Devotional places
Temples, dargahs, gurudwaras and pilgrimage routes, with the booking mechanics, arrival sequence and etiquette that decide how the visit actually goes.
Places of worship
Andhra PradeshTirumala Tirupati
The most-visited place of worship on earth. Seven hills, roughly 30 million pilgrims a year, and a queue system that rewards anyone who understands it before arriving.
Venkateswara6-step arrival guide
MaharashtraShirdi
The samadhi of Sai Baba, whose following crosses Hindu and Muslim tradition. Four fixed aartis a day, and a queue system built around them.
Sai Baba5-step arrival guide
Jammu & KashmirVaishno Devi
A 12 km climb from Katra to a cave shrine at 1,584 m. The yatra slip is mandatory, and the walk is the trip.
Vaishno Devi5-step arrival guide
Uttar PradeshKashi Vishwanath, Varanasi
One of the twelve jyotirlingas, now reached through the Vishwanath Corridor. Different entry gates serve different queues, that is what confuses people.
Shiva5-step arrival guide
UttarakhandKedarnath
A 16 km climb to a jyotirlinga at 3,583 m. Registration is mandatory and checked at Sonprayag, and altitude, not devotion, is what defeats most people.
Shiva, as the Kedarnath jyotirlinga5-step arrival guide
PunjabGolden Temple, Amritsar
Harmandir Sahib is free, open around the clock, and needs no booking. What it needs is knowing the sequence: head covered, shoes deposited, feet washed, then the parikrama.
Guru Granth Sahib5-step arrival guide
Tamil NaduMeenakshi Amman, Madurai
A temple laid out as a walled city with four gopurams facing the compass points. The mistake is treating it as one building and allowing an hour.
Meenakshi and Sundareswarar5-step arrival guide
RajasthanAjmer Sharif Dargah
The shrine of a Sufi saint visited by Muslims, Hindus and others alike. Free to enter, and the practical difficulty is the crowded lanes and the pressure to pay for things that are not required.
Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti5-step arrival guide
Andhra PradeshKanaka Durga, Vijayawada
A hill temple above the Krishna, and the busiest in Andhra after Tirumala. Four darshan tiers, and the free one is the long one.
Kanaka Durga5-step arrival guide