White Rann, Gir & Dwarka, 6 Nights

You are met at Ahmedabad airport and the afternoon covers the city that became India’s first UNESCO World Heritage city: the Sidi Saiyyed mosque’s famous tree-of-life jali, the carved wooden havelis of the old pols, and Sabarmati Ashram, kept exactly as Gandhi left it in 1930. The evening is yours at Manek Chowk, where the jewellery bazaar packs up at ten and a street-food market takes over the same square.

An early start for the long day west — about 400 km in six to seven hours, with a stop at the Adalaj stepwell before the highway and lunch near Samakhiali. Your Rann permit is checked at Bhirandiyara, where the roadside mawa is a legitimate reason to stop. You reach the Dhordo tent city by late afternoon, in time to walk out onto the salt for sunset, when the crust turns from white to rose to grey.

Morning at Kala Dungar, the Black Hill, the highest point in Kutch, where the view takes in the whole white expanse to the Pakistan horizon. The afternoon is the craft belt: rogan painting with the Khatri family at Nirona, hand-tuned copper bells at Zura, and weavers at Bhujodi. Back at Dhordo, the evening is a camel cart on the salt and the Utsav’s folk performances under the moon.

This is the honest day of the trip: roughly 450 km and eight hours, broken by lunch at a Kathiyawadi dhaba past Rajkot — order the lasaniya bataka and the bajra rotla, this is their home ground. You reach Sasan by evening for an early dinner and an early night; tomorrow starts before the sun does.

Into the park at first light in an open Gypsy with a forest-department guide. Gir’s lions are forest cats used to vehicles, and the dawn slot gives the best odds of finding a pride before the heat pushes them into the teak shade — with chital, sambar, nilgai and crocodiles at the Kamleshwar reservoir along the way. After brunch, the short drive to Somnath for the temple by the sea, the evening aarti with the waves behind the shikhara, and the light-and-sound show after.

Morning darshan at Somnath before the coast road north — about five hours with a stop at Porbandar, where Kirti Mandir preserves the house Gandhi was born in. You reach Dwarka by late afternoon for the Dwarkadhish temple at aarti time, when the crowd watches a new flag hauled up the 43-metre shikhara — it changes five times a day, and the evening changing is the one to see.

An early boat from Okha to Bet Dwarka, the island temple where Krishna is said to have kept his home, then Nageshwar Jyotirlinga on the road back. The drive to Jamnagar airport takes about two and a half hours; flights connect through Mumbai and Ahmedabad. A drop at Rajkot or a drive back to Ahmedabad can be arranged instead when you book.