Guests over 100 kg need oversized buoyancy equipment and many operators simply won’t take them without it.

Check the operator holds a current UTDB licence, uses IRF-certified guides, and puts a safety kayaker on every commercial trip. Self-bailing rafts, properly fitted life jackets and helmets, and no loose clothing, long skirts or tied dupattas in the boat.

The river is closed through the monsoon, roughly July and August, and reopens in late September. Pahadi House runs rafting and camping together on this stretch. Ask us on WhatsApp

The Rajaji safari, and what it costs a family

For families whose children are too young to raft, the Chilla zone of Rajaji Tiger Reserve is the better morning out. It’s the closest gate to Rishikesh, and the one naturalists send first-timers to, because the Ganga Shakti canal pulls animals out of the sal forest into open grassland where a six-year-old can actually see them. Rajaji has over 400 bird species alongside the elephants.

The park opens 15 November and closes 15 June. It shuts for the monsoon and there is no way around that. Safaris run in open Maruti Gypsys seating up to six, morning slot roughly six to ten, afternoon two to six.

Phone cameras are free. Two adults and two children under twelve in a private Gypsy comes to roughly ₹3,250 before any camera permit or the drive out.

Take the morning slot. It’s cooler, the animals move more at dawn, elephants come down to the canal, and the light is better. Afternoon safaris from April to June are hot and quiet, and children lose interest in an hour.

The Beatles Ashram

Worth an afternoon, and one of the few places where a nine-year-old and a sixty-nine-year-old are both happy. Chaurasi Kutia, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ashram where the Beatles came to study meditation in 1968, sits in the Rajaji buffer zone on the riverbank. It’s abandoned now: stone meditation domes going back to the jungle, covered in graffiti that people keep adding to.

The ground is flat, there’s shade, and children can run around the open forest and the stone huts without anyone worrying. That’s rarer in Rishikesh than it sounds.

Three days that don’t wear anyone out

The mistake families make here is stacking rafting, an aarti and two hours of driving into the same day, then wondering why everyone is short with each other by evening.

Day one. Arrive, transfer to the resort, and spend the afternoon in it. Let the children find the pool and the play area, let the adults work out where breakfast is. Around four, drive down to Swargashram and walk across Ram Jhula or Janki Setu, which is flat and takes photographs well. If the children would rather see the glass floor, cross at Bajrang Setu in Tapovan instead. Be seated at Parmarth Niketan by five. Dinner back at the resort.

Day two. Either the 9 km Brahmpuri rafting run at eight in the morning, if the children are twelve or over, or the six o’clock Chilla safari if they’re younger. Back by two, and then split up: spa for whoever wants it, pool and kids’ club for whoever doesn’t. Beatles Ashram at half four.

Day three. Neelkanth Mahadev temple in the morning if the drive up appeals, or the Tapovan and Muni Ki Reti markets if it doesn’t. Check out and go, keeping an eye on the weekend traffic if it’s a Sunday.

Three days is enough. Four is better. Two is a long drive for not much.

Questions people ask

Which resort in Rishikesh is best for a family with a toddler?

Divine Resort and Spa in Tapovan if you want to be near the ghats, because of the slip-resistant floors, child-safe locks, fenced pool, free cribs and a doctor on call within twenty minutes. The Westin at Narendra Nagar if you’d rather be out of the traffic and want a supervised kids’ club so the parents get an hour off.

Are there resorts in Rishikesh that don’t allow children?

Yes. Ananda in the Himalayas does not permit anyone under fourteen on the property, and restricts spa facilities to eighteen and over. Modi Yoga Retreat allows children but operates as a clinical wellness centre with enforced quiet, so it isn’t a family holiday in practice. Check the age policy before booking anything marketed as a wellness retreat.

What is the minimum age for river rafting in Rishikesh?

Twelve. Uttarakhand lowered it from fourteen in 2019 and removed the upper age limit at the same time. Most reputable operators still restrict under-fourteens to the gentle Grade I water on the 9 km Brahmpuri run, and the 16 km Shivpuri stretch is really for fourteen and over.

Which resorts in Rishikesh have a kids’ pool?

The Westin at Narendra Nagar, Aloha on the Ganges in Tapovan, Lemon Tree Premier and Taj Rishikesh at Singthali all have a children’s pool separate from the main one. Himalayan Ganga Retreat has a natural mountain-fed pool rather than a built one.

Is it better to stay in Tapovan or outside Rishikesh with family?

Tapovan if you want to walk to the ghats, the market and the cafés, and can live with traffic noise. Outside, at Narendra Nagar, Singthali, Bhairgarh or Byasi, if you have small children or elderly parents, because the resort carries most of the day anyway and the air and the quiet are better. Weekend traffic can turn five kilometres into three hours, so plan outings around it either way.

When should a family visit Rishikesh?

October to March. Clear air, comfortable days, rafting open from late September, and Rajaji open from 15 November. April to June is hot in the valley but fine for the river. July and August is monsoon: rafting is suspended, Rajaji is closed, and trails wash out.

Families come back talking about a grandmother who got to sit through a whole aarti without being jostled, or a ten-year-old on the front of a raft at Brahmpuri deciding they want to do it again. The resort barely comes up. Its job is to make both of those possible in the same three days without anyone falling apart. Pick on that, not on the photographs.

Written by

Abhay Sharma

Co-founder, Pahadi House

Abhay Sharma is from Neelkanth, a village in Pauri Garhwal. He learned hospitality there before he had a word for it, in a place where anyone who reaches your door in bad weather is fed and given a bed.

For over ten years he and his partner Yash Bhandari ran a 20-cottage rafting resort at Ghattugad, on the Ganges near Rishikesh. The June 2013 floods took all of it.

They went back to their villages rather than start the same business again. In May 2014 they leased a ruined stone-and-mud house in Chopdiyal from Himmat Singh Pundir, who had left for the plains, and rebuilt it with the same stone and wood it was made of. That was the first Pahadi House.

Uttarakhand has recorded over 700 abandoned villages in the last decade. Abhay’s work is mostly about that number.