Banjaaraa — New Website Build

Decisions that govern everything downstream. Item 1.2 is the critical path — every template and field group in this document depends on it, so settle it before writing any other code.

• 1.1Staging on staging.banjaaraa.com — fresh install, SSL, HTTP auth plus noindex so it is never crawled, database separate from productionProduction stays untouched until cutover.
• 1.2Custom-fields approach decided and documented Critical pathHand-rolled register_post_meta with custom meta boxes, or Carbon Fields. Must support repeaters, image pickers, relationship pickers, date fields and conditional display. Carbon Fields is code-defined and developer-facing, so it carries none of ACF's lock-in — recommended unless there is a reason against it.
• 1.3Design tokens defined as CSS custom properties — type scale, colour palette, spacing, grid, button and card stylesCinematic and editorial: generous whitespace, large imagery, restrained UI chrome.
• 1.4Theme scaffold — directory structure, CSS/JS build pipeline, enqueue strategy, template hierarchy, reusable partials
• 1.5No page builder anywhere in the theme. Slider Revolution is not carried over from the old site
• 1.6Git repository initialised with a staging deployment path
• 1.7Both founders created as full WordPress users with rich author profiles — photo, bio, credentialsUsed for bylines and Person schema. Not a shared admin account.
• 1.8Naming conventions agreed: post type keys singular lowercase (journey), meta keys prefixed bjr_, template partials in /parts/

Navigation is by destination and traveller intent, never by content format. The old verb-based menus (Try, Read, Attend, View, Watch, Listen) are retired entirely, along with the duplicate Topics taxonomy.

Primary navigation

URL architecture

• 2.1Primary navigation built to the table above, six items plus the CTA button
• 2.2Journeys and Destinations render as mega menus with imagery; Stories, Guides, Shop and About as simple dropdowns
• 2.3Header is transparent over the hero and solid on scroll
• 2.4Dismissible announcement strip above the header, editable from the admin, with an on/off toggleFor seasonal messages such as departure openings. Dismissal remembered per visitor.
• 2.5Mobile header: hamburger menu with the CTA persisting as a fixed bottom bar
• 2.6Rewrite rules implemented for every URL pattern above, with hierarchical destination paths resolving correctly
• 2.7Footer: four columns (Journeys, Destinations, Read, About), social strip, legal links, and a single partner-facing line for Partner with Banjaaraa and Licence our footage
• 2.8Site-wide floating WhatsApp button, bottom right

Registered once and shared across post types so a single filter works site-wide. This replaces the old overlapping Categories, Tags and Topics, where the same terms appeared in all three.

• 3.1All ten taxonomies registered with the keys above and attached to the listed post types
• 3.2Region registered hierarchical with correct rewrite so /destinations/india/ladakh/ resolves
• 3.3Default WordPress Categories and Tags disabled or hidden from the admin to prevent them being used by accident
• 3.4Term meta for Collection: image, one-line description, display order — used by the homepage collection grid
• 3.5Utility archives that are not intended as landing pages set to noindex by default

Eight post types. Story deliberately carries a format taxonomy rather than splitting into separate types, so one archive and one template serve journal entries, photo essays and films, and a piece can change format later without breaking its URL.

4.1 Journey journey

The commercial core. Three variants share this type: standard, trek and long journey — controlled by bjr_variant, with variant-specific fields shown conditionally.

4.2 Destination destination — hierarchical

4.3 Story story

4.4 Guide guide

4.5 Heritage Site heritage_site

4.6 Partner partner

4.7 Testimonial testimonial

4.8 Product product

Build checklist

• 4.9All eight post types registered with correct slugs, supports, capabilities, menu icons and positions
• 4.10Destination registered hierarchical; all others flat
• 4.11Every field group above built and saving correctly, repeaters included
• 4.12Conditional display working — trek and long-journey fields appear only for their variant
• 4.13Relationship fields resolve in both directions where needed (a Partner page lists its journeys)
• 4.14Custom admin columns and taxonomy filters on every list screen
• 4.15Publishing checklist shown in the editor sidebar per post type, mirroring the content gate in 9.3
• 4.16All meta registered with show_in_rest so fields are available to future automation

Build order matters. Journey single comes before the homepage, because it is the first template content gets entered against. The homepage assembles last, since every block on it links to something that must already exist.

5.1 Journey single

Sixteen sections, in this order. A visitor must be able to answer where it goes, how long, roughly what it costs and why these two people, without scrolling twice.

