Visiting India — planning a trip back

Decide the shape before the dates

Most trips back are three trips fighting each other: the family obligation, the holiday, and the practical business — property, banks, documents, a doctor's appointment for a parent.

Deciding the proportions early is what prevents the version everyone recognises, in which four weeks disappear into other people's living rooms and nobody sees anything.

A useful structure for a longer trip: a week of family at the start, then travel, then a few days of family again at the end. The second stretch is where the useful conversations happen, once everyone has stopped performing.

Timing

Weather. November to February is comfortable in most of the country. March warms quickly; April to June is severe across the plains and the interior south. The monsoon differs by region and is worth going in for some places — Kerala, the Western Ghats — and not for others.

Festivals. Diwali, Navratri and Holi are extraordinary and expensive to travel around. Book flights and trains months ahead, and expect everything to be crowded and everything to be closed at different points.

Weddings set their own dates and consume more of a trip than anyone plans for. Assume three days minimum per wedding, not one.

With children

• Two nights minimum per place. Moving daily with a child in Indian heat is how a trip becomes a memory nobody wants.
• Build in nothing days. Afternoons at a relative's house, doing nothing, are where the actual cultural transmission happens.
• Food. Give it a few days. Most children adapt; the ones who do not are fine on curd rice, dosa, roti and fruit.
• Heat and hydration. Plan mornings and evenings and write off the middle of the day, which is what Indian households do anyway.

With elderly parents

Distances, stairs and toilets are the constraints — not sightseeing. Temple towns in particular involve long barefoot walks on hot stone and queues without seating.

Where a parent has a condition, carry the prescription and a letter, know the name of the nearest large hospital at each stop, and check whether their insurance covers them in India. Many policies do not.

Money and connectivity

• An Indian SIM — international roaming works and is expensive; a local SIM needs documents but is straightforward with an OCI card.
• UPI is the payment system in practice for everything from an auto to a vegetable seller. If you have an Indian account, get it linked before you fly.
• Cash for small transactions, temples and rural areas.
• Tell your bank. Card blocks on foreign transactions are common and are resolved slowly from India.

The part that is not logistics

A trip back is also an audit of how much has changed since you left, and that lands differently on different people. The road is wider, the shop is gone, the relatives are older than they sound on the phone, and the version of the city you carry has been quietly out of date for a decade.

Most people describe the first few days as disorientating and the second week as easy. Building in enough time for that adjustment is a real planning consideration, not a sentimental one.