Luxury India Family Tour with 5 Star Resorts

Travelling with children after a long flight needs a gentle welcome, and that is what the first day is about. Our representative meets the whole family at the arrivals exit of Indira Gandhi International Airport, with a name board and a small welcome treat for each child. Luggage goes straight into the spacious car, which has child seats installed if you requested them, along with water, juice boxes and wet wipes. The drive to the hotel takes around forty-five minutes, and our representative uses the time to hand over your travel documents, explain the daily routine and answer any questions about food, health and safety.

Check in at ITC Maurya, our usual choice, or a similar luxury hotel, subject to availability, in the leafy Diplomatic Enclave. We request connecting rooms for families, and the hotel has a heated pool, a well-equipped gym and the famous Bukhara restaurant, where the dal makhani is simmered for hours and the naan arrives bigger than a child's arm. The rest of the day is free for rest, swimming and adjusting to the new time zone. If the children are restless in the evening, a walk in the hotel gardens or a short drive past the lit-up India Gate is enough to whet their appetite for what lies ahead. Overnight stay in Delhi.

The Delhi city tour today is shaped for younger travellers. After breakfast your guide joins you for the National Rail Museum in Chanakyapuri, closed on Mondays, where over thirty real locomotives and carriages stand in the open air, including the Fairy Queen, one of the oldest working steam engines in the world, and the royal saloon of the Maharaja of Mysore. A toy train circles the grounds, and indoor galleries hold simulators where children can try to drive a train. From here it is a short drive to the Qutub Minar, the tallest brick minaret in the world, where children enjoy counting its five storeys and searching for carved verses.

After lunch and a rest back at the hotel, the car heads east across the Yamuna to Swaminarayan Akshardham, also closed on Mondays. Phones and cameras must be deposited at the entrance, which makes the visit calm and focused. The main temple of pink sandstone and white marble is carved with elephants, dancers and gods, and the gardens contain bronze statues of child heroes from Indian history. Stay on for the evening Sahaj Anand water show, which combines fountains, lasers and fire to tell a story from the Upanishads, and is usually a highlight for children of all ages. Overnight stay in Delhi.

Leave Delhi after a relaxed breakfast and drive along the Yamuna Expressway to Agra. The road is wide and smooth, and your chauffeur can stop at a large food plaza halfway for clean toilets, ice cream and snacks. Children usually enjoy spotting camel carts, tractors piled with hay and roadside temples painted in bright colours. On arrival, check in at Jaypee Palace Hotel, our usual choice, or a similar luxury resort, subject to availability, which sits in twenty-five acres of gardens with a large pool, a kids' play area and plenty of room to run around after the drive and burn off energy.

In the late afternoon, your guide takes the family to a marble inlay workshop, where artisans descended from the Taj Mahal craftsmen still cut tiny pieces of semi-precious stone and set them into white marble using the same pietra dura technique. Children are often invited to try shaping a stone on the grinding wheel and to compare the finished work under a torch, which makes the marble glow. Then continue to the Agra Fort, where the guide tells the story of Shah Jahan, the emperor who built the Taj and spent his last years here as a prisoner of his own son. Overnight stay in Agra.

An early start is worth the effort, as the Taj Mahal is at its best and coolest in the first hour after opening. The monument is closed on Fridays, so this day is always arranged accordingly. Your guide keeps the story lively for children, pointing out the optical tricks that make the minarets appear straight and the calligraphy appear the same size from top to bottom, and showing them how to take the classic photo of holding the dome between two fingers. Return to the resort for a hearty breakfast, followed by a swim and a well-earned rest in the middle of the day.

In the afternoon, drive about thirty minutes to the Agra Bear Rescue Facility run by Wildlife SOS near Keetham Lake in the Sur Sarovar Bird Sanctuary. Here sloth bears that were once forced to dance on the streets now live in large, forested enclosures, and the staff explain how the bears were rescued and how the families who owned them were helped into new livelihoods. Visits are by appointment, and we make the booking for you. It is a moving afternoon that gives children a real-world lesson in animal welfare. Return to the resort for dinner and an early night. Overnight stay in Agra.

Check out after breakfast and drive about forty kilometres west to Fatehpur Sikri, the red sandstone city built by Emperor Akbar and abandoned only fourteen years later, probably because of a shortage of water. Your guide brings the place to life for the children, showing them the Pachisi Court, where Akbar is said to have played a giant board game with real people as pieces, and the Panch Mahal, a five-storey wind tower. The Buland Darwaza, at fifty-four metres one of the tallest gateways in the world, makes everyone feel small. In the mosque courtyard, families tie threads at the tomb of Sufi saint Salim Chishti.

