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DREAMVACA

India

Rajasthan

Fort cities, desert light, palace evenings

Flight from India
1.5 hrs
Currency
INR
Best months
Oct – Mar
Visa
No visa needed

The place

Four cities carry most of Rajasthan. Jaipur for the bazaars and Amber Fort, Jodhpur for the blue town under Mehrangarh, Udaipur for the lake and the palace on it, and Jaisalmer for the only living fort in India — three thousand people still live inside the walls, which is also why the walls are in trouble.

From Gujarat it is the easiest big holiday in the country. Udaipur is a five-hour drive from Ahmedabad, Mount Abu is closer than Surat, and there is no flight, no acclimatisation and no food adjustment to make. A week here buys more actual sightseeing than a week anywhere else in India.

Go between October and March. From April to June the desert sits at 42–45°C, and while the palace hotels halve their rates, you will spend every afternoon indoors looking at the pool. The one exception worth making is the monsoon in Udaipur, when the lakes fill and the Aravallis turn green for six weeks.

Best months

Best time to visit

The months in gold are when Rajasthan is at its best — weather, crowds and price together.

  • January: high 23°C, low 8°C. Dry. Recommended month to travel.
  • February: high 26°C, low 11°C. Dry. Recommended month to travel.
  • March: high 32°C, low 16°C. Dry. Recommended month to travel.
  • April: high 38°C, low 22°C. Dry.
  • May: high 41°C, low 27°C. Dry.
  • June: high 40°C, low 28°C. Light showers.
  • July: high 35°C, low 27°C. Wet.
  • August: high 33°C, low 26°C. Wet.
  • September: high 34°C, low 24°C. Light showers.
  • October: high 34°C, low 19°C. Dry. Recommended month to travel.
  • November: high 29°C, low 13°C. Dry. Recommended month to travel.
  • December: high 24°C, low 9°C. Dry. Recommended month to travel.

Gold = best months to travelDroplets = how wet the month isHigh / low °C

Holiday Packages

Holidays here

See all
A camel and rider crossing the dunes of the Thar desertBest seller5N / 6D

The Golden Fort Trail, 5 Nights

Jodhpur 2N · Jaisalmer 2N · Sam Sand Dunes 1N

Two forts and a desert. Mehrangarh rising 120 metres straight out of the rock at Jodhpur, the blue town beneath it, the merchant havelis of Jaisalmer, and a last night in a Swiss tent at Sam with camels, a fire and Manganiyar musicians. Private Innova, no coach, no early-morning wake-up calls.

₹27,120 on Flamingo Travels

from₹23,088per personView details

*Indicative — final price confirmed on live availability.

A man in a bright turban and traditional dress standing before a sandstone fort wallNew8N / 9D

Royal Rajasthan & Shrinathji, 8 Nights

Jaipur 2N · Pushkar 1N · Udaipur 2N · Jodhpur 1N · Jaisalmer 2N

Five cities, four-star hotels and the two darshans a Gujarati family actually asks for — Brahmaji at Pushkar and Shrinathji at Nathdwara — set inside the full circuit of Amber, the Udaipur City Palace, Ranakpur, Mehrangarh and Jaisalmer. Private Innova Crysta, approved guides in every city, no coach and no fixed group.

from₹46,393per personView details

*Indicative — final price confirmed on live availability.

Worth your days

What to do

  • Visitors walking along the ramparts of a Rajasthani hill fort

    Mehrangarh at nine in the morning

    The best-run fort museum in India, and the only audio guide in the country genuinely worth its ₹200. Go at opening and walk out onto the ramparts over the blue town before the light hardens. Lunch at Chokelao Bagh, in the restored garden below the wall.

  • A camel and rider crossing the dunes of the Thar desert

    Amber Fort, then the Jaipur bazaars

    Amber at eight in the morning is a different building from Amber at noon. Afterwards walk Johari Bazaar for lac bangles and Bapu Bazaar for block print, on foot. Ignore whichever emporium the driver suggests — the standing commission on those shops is thirty to forty per cent, and you pay it.

  • A palace mirrored in the flat water of the lake it was built on

    A night in the Thar

    Sam, 40 km west of Jaisalmer, is the busy dune with the jeeps and the loudspeakers. Khuri and Damodara are the quiet alternatives. A proper camp puts you on a camel or in a jeep at four, dinner and Manganiyar music under the stars, and a swiss tent with an attached bathroom.

  • Lake Pichola at five o'clock

    Take the boat from Rameshwar Ghat inside the City Palace, not the touts at the ghats outside. It lands at Jag Mandir, where Prince Khurram — later Shah Jahan — hid from his father. Inside the palace, skip the Crystal Gallery and do the Vintage Car Museum instead.

