Tailor-made travel to India

This is India

A subcontinent, not a single story.

Sacred and everyday, silence and noise: extremes that simply coexist on this subcontinent, without asking for an explanation.

In Varanasi, a man washes his buffalo in the same river where a cremation takes place an hour later, and nobody bats an eye. Eight hundred kilometres away, the day in Kerala's backwaters is measured by the tide, not the clock. Between those two extremes lies a country so vast that 'visiting India' means about as much as 'visiting Europe'. It's a choice, not a checklist.

That's why we don't start with a route through India, but with the question of which India suits you: the India of temples, spice markets and havelis, of high mountains and tea plantations, of a train that leaves on the minute or a fishing boat that waits on the water.

Flight time: About 9 hours direct to Delhi or Mumbai
Languages: Hindi and English as bridge languages, alongside dozens of regional languages
Time difference: Three and a half to four and a half hours ahead, depending on the season
Altitude range: From sea level in Kerala to over 3,500 metres in Ladakh
Best time to go: October to March for most of the country

The regions

Six faces, no two alike.

What follows isn't a complete list. India has twenty-eight states. This is a selection of the regions that most often form the core of a trip.

desert and palaces

Rajasthan

Jodhpur turns blue beneath its fort, Jaisalmer all but disappears into the sand of the Thar Desert, and between the two lie havelis where merchants once carved their wealth into the facades. Here a camel doesn't take you to a photo opportunity, but to a night under a sky free of light pollution.

backwaters and spices

Kerala

A rice boat glides here slower than the traffic on the road, past coconut palms and villages reachable only by water. Further on, in the hills of Munnar and Thekkady, grow the pepper, cardamom and coffee that season the cooking of all of South India.

the sacred north

Varanasi and the Ganges plain

At the ghats of Varanasi, praying, washing and saying goodbye happen in one and the same morning. It's one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, and you feel that not in the monuments, but in how ordinary the sacred is here.

high Himalaya

Ladakh

Above three thousand metres, India turns Tibetan: monasteries on bare rock peaks, prayer flags snapping in thin air, and a silence found nowhere else on the subcontinent. Leh is the starting point here, not the destination.

temples of the south

Tamil Nadu

The temple towers of Madurai and Chidambaram are carved with thousands of figures and still very much in use. On the coast, Mahabalipuram bakes its granite sculptures in the sun, and Chettinad serves up the spiciest cooking in the country.

the metropolis

Mumbai and the west coast

Mumbai is India at fast-forward: art deco facades, a fish market that never closes, a film industry that outproduces Hollywood. Heading south along the Konkan coast, the pace slows again, village by village.

People and table

One country, a kitchen that changes with every state

A thali in Gujarat is sweet and entirely vegetarian, with as many as eight small dishes at once. Hundreds of kilometres south, in Chettinad, everything revolves around pepper and dried chilli. North Indian kulcha from a tandoor in Amritsar has nothing to do with the fish meals of Bengal. India doesn't have a cuisine. It has dozens, and none of them is the main one.

What stays the same everywhere: the chai seller who opens first each morning, the ritual of eating with the right hand, the hospitality that sits a stranger down at the table before anything has even been asked. That everyday detail, not the monument, is often what stays with travellers longest.

A morning that smells different everywhere in the country, and never stands still.

Nature and wildlife

Tigers, tea and an altitude where the air runs thin

Tiger reserves in the heart of the country

In Ranthambore and Bandhavgarh, a local naturalist follows the trail, not the clock. A jeep that stops at the alarm call of a deer herd yields more than a fixed route. Tigers are never guaranteed here, which makes the morning you do see one worth all the more.

Tea country in the Western Ghats

Munnar and Coorg lie under a blanket of mist that only lifts around nine, over rows of tea bushes clipped so tightly they look like green velvet. A walk among the pickers, early, before the heat sets in, says more than the view from a balcony.

Spiti and the high desert

Beyond Manali, the road climbs to a Himalayan valley that looks like Tibet and, culturally, largely is: bare mountains, monasteries at dizzying altitude, and a silence broken only by the wind.

