Ultra Luxury India Tour with Private Guides and VIP Experiences

Your first contact with our team happens before passport control: a meet-and-assist representative waits at the aerobridge where Delhi airport permits, guides you through the fast-track channels and stays with you until your bags are collected. Outside, your chauffeur for the coming fortnight greets you beside a premium SUV stocked with chilled water, cold towels and a local SIM card, already activated, so you can message family that you have landed. The forty-minute drive to the hotel follows the broad avenues of Lutyens' Delhi, past roundabouts and white bungalows shaded by neem and jamun trees planted nearly a century ago, a calm first view of a city of more than twenty million people.

Our usual choice in the capital is The Oberoi, New Delhi, which overlooks the Delhi Golf Course and the domes of Humayun's Tomb; a club room or suite is requested so that check-in takes place privately in your room. The rest of the day belongs to you, whether that means a swim, a massage to undo the long flight, or an early dinner at the hotel's Omya restaurant. Your tour manager calls by in the evening for a short briefing, confirms the timings for tomorrow and notes any dietary needs, favourite cuisines or pillow preferences, all of which are passed ahead to every hotel on the route so that nothing has to be repeated. Overnight stay in Delhi.

Today is led by an architectural historian rather than a standard guide, and the difference shows within minutes at Humayun's Tomb. You learn how its double dome, red sandstone frame and charbagh garden became the working draft for the Taj Mahal, built some eighty years later by the emperor's great-grandson. Then you walk next door into Sunder Nursery, where restored Mughal pavilions sit among lotus pools and heritage trees that most visitors to the tomb never find. A short drive brings you to Lodhi Garden, where fifteenth-century tombs of the Sayyid and Lodi dynasties stand among joggers, old banyans and families out for a morning walk.

After lunch at a restaurant of your choosing, perhaps the modern Indian tasting menu at Indian Accent, the afternoon moves south to the Qutub Minar, where the historian points out the Quranic bands carved into its tapering storeys and the iron pillar that has resisted rust for some sixteen centuries. As the light softens, you return toward Nizamuddin for a private Sufi qawwali session arranged at a family home near the dargah of the saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. It is a performance far more intimate than the crowded Thursday gathering at the shrine itself, with tea, sweets and time afterwards to talk with the singers about their seven-century tradition. Overnight stay in Delhi.

Old Delhi rewards those who arrive early, so your guide meets you at seven, before the shutters of Chandni Chowk have fully lifted. You stand on the steps of the Jama Masjid as the courtyard fills with pigeons and early worshippers, then take a cycle rickshaw through Kinari Bazaar, where wedding trims and silver thread are sold by the metre from shops barely wider than a doorway. Breakfast is jalebi from the Old Famous Jalebi Wala and nagori halwa from a stall near the Town Hall. If today is not a Monday, when it stays closed, the Red Fort follows, with the Diwan-i-Khas and its inlaid marble pavilions.

The afternoon turns to the New Delhi of Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker. Your guide walks you along Kartavya Path, explains the symbolism of the India Gate memorial, and, where a pre-booked slot is granted, leads a visit inside Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace; in the spring months the Amrit Udyan gardens may also open to visitors. The evening is free for the hotel spa or a cocktail at a rooftop bar in Mehrauli overlooking the floodlit Qutub Minar. For dinner, Bukhara in the ITC Maurya is our suggestion if a classic frontier kitchen appeals, with its dal cooked overnight over charcoal and its kebabs eaten by hand. Overnight stay in Delhi.

After a late breakfast, your chauffeur takes the Yamuna Expressway south, a smooth six-lane road that reaches Agra in roughly three and a half hours, with a stop at a clean highway lounge along the way. Our usual choice is The Oberoi Amarvilas, set about six hundred metres from the Taj Mahal, where every room and suite looks straight at the monument across terraced gardens, fountains and reflecting pools. Lunch is served on the terrace at Esphahan or beside the pool, and the early afternoon is kept deliberately quiet so that you reach Agra Fort refreshed rather than road-weary, with the worst of the midday heat already behind you.

Agra Fort is the right introduction to the city, because it is where Shah Jahan spent his final years under house arrest, watching the Taj from the octagonal Musamman Burj. Your Mughal scholar guide takes you through the Jahangiri Mahal, the Diwan-i-Am and the white marble Khas Mahal, explaining how each emperor altered the fortress to suit his taste, from Akbar's sandstone to Shah Jahan's polished marble. Toward sunset you cross the river to Mehtab Bagh, the moonlight garden on the opposite bank, to watch the Taj turn amber and then pink as the sun drops behind it, with hardly another visitor around you. Overnight stay in Agra.