Continue towards Jaipur through the farmland of eastern Rajasthan, with a lunch stop at a highway restaurant along the way. You reach the Pink City in the late afternoon and check in at the Fairmont Jaipur, our usual choice, or a similar luxury resort, subject to availability, in the Aravalli hills near Amber. The resort has a large pool, a kids' club with Rajasthani crafts and puppet activities, and spacious family suites. The evening is free to settle in, enjoy the pool and order room service if the children are tired from the day, with an early night before tomorrow's forts. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

The Fairmont is just a few minutes from Amber Fort, so you can arrive at the gates as soon as they open, before the heat and the crowds. Your guide leads the family up through the Suraj Pol and the Ganesh Pol to the Sheesh Mahal, where children love seeing a single match flame light up thousands of mirrors at once. They can also play hide and seek in the maze-like corridors of the Zenana. We do not book elephant rides, as we prefer to support animal-friendly tourism, and a jeep takes you up the hill instead. Afterwards, stop for a photo of the Jal Mahal in Man Sagar Lake.

In the afternoon, the car climbs the winding road to Jaigarh Fort, which sits on the ridge above Amber and was never captured in battle. Its main attraction is the Jaivana cannon, once claimed to be the largest cannon on wheels in the world, which was test-fired only once and is said to have hit a village thirty-five kilometres away. There are also an old armoury, a puppet theatre and huge underground water tanks. Return to the resort for a relaxing evening by the pool, perhaps followed by a family dinner at the hotel's Zarin restaurant. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

After breakfast, drive about thirty kilometres south-west to Bagru, a village of printers who have used carved wooden blocks and natural dyes for more than three hundred years. A local family shows you how they mix indigo, pomegranate peel and iron rust into colours, and then each child gets to stamp a cotton scarf or tote bag to take home as a souvenir. Return to Jaipur for lunch, then visit the City Palace and the Jantar Mantar observatory, where children can test the giant sundial against their own watches. The Jaipur city tour is short today to leave energy for the evening, which is a busy one.

Late in the afternoon, a local family hosts you on their rooftop in the old city for a kite-flying lesson. Jaipur is crazy about kites, especially around the Makar Sankranti festival in January, and children quickly learn to launch and steer a paper kite on a glass-coated string. In the evening, drive to Chokhi Dhani, a recreated Rajasthani village on the edge of town, where there are puppet shows, magicians, camel rides, folk dancers and a traditional dinner served sitting on the floor, with dal baati churma, gatte ki sabzi and endless refills from cheerful servers. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Leave Jaipur after an early breakfast and drive south-east towards Sawai Madhopur, through mustard and wheat fields and small villages where children wave from the roadside. The road is good, and your chauffeur will make a short stop for a toilet break and a drink, usually at a clean highway café. On arrival, check in at the Taj Sawai Madhopur Lodge, a former royal hunting lodge, or Nahargarh Ranthambhore, a fort-style resort, both subject to availability, with large pools and grounds full of birds. Lunch is served at the lodge, and the naturalist gives the children a short briefing about the animals they might see.

The first game drive leaves around 2:30 in the afternoon and runs until sunset. For families we book a private six-seater gypsy wherever possible, and the naturalist brings binoculars and a field guide so the children can tick off what they see. Ranthambore is home to around eighty tigers, along with leopards, sloth bears, crocodiles, sambar, spotted deer and peacocks. Children should be at least five years old for safari, and quiet voices make a real difference to sightings. Return to the lodge for a bonfire, hot chocolate and an early dinner under the stars, with time to share the day's sightings. Overnight stay in Ranthambore.

The second game drive leaves at first light, when the forest is cool and animals are on the move. Your naturalist reads tracks in the sand and listens for the alarm calls of deer and langur monkeys, which often lead to a tiger or leopard. Even without a big cat, there are plenty of creatures to spot: owls in hollow trees, kingfishers by the lakes, crocodiles basking in the sun and the occasional jackal crossing the track. Back at the lodge, a big breakfast awaits, followed by a free morning by the pool or a children's activity session at the lodge.

In the late afternoon, take a short drive to a village on the edge of the reserve. Your guide introduces the family to farmers who live alongside the tiger reserve, and children can see how cow dung is used for cooking fuel, how flour is ground on a stone mill and how the village school works. Many families bring pencils or notebooks for the school, which we can arrange in advance. On the way back, stop at the Ranthambore School of Art, where local artists paint tigers and other wildlife and sell their work to support conservation. Overnight stay in Ranthambore.