• 5.1.1Hero — 70vh, dark gradient, eyebrow (collection), H1, premise, and a horizontal fact bar: duration · region · best months · price from · difficulty. Two buttons: Enquire (primary) and Download Itinerary PDF (secondary, gated)
• 5.1.2Sticky enquiry bar appearing on scroll past the hero — journey name, price from, Enquire. Bottom-anchored on mobile with a WhatsApp icon
• 5.1.3Why we built this — two-column, founder photograph, first-person text, signature and travelled date
• 5.1.4Route at a glance — horizontal stepper from the route string, static map, highlight chips
• 5.1.5Day by day — accordion, day one open by default, Expand all toggle
• 5.1.6Practical panel — four columns: best months strip, fitness and difficulty, group size and pace, getting there
• 5.1.7Where you'll stay — stay cards with nights
• 5.1.8Included / not included — two columns, with the conservation contribution as a visible line item naming the amount and project
• 5.1.9Make it yours — adjustable levers, with a link to The Long Journey where relevant
• 5.1.10Memoir film band — full width, silent autoplay clip background, conditional on bjr_memoir
• 5.1.11Ground partner block, pulling the linked Partner and respecting its public/private flag
• 5.1.12Stories from this route — three cards by shared Region and Travel Style
• 5.1.13FAQ accordion
• 5.1.14Testimonials, tied to this journey, section hidden entirely when empty
• 5.1.15Inline enquiry form on a contrasting background with a founder photograph beside it — a section, not a modal
• 5.1.16Related journeys — three cards from the same Collection or Region
• 5.1.17Trek variant — price band replaced by "custom-priced by group size", altitude profile, daily distance, permits, group minimum, CTA becomes Enquire About Dates
• 5.1.18Long Journey variant — two stacked route segments with a joining section between them

5.2 Destination hub

Fourteen sections. Serves a search visitor and a browsing buyer at once: answer the search question in the first two screens, then offer the journey. Every section independently toggleable with graceful collapse and no orphan headers.

• 5.2.1Hero — 60vh, no CTA button, with a first-hand marker bar: visit count · last visited · journey count · story count
• 5.2.2Quick answers — four to six cards immediately below the hero
• 5.2.3Our take — two-column with founder photograph, opinionated, signed and dated
• 5.2.4Ways to travel here — journey cards, or a general enquiry band when bjr_has_journeys is off
• 5.2.5When to go — twelve-month strip, colour-coded, notes clustered by season not by month
• 5.2.6Where to go — sub-place grid, each card linking to a real story, guide or photo essay. Cards without a destination are omitted, never rendered dead
• 5.2.7Stories — mixed formats in one grid with a format label on every card
• 5.2.8Practical guides — text-forward list, not image cards
• 5.2.9Watching & photographing here — wildlife block with an ethics line and a link to the Charter. Conditional
• 5.2.10Through our lens — full-bleed photo strip opening into a lightbox
• 5.2.11Heritage sites — conditional, for Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan
• 5.2.12FAQ — deeper than the quick-answers block, no duplication between the two
• 5.2.13Closing CTA band
• 5.2.14Nearby & related — three destination cards
• 5.2.15Parent template for /destinations/india/ and similar — hero, short take, child grid, regional journeys, latest stories, closing CTA. Sections 5.2.5, 5.2.6, 5.2.8, 5.2.9 and 5.2.11 drop out

5.3 Homepage

One job: route a visitor to traveller, reader or partner within two scrolls. Commercial intent appears at section four, then the page relaxes.

• 5.3.1Hero — full viewport minus header, three to four slides from journeys flagged bjr_feat_hero, slow cross-fade, no motion effects. Each slide links to a journey, never a category
• 5.3.2Trust strip — four to five items, small type, no icons
• 5.3.3Suchi & Ankur block — photograph, 60–80 words, signature, link to the full story
• 5.3.4Journeys by collection — five cards, asymmetric grid, Into the Wild larger. Followed by a full-width Long Journey band
• 5.3.5Featured journey in depth — horizontal treatment from bjr_feat_home
• 5.3.6Destinations grid with last-visited stamps, plus a travel-style filter row
• 5.3.7Travel Charter band — single muted image, short statement, link
• 5.3.8Stories — three or four latest across formats
• 5.3.9Heritage & Films — dark section, still plus copy, four heritage cards carrying Launching Soon badges
• 5.3.10Keep the Journey — three cards: memoir films, prints, playbooks, each showing its true product state
• 5.3.11Testimonials — hidden until three real ones exist
• 5.3.12Newsletter block with destination-interest dropdown
• 5.3.13Instagram strip, deferred loading
• 5.3.14No itinerary builder, booking calendar, search bar, date-sorted blog feed, "why choose us" list or counter animation anywhere on this page