  • Ranthambhore, booked yourself

    Ten zones, three-hour safaris at dawn and mid-afternoon, and a real chance of a tiger in zones one to five. Book online through the Rajasthan Forest Department the day the window opens, 90 days ahead. Agents sell you the same seat at four times the price.

  • Bundi or Shekhawati, for the spare day

    Bundi's stepwells and the Chitrashala frescoes get a fraction of Jaipur's crowd and are better preserved than they have any right to be. Shekhawati — Mandawa, Nawalgarh, Fatehpur — is two hours from Jaipur into painted merchant havelis, many of them built by Marwari trading families with Gujarat connections.

Indicative

What it costs

Spending money on the ground, per person per day — food, local transport and entry tickets outside your package.

Shoestring

₹1,200

a day, per person

Street food, public transport, one paid sight

Comfort

₹3,200

a day, per person

Sit-down meals, taxis, a tour or two

Luxury

₹12,000

a day, per person

Fine dining, private car, premium experiences

Visa

Visa snapshot

No visa needed

This is a domestic holiday. Carry a government photo ID for hotel check-in and any flight — Aadhaar, PAN, passport or driving licence.

Practicalities

Know before you go

What to eat

Vegetarian or Jain? Safe picks here: Dal baati churma, Ker sangri, Gatte ki sabzi, Pyaaz kachori and mirchi bada.
  • Dal baati churmaJain friendly

    The state dish, entirely vegetarian, and best eaten at lunch because it is heavy. Baked wheat balls cracked open and drowned in ghee, panchmel dal, and a sweet crumble alongside. Most Rajasthani thali houses will serve a Jain version without onion or garlic if you ask when ordering, not after.

  • Ker sangriJain friendly

    A desert berry and a desert bean, sun-dried, then cooked in oil and spice with no water and no onion — because for centuries there was neither. Naturally Jain-friendly in its traditional form and one of the genuinely unusual things you will eat in India.

  • Gatte ki sabziVegetarian

    Steamed gram-flour dumplings in a yoghurt gravy — the same besan logic as a Gujarati muthiya, cooked in curd instead of steamed with vegetables. Vegetarian everywhere, and a reliable order when a menu is otherwise unfamiliar.

  • Pyaaz kachori and mirchi badaJain friendly

    Jodhpur's street food, and both are vegetarian — but the pyaaz kachori is, as the name says, built on onion, so a Jain traveller should ask for the mawa or dal kachori instead. Rawat Mishthan Bhandar in Jaipur and Janta Sweet Home in Jodhpur are the addresses.

  • Ghevar and malpua

    Ghevar is a honeycomb disc of fried flour soaked in syrup, made properly only around Teej and Raksha Bandhan. Laal maas, the other famous Rajasthani dish, is mutton — worth naming so no one orders it by accident.

Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.

What to bring home

  • Blue pottery from Jaipur — quartz, not clay, so it is lighter and chips more easily than it looks
  • Bagru and Sanganer block print — visit a printing yard and buy from it directly
  • Bandhani and leheriya from Jodhpur, the same craft family as Kutch and Jamnagar
  • Kota doria sarees, woven in square check on cotton-silk, light enough for Gujarat summers
  • Marble inlay and meenakari from Jaipur — ask for the artisan, not the showroom
  • Mojri and jutti footwear — traditionally leather, so ask specifically for the cotton or velvet versions if that matters to you

Getting around

Rajasthan is a driving holiday. Ahmedabad to Udaipur is five hours on a good four-lane road, Udaipur to Jodhpur five, Jodhpur to Jaisalmer five, Jaipur to Jodhpur five and a half. A car with a driver for the whole circuit costs ₹3,000–4,500 a day. Trains are excellent on the Delhi–Jaipur and Jaipur–Jodhpur legs; the Palace on Wheels is a separate luxury product, not transport. Inside the old cities of Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur an e-rickshaw or your own feet beat a car every time — the lanes were built for a horse.

Good to know

  • April to June is a heat-injury risk, not just discomfort — 42–45°C, and Jaisalmer fort and the Thar dunes have no shade at all. Move sightseeing to before 10 am and after 4 pm and drink far more than you think you need.
  • Elephant rides at Amber Fort are welfare-flagged and periodically suspended by the courts. The jeep to the same gate costs about the same and takes the same time.
  • A driver who takes you to a shop, camp or restaurant you did not ask for is earning thirty to forty per cent of whatever you spend there. Agree the day plan in writing before you set off.
  • Desert camps at Sam are wildly variable and the advertising photograph is often not the camp. Book a named property, pay a deposit rather than the full amount, and check there is a generator and a fire plan.
  • Groundwater across Jaisalmer, Barmer and Bikaner is high in fluoride and salts. Stick to sealed bottled water even for brushing, and be careful with ice and roadside sugarcane juice.

Travel Guide

Read the full travel guide

Month-by-month weather, money, plugs, food, shopping and the small things nobody tells you.

Rajasthan travel guide