The Taj Mahal opens at sunrise six days a week and stays closed on Fridays, so your visit is fixed to the first available morning. Golf carts carry you from the hotel to the east gate, your guide holds the entry tickets, and you pass through the great red sandstone darwaza just as the dome begins to catch the light. Inside, the scholar reads the calligraphy framing the main arch and explains how its letters grow larger toward the top so they appear uniform from the ground. He then shows the pietra dura flowers set with carnelian, jasper and lapis around the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan.

Back at the hotel for breakfast, you have the late morning to rest before a visit to the tomb of Itmad-ud-Daulah, often called the Baby Taj, whose delicate marble screens and painted ceilings predate the great mausoleum by two decades. In the afternoon, a private session at a workshop run by descendants of the original Taj artisans shows how semi-precious stones are cut into slivers on a hand-driven wheel and fitted into marble with a paste of lac. The evening is yours, ideally spent with a drink on your balcony as the floodlit outline of the monument fades slowly into the night across the gardens. Overnight stay in Agra.

Forty kilometres west of Agra, the abandoned capital of Fatehpur Sikri rises on a ridge of red sandstone, and a morning here with your guide reveals Akbar's experiments in architecture and religion. You walk through the Panch Mahal, a five-tiered open pavilion built to catch the breeze, the Diwan-i-Khas with its single carved central pillar, and the Buland Darwaza, the towering victory gate that leads into the mosque complex. Inside the courtyard, the white marble tomb of the Sufi saint Salim Chishti draws visitors who tie red threads on its lattice screens while making a wish, a custom your guide is happy to help you follow.

The drive to Jaipur continues on a good highway through mustard fields and villages, with lunch arranged at a heritage property along the way so you avoid roadside stops entirely. Our usual choice in the Pink City is Rambagh Palace, the former residence of the Maharaja of Jaipur, where peacocks walk across the lawns and a palace butler is assigned to your suite for the length of your stay. Arrive in time for afternoon tea on the Verandah, then let the butler book you a table at Suvarna Mahal, the gilded former ballroom that now serves royal Rajasthani and Mughlai dishes on silver. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Amber Fort sits eleven kilometres north of the city, and arriving soon after it opens means you climb the ramparts in cool air and well before the tour buses. Your guide, who has worked with the royal household for years, leads you through the Ganesh Pol, the Diwan-i-Aam and the Sheesh Mahal, where thousands of convex mirror pieces once multiplied a single candle into a ceiling of stars. On the way back, you pause at Panna Meena ka Kund, a geometric stepwell of criss-crossing stairs nearby, and at the Jal Mahal, the water palace that appears to float in the middle of Man Sagar Lake.

The afternoon brings the highlight of Jaipur: a curator-led tour of the Chandra Mahal at the City Palace, where the royal family still lives on the upper floors. Subject to availability, this visit takes you beyond the public museum into private rooms such as the blue-tiled Chhavi Niwas and the gilded Sukh Niwas, where you hear stories of the dynasty that are never printed on the plaques downstairs. You return to Rambagh Palace for an evening at leisure, with the option of a cocktail in the Polo Bar, hung with trophies from the family's famous team, or a long treatment at the Jiva Spa. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Jaipur has been India's gem-cutting capital for three centuries, and this morning you visit a family-owned atelier in the lanes off Johari Bazaar, where a fourth-generation jeweller shows how emeralds, rubies and uncut diamonds are graded and set into kundan and meenakari pieces. There is no sales pressure, only a privileged view of a craft still practised at small wooden benches by men who learned it from their fathers. Close by stand the Hawa Mahal, the honeycombed facade that allowed royal women to watch street processions unseen, and the Jantar Mantar, where giant masonry instruments still tell solar time to within a few seconds.

Lunch is a royal thali at a heritage restaurant within the old walled city, with laal maas, gatte ki sabzi and churma served in small silver bowls. In the polo season, roughly from November to March, we try to secure seats at a match at the Rambagh Polo Ground, where the sport has deep roots in the city's royal family. At other times the afternoon can be spent on a vintage car drive up to the ramparts of Nahargarh Fort, from where the whole walled city spreads out below in shades of terracotta, ideally timed so that you watch the lights begin to come on at dusk. Overnight stay in Jaipur.