5.4 Remaining templates

• 5.4.1Journey collection archive — by Collection taxonomy, filterable by duration, region and month
• 5.4.2Story single — one template, conditional layout by format. Journal text-led with inline images; Photo Essay gallery-led with minimal text; Film leads with the embed; Legends & Folklore text-led with distinct treatment; Podcast leads with the player
• 5.4.3Story archive at /stories/ with filtered format views and a format label on every card
• 5.4.4Guide single — table of contents, last-verified date, first-hand badge, inline affiliate blocks where present
• 5.4.5Guide archive grouped by guide type
• 5.4.6Heritage Site single — film embed, site history, highlights, visiting info, audio guide and ebook cards with state badges
• 5.4.7Product single and shop landing — cards rendering all four product states
• 5.4.8Partner single and Our Partners & Guides index
• 5.4.9Static templates: Plan Your Journey · How We Plan · Suchi & Ankur · Travel Charter · Memoir Films · Partner with Banjaaraa · Featured In · Contact · Thank You · 404 · Search results
• 5.4.10Legal templates: Privacy Policy · Terms · Affiliate Disclosure · Trip Planning Terms · Booking & Cancellation Terms

5.5 Cross-template requirements

• 5.5.1One primary CTA per screen, never more. Journey → Enquire; Destination → Plan a Trip; Guide → Get the Playbook; Story → See Journeys in Region; Heritage → Get the Audio Guide; Home → Plan Your Journey
• 5.5.2Founder faces appear on every journey page near the enquiry CTA and on every destination hub
• 5.5.3Every Story, Guide and Journey carries a byline linked to an author profile
• 5.5.4Mobile pass across all templates — hero to 70vh, collection grid to swipe carousel, quick answers to two columns, photo strips to carousels, sticky bottom CTA. Design and test this view first
• 5.5.5Empty-state handling on every repeating block — no orphan headers, no placeholder content, no dead links

The commercial machinery behind the templates. Items 6.1 to 6.4 are launch-blocking; the site cannot take an enquiry without them.

• 6.1Enquiry form Launch-blockingFluent Forms or equivalent. Fields: name, email, WhatsApp, travel month, number of travellers, stay preference (mid-range / premium / mix), what should lead the journey (wildlife / culture / coast / a bit of everything), notes. Journey name pre-filled from URL parameter and hidden. Source attribution captured on every submission. Conditional logic by destination.
• 6.2CRM integration Launch-blockingFluentCRM. Lead routing, tagging by destination and collection, lead scoring, acknowledgement email within 60 seconds, and a pipeline view.
• 6.3Gated itinerary PDF download on every journey page, feeding the same CRM segmentation
• 6.4WhatsApp click-to-chat — floating site-wide, plus a contextual button on journey pages that pre-fills the journey name in the message
• 6.5Newsletter signup with destination-interest dropdown, so the list is segmented from the first subscriber
• 6.6Launching Soon state and waitlist capture — product state drives card rendering; anything not Available shows a muted badge and a single email capture. Waitlist volume per product reported in the admin so build order follows demand
• 6.7Commerce — SureCart with Razorpay. Digital delivery, download limits, invoicing, GST handling. Deliberately light; physical print fulfilment is out of scope
• 6.8Featured placement module — scheduled start and end dates on partner placements so the 30–60 day visibility rule enforces itself and the slot clears with no manual intervention
• 6.9Affiliate link cloaking, click tracking and automatic disclosure blocks on any page carrying affiliate links
• 6.10Faceted search and filtering across the shared taxonomies — region, style, duration, month, difficulty, traveller type
• 6.11Media pipeline — WebP/AVIF conversion, responsive sizes against the theme's breakpoints, lazy loading below the third section, image credit field on every attachment
• 6.12Caching and CDN configured — object and page caching, Cloudflare or Bunny, critical CSS, deferred Instagram embed
• 6.13GA4 with conversion events: enquiry submitted, PDF downloaded, WhatsApp clicked, memoir film clicked, waitlist joined, product purchased, affiliate clicked, 50% scroll depth. Plus Search Console property and Microsoft Clarity
• 6.14DPDP-compliant consent handling and cookie banner
• 6.15Security and backups — Wordfence, daily offsite backups, staging-to-production deployment path

Everything the site must be capable of selling or capturing. Build the container for all of them now; most ship in a Launching Soon state and the waitlist decides what gets made first.

