A day trip to BAPS Swaminarayan Akshardham in Robbinsville, New Jersey: a huge Hindu temple of carved marble, with gardens and fountains around it. Entry is free. There are no guided tours on weekends, so we walk around on our own; the temple and the grounds usually take two to two and a half hours.

We meet at 9:30 AM at Penn Station, in the NJ Transit area; we'll send the exact spot the day before. Around 10:00 we take an NJ Transit train toward Trenton to New Brunswick station, about an hour. Volunteer cars wait for us at the station, and the drive to the temple takes about 40 minutes.

At the temple: from noon until about 2:15 PM we see the temple and the grounds, then a late lunch at Shayona Café, the vegetarian café on the grounds, and free time until 4:45 PM. Sunset is around 4:30. The cars take us back to the station, the train leaves around 5:30, and we're back at Penn Station around 6:30 PM.

Buy round-trip NJ Transit tickets ahead of time in the app. Everyone pays for their own lunch. You can't bring your own food or drinks into the temple, or large bags. Bring warm socks: shoes come off in the main temple. A charged phone helps too.

The temple has a strict dress code: shoulders, chest, back and knees covered. Its rules ban clothing with “offensive language or imagery” without saying what counts, so plain clothes are safest. Photos are allowed outside only.

There are only so many seats in the cars, so sign up early. If the trip is full, join the waitlist: when someone cancels, their seat goes to you.