Today is the longest road day of the tour, so the departure is early and the pace relaxed, with your chauffeur stopping whenever you wish to stretch or take a photograph. The route skirts Ajmer and passes through the dry scrubland of central Rajasthan, dotted with khejri trees, roadside shrines and herds of camels moving slowly between villages. A gourmet lunch hamper, packed by the Rambagh kitchen, is served at a scenic halt, or you may prefer a table at a heritage hotel along the way. By mid-afternoon, the walls of Mehrangarh Fort appear on the horizon, rising sheer from a rocky ridge above the old city.

Our usual choice in Jodhpur is Umaid Bhawan Palace, one of the largest private residences in the world and still home to the royal family, who occupy one wing while the rest operates as a hotel. Its Art Deco interiors, completed in the 1940s, include a domed central hall and an underground swimming pool decorated with zodiac mosaics. After checking in, take tea on the terrace overlooking the gardens and watch the sun set behind the fort on its distant crest. Dinner is at Risala, the palace restaurant, where Rajput game recipes are served in a room lined with regimental memorabilia and old polo photographs. Overnight stay in Jodhpur.

Mehrangarh is perhaps the most dramatic fort in Rajasthan, built on a cliff that rises more than a hundred metres above the old city. Your guide takes you through the seven gates, pointing out the handprints of royal widows on the Loha Pol, then into the palace museum, where the Phool Mahal, the Takhat Vilas and the collection of royal palanquins and howdahs are among the finest in India. From the ramparts, the old city spreads below in shades of indigo, with the stepwell of Toorji ka Jhalra and the clock tower of Sardar Market easy to pick out among the flat rooftops.

After lunch, you descend to the white marble cenotaph of Jaswant Thada and walk a short trail through the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park, where native plants have been patiently restored on the volcanic rock below the fort walls. The evening is the highlight: subject to availability, a private candlelit dinner is arranged in one of the fort's courtyards, with folk musicians from the Manganiyar community playing the kamaicha and dholak as the city lights come on below. Your chauffeur waits at the gate to drive you back to the palace when the evening ends, however late that turns out to be. Overnight stay in Jodhpur.

The Bishnoi people have protected trees and wildlife for more than five hundred years, and a morning jeep ride into their villages southwest of Jodhpur shows this living conservation ethic at close range. Near Guda Bishnoi, blackbuck, chinkara gazelles and nilgai graze openly near the homes, and the lake there attracts demoiselle cranes in winter. You meet a potter who still works on a hand-turned wheel, a family of dhurrie weavers at their pit looms, and a Bishnoi elder who demonstrates the traditional amal welcome ceremony, during which guests are offered a simple herbal drink in place of the original.

Lunch is served at a farmstead in the village, a meal of bajra roti, ker sangri and buttermilk prepared on a clay stove by the women of the household. You return to Umaid Bhawan by early afternoon for an unhurried few hours, perhaps at the Jiva Grande Spa or in the palace museum, which displays royal clocks, weapons and photographs of the family's polo teams. In the evening, a private guided walk through the old city lanes near the clock tower takes you past spice sellers and bangle shops and ends with a makhaniya lassi at Shri Mishrilal Hotel. Overnight stay in Jodhpur.

The road south climbs into the Aravalli Hills, and after about three hours you reach the Ranakpur Jain Temple, built in the fifteenth century from creamy marble and supported by 1,444 pillars, no two of them carved alike. The temple opens to non-Jain visitors from midday, and your guide uses the morning's drive to explain the iconography so that you know what to look for once inside: the Kalpavriksha ceiling, the carved elephants and the knotted serpent figure cut from a single slab of stone. Leather items must be left in the car, and shoulders and knees should be covered throughout the visit.

Lunch is served at a quiet resort nearby before the final two-hour drive to Udaipur through hill villages and wheat fields. Our usual choice here is The Oberoi Udaivilas, built along the banks of Lake Pichola with semi-private pools attached to many of its premier rooms, or the Taj Lake Palace, which sits in the middle of the lake itself. As you arrive, the City Palace stands across the water in pale yellow and white, and the late afternoon light turns the lake a deep gold. Dinner can be arranged on a private jetty or a lakeside terrace, lit by lanterns and set for two. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

The City Palace of Udaipur is a complex of eleven palaces built by successive Mewar rulers over three centuries, and your guide, a specialist in Mewar history, leads you through the Mor Chowk with its glass mosaic peacocks, the Zenana Mahal and the Crystal Gallery. The gallery holds a collection of English crystal furniture ordered by Maharana Sajjan Singh in 1877, which arrived after his death and stayed packed for over a century. Afterward, a short walk leads to the Jagdish Temple, where priests chant at the noon aarti, and to Bagore ki Haveli, a restored eighteenth-century residence displaying everyday Mewar life.