• 7.1Every line above exists as a Product entry or a page with the correct state, including those not yet made
• 7.2Memoir Films landing page with three tiers and an enquiry path
• 7.3Trip planning service purchasable as a standalone with its own terms
• 7.4Partner with Banjaaraa page with downloadable media kit and rate card
• 7.5Footage licensing enquiry route, separate from the traveller enquiry form
• 7.6No permanent homepage or destination placement is offered to any partner anywhere in the build

End-to-end paths that must work before launch. Each is tested as a whole, not as isolated components.

Traveller enquiry

1. ArrivalSearch, Instagram or direct, landing on a destination hub or journey page
2. QualificationQuick answers and our-take establish trust; journey cards present the offer with a visible price band
3. SubmissionInline form or sticky bar; journey name pre-filled; source attribution captured
4. AcknowledgementAutomated reply within 60 seconds, confirming a human response within a day
5. CRMRecord created, tagged by destination and collection, scored, placed in the pipeline
6. HandoffNotification to Ankur by email and WhatsApp with the enquiry summary

Waitlist

1. EncounterProduct card showing a Launching Soon or Waitlist badge
2. CaptureSingle email field — "Tell me when this is out"
3. SegmentationContact tagged to that specific product in the CRM
4. ReportingPer-product waitlist count visible in the admin, driving build order

Digital purchase

1. SelectionProduct page, state Available
2. CheckoutSureCart with Razorpay, GST applied
3. FulfilmentAutomated delivery of the linked file or access link, with download limits
4. Follow-upBuyer added to the CRM, segmented by product type

Partner featured placement

1. SetupPartner record created with featured-from and featured-until dates
2. DisplayPlacement renders on linked destination and journey pages within the window
3. ExpiryPlacement clears automatically on the end date with no manual intervention

• 8.1Traveller enquiry path tested end to end on desktop and mobile, including the WhatsApp route
• 8.2Waitlist path tested across at least three different products
• 8.3Digital purchase tested with Razorpay test transactions through to successful file delivery
• 8.4Featured placement expiry verified by setting a past end date and confirming the slot clears
• 8.5Gated PDF download tested, including the case of a returning visitor who already gave an email
• 8.6All transactional emails reviewed for tone and sender configuration, and tested against spam filters

Phase 1 is complete when every item below passes on staging with placeholder content in place.

• 9.1Every template renders correctly with a fully populated test entry and with a minimally populated one
• 9.2One complete reference set built as the pattern for Phase 2: Ladakh destination hub with all fourteen sections populated, plus one standard journey, one trek journey and one long journeyThis exercises every field in the data model and surfaces gaps before the pattern is repeated across twelve more destinations.
• 9.3Content gate enforced in the admin — a destination hub cannot publish without hero image, quick answers, our take, three linked content pieces, a when-to-go strip and six FAQs
• 9.4Cross-browser QA: Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge; iOS and Android at phone and tablet widths
• 9.5Accessibility pass — colour contrast, keyboard navigation through mega menus and accordions, focus states, form labels, heading hierarchy
• 9.6Core Web Vitals baseline — LCP under 2.5s on homepage, journey and destination templates, mobile and desktop
• 9.7Admin walkthrough recorded or documented for Suchi and Ankur, covering entry of each post type
• 9.8Field reference document handed over — every meta key, its type and which template consumes it
• 9.9Staging URL and credentials issued for pre-launch review

Listed so nothing is assumed to be forgotten, and so Phase 1 decisions account for them. No work against this section yet.

Content population

Twelve curated journeys, nine trek routes, two to three long journeys, thirteen destination hubs, five heritage site pages, static page copy, partner profiles, shop listings, and homepage assembly. Written by Suchi and Ankur against the templates delivered in Phase 1.

Data migration

Export from the existing site; manual taxonomy mapping; migration of posts into Story, Guide and Heritage Site; portfolio entries into Photo Essay format; media library transfer and optimisation; consolidation of thin archives; the 301 redirect map and its implementation and testing; and a post-migration integrity crawl. Includes folding the orphaned /banjaaraa-africa-curated.html page into the Tanzania and Kenya journey pages.

SEO and schema

RankMath configuration per post type; custom TouristTrip schema on journeys, which RankMath does not emit natively; TouristDestination, Article, VideoObject, Product, FAQPage, Person, Organization and BreadcrumbList; sitemaps and llms.txt; internal linking and breadcrumbs; and an AI search visibility baseline.

Deferred features

Mapbox destination map in place of the grid; Stay and Experience post types; fixed-date Departure post type for hosted small-group trips; itinerary builder; physical print fulfilment.