Today is the longest drive of the tour, so it starts after an early breakfast and is broken into comfortable sections. The road crosses the Chambal region and the Bundi hills, and your chauffeur will stop as often as needed. Around midday, you reach Chittorgarh, the largest fort in India, spread across a plateau that is more than six kilometres long. Your guide shares the stories of Rani Padmini, the brave queen of Chittor, and of Meera Bai, the poet who sang to Lord Krishna, and points out the Vijay Stambha, a nine-storey tower of victory covered in carvings, which older children can climb by its narrow internal staircase.

After lunch at a local hotel, drive the last 115 km, about two hours, to Udaipur. The road climbs gently into the green Aravalli hills, and you arrive in time for a late afternoon swim. Check in at the Trident Udaipur, our usual choice, or a similar luxury resort, subject to availability, on the banks of Lake Pichola. The resort is set in forty-three acres of gardens, with a large pool, peacocks on the lawns and a small wildlife sanctuary next door where wild boar come to feed at dusk. Dinner is at the resort after a long and rewarding day. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

After a slow morning, your guide joins you for the Udaipur city tour. Begin at the City Palace, where the Mor Chowk peacock mosaics and the crystal furniture in the Fateh Prakash Palace gallery delight young visitors of every age. Children often enjoy the stories of the Mewar kings, who refused to bow to the Mughal emperors and moved their capital to Udaipur after Chittor fell. Next, walk to the Jagdish Temple with its stone elephants, then visit the Vintage Car Collection of the royal family, which includes Rolls-Royces, Cadillacs and a 1934 Rolls-Royce Phantom used in the James Bond film Octopussy.

Return to the resort for lunch and a quiet afternoon by the pool. In the late afternoon, take a boat ride on Lake Pichola from the jetty near the City Palace, passing the bathing ghats, the white Taj Lake Palace and the island garden of Jag Mandir, where you can stop for a drink. The boat returns as the sun sets behind the hills and the palaces are lit up. If the children still have energy, the Dharohar dance show at Bagore ki Haveli begins at seven and lasts about an hour, featuring puppets and a woman balancing pots on her head. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

A morning in the kitchen is often a highlight of the trip for children. Your chauffeur takes you to a local family home in the old city, where the host leads a cooking class suitable for all ages. Together you make masala chai, vegetable pakora, a mild paneer curry, rice and chapati, rolling the dough with a small wooden rolling pin and puffing it up on an open flame. Children love seeing their own chapatis rise. Then everyone sits down together to eat what they have cooked, and the host hands out simple, illustrated recipe cards to take home so you can recreate the meal later.

In the afternoon, drive about three kilometres west of Fateh Sagar Lake to Shilpgram, a crafts village with traditional houses from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa and Maharashtra. Craftspeople demonstrate pottery, weaving and terracotta work, and children can try their hand at the potter's wheel. There are also folk musicians and dancers, and sometimes camel rides around the grounds. On the way back, stop at Fateh Sagar Lake for a boat ride to Nehru Park, an island garden, or simply enjoy the lakeside promenade with its ice cream sellers and roasted corn-on-the-cob stalls, which locals visit in the cool of the evening. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

Haldighati, about forty-five kilometres north of Udaipur. This narrow pass with its yellow soil was the site of the famous battle against the Mughal army, and a small museum tells the story with dioramas and a light show. The highlight for many young visitors is the memorial to Chetak, the loyal horse who carried his wounded master to safety before dying. On the way back, stop at the white marble Eklingji temple complex, dedicated to Lord Shiva, which has 108 smaller shrines inside its walls.

Return to the resort for lunch and a long, lazy afternoon. After nearly two weeks on the road, this is time for the family to relax together by the pool, play board games, pack and enjoy the gardens. Parents may want to book a spa treatment while the children join the resort's activity programme. In the evening, take a family farewell dinner at Ambrai, a lakeside restaurant with a direct view of the City Palace, or at the resort's own lakeside terrace. It is a good moment to look back over the photographs and choose the favourite moments of the trip. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

After breakfast and check-out, your chauffeur drives the family to Udaipur's Maharana Pratap Airport, about twenty-five kilometres and forty minutes from the city, for the domestic flight to Delhi, which takes around one hour twenty minutes. He will help you with the luggage trolleys and see you to the check-in counter. Please keep medicines, children's snacks and valuables in your hand luggage, as domestic flights have smaller baggage allowances and slightly different security rules for liquids. Our team will have checked your flight timing in advance, so there is no rush or long waiting around at the airport with tired children.

On arrival in Delhi, our representative meets you and transfers you to the international terminal for your flight home. If there is a long gap between flights, we can book a day room at a hotel in Aerocity, where the children can nap, shower and have a meal before the long journey. Our Jaipur office stays in touch until everyone is checked in and through security. Thank you for choosing Heritage India Private Tours for your luxury family tour of India; we hope the children leave with stories of tigers, forts and kites, and that you all come back to see more of the country with us.