What's possible

No daily programme, a set of possibilities

This isn't a sequence to work through. These are directions: a sample of what a trip through India can include, tailored to who's travelling and how much time there is.

Cooking with a family in a Rajasthani haveli

An afternoon in a host family's kitchen, with spices they blend themselves and a recipe passed down for three generations.

A rowing boat at sunrise on the Ganges

Before the crowds arrive, a wooden boat glides past the ghats as the first priests begin their morning ritual.

By train from city to city, like the locals

A night train with chai brought round the carriage at six in the morning is an introduction to India no driver can give you.

A night on a houseboat in the backwaters

Anchored among Kerala's rice paddies, with dinner freshly caught and the engine switched off for the night.

A morning among the pickers on a tea plantation

Setting off early, before the mist lifts, to see how every leaf is picked by hand.

Any one of these moments can become the heart of a day, or a brief stop within a longer journey. We work that out together.

Verder kijken dan de highlights

Why we don't start with the golden triangle

Region first, not a list of capitals Delhi, Agra and Jaipur make a fine start, but they aren't compulsory. We start from the question of which India you're after, and let the route follow from there, not the other way round.

Local experts by state, not one guide for the whole country India is too big for a single perspective. Our people on the ground know their own region inside out, from a family business in Kerala to a guide who's tracked the same tiger reserve for twenty years.

A pace that matches the distances A ten-hour train journey can be the trip itself, or a wasted day. The difference lies in the planning before and after. We weigh domestic flights against the time a train journey gives back.

At hours the coaches miss India's best-known sites draw the biggest crowds. We schedule visits early in the morning or just after closing, when a temple or fort becomes itself again.

Wanneer reis je?

When you go depends on where you go

For most of India, the north, the Ganges plain, Rajasthan, October to March is the most pleasant stretch: dry, and warm by day without the scorching heat of April and May.

Ladakh runs exactly the other way round. The mountain passes to Leh lie under snow from November to May; the region is only accessible from June to September, precisely when the rest of the country is in monsoon. And in Kerala, the monsoon itself has its fans: from June to August the backwaters fill and the air clears.

Jan

Feb

Mrt

Apr

Mei

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Okt

Nov

Dec

This grid follows the rhythm of most of the country: the north, the west and the Ganges plain. Ladakh and the high Himalayan region run the other way round, accessible from June to September when the mountain passes are free of snow. Kerala's monsoon, from June to August, is for some travellers exactly the reason to go.

Goed om te weten

Praktisch, zonder ruis.

A few practical notes, not a complete checklist. We go through the details once a trip starts taking shape.

Visa: An e-visa is applied for online, well ahead of departure
Health: Vaccination advice and possibly malaria prophylaxis, depending on region and season
Pace: Distances are large. A domestic flight sometimes saves a full travel day
Traffic and noise: Cities are busy and unstructured; that's part of the rhythm, not a disruption to it
A guide on the ground: A local guide makes the difference between looking at a temple and understanding one

From the river to the mountain pass, in the same week.

Frequently asked questions

Is India suitable for a trip with children?

Certainly, with the right choices: fewer moves, more time in each place, and a region like Kerala or Rajasthan where the pace naturally sits a little slower. A trip crammed with cities doesn't work for anyone, children included.

Do I need to get used to the food, or can that be avoided?

That depends on what you're after. Our local experts know the places where hygiene and flavour go hand in hand, and can build up gradually if you'd like, from mild cooking towards spicier, rather than throwing you in at the deep end.

How much time do I need to see something of India?

India can't be 'seen' in two weeks. It can, however, be properly got to know in one or two regions at a time. We generally advise against cramming the whole country into a single trip; it deserves a second visit.

Is the heat a problem?

In the plains, yes, from April to June. Anyone wanting to travel in those months is better off looking to the higher ground, Ladakh, Himachal, or the hills of the south, where the climate is at its best just then.

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