After lunch and an afternoon by the pool, a private boat collects you from the hotel jetty in the late afternoon for a cruise past the ghats and the Lake Palace to Jag Mandir, the island palace where a young Shah Jahan once took refuge during a rebellion against his father. Subject to availability, a table is reserved on the island terrace for sundowners as the sky darkens and the City Palace is lit up on the far shore. The boat brings you back across the still water after dark, with the reflection of the palace windows rippling gently in its wake. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

Twenty-two kilometres north of Udaipur, the Eklingji temple complex has been the dynastic shrine of the Mewar rulers for over a thousand years, and the morning puja here is a living ritual rather than a staged performance. Photography is not allowed inside, so your guide describes the four-faced black marble image of Shiva before you enter the sanctum. Close by, the ruined Saas-Bahu temples at Nagda sit beside a quiet lake, their tenth-century carvings of dancers and musicians remarkably sharp despite centuries of exposure to sun and rain, and you will often have the site entirely to yourselves apart from a caretaker.

The afternoon is free for the spa or a private miniature painting lesson with a master artist, who shows how squirrel-hair brushes and mineral pigments are still used to paint court scenes in the Mewar style, and lets you try a small motif of your own. Toward sunset, your chauffeur drives you up to the Sajjangarh Monsoon Palace on a hilltop west of the city, from where the lakes of Udaipur and the folds of the Aravallis spread out below. Dinner is at Ambrai, a lakeside restaurant facing the illuminated City Palace across the water from the Hanuman Ghat side. Overnight stay in Udaipur.

A relaxed morning lets you enjoy a final breakfast by the lake before your chauffeur, who has driven you all the way from Delhi, takes you to Udaipur's Maharana Pratap Airport for the domestic flight to Mumbai, which takes about one hour and fifteen minutes. This is the moment to say goodbye to a driver who by now knows exactly how you take your tea. On arrival, a new driver and a Mumbai specialist guide meet you at the gate and drive you along the Bandra–Worli Sea Link, whose cable-stayed towers span the bay, to the southern tip of the city where colonial Bombay began.

Our usual choice is The Taj Mahal Palace, which opened in 1903 and faces the Gateway of India across the harbour; a sea-view room in the original Palace wing is requested. In the late afternoon your guide leads a walk along the Art Deco and Victorian Gothic streets of Fort and Kala Ghoda, past the High Court and the University of Mumbai's Rajabai Clock Tower. As the sun drops, you drive to Marine Drive to watch the curve of street lights known as the Queen's Necklace come on along the bay, followed by dinner at Wasabi by Morimoto or the hotel's Golden Dragon. Overnight stay in Mumbai.

The Elephanta Caves are closed on Mondays, so this day is fixed accordingly. A private launch collects you at the Gateway of India before the public ferries start, and the hour-long crossing of the harbour, past naval ships and fishing boats, brings you to the island while it is still quiet. Your guide leads you up to the main cave, cut into basalt around the sixth century, where the twenty-foot Trimurti sculpture shows Shiva as creator, preserver and destroyer in three serene faces. You return by late morning, in time for a light lunch at the Sea Lounge overlooking the harbour.

In the afternoon, Mumbai's working life comes into focus: the clockwork system of the dabbawalas at Churchgate station, the open-air laundry of Dhobi Ghat at Mahalaxmi, and the crowded aisles of Crawford Market, where your guide points out the stone bas-reliefs designed by Lockwood Kipling, father of the writer. A visit to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the city's main museum, rounds off the day with its Indian miniature paintings and Gandharan sculpture. A farewell dinner is reserved at a restaurant of your choosing, perhaps the butter-garlic crab at Trishna, a short walk from the hotel through the lanes of Kala Ghoda. Overnight stay in Mumbai.

Your final morning is unhurried, with breakfast served in your room or at Shamiana, and a late checkout requested so that the day fits your flight time rather than the hotel's standard schedule. If your flight leaves in the evening, a short drive to the Banganga Tank in Malabar Hill, a freshwater tank surrounded by small temples and old homes, offers a calm glimpse of the Mumbai that existed long before the skyscrapers. Alternatively, an hour among the Kala Ghoda boutiques or the bookstalls near Flora Fountain makes for a pleasant last stroll, with a final filter coffee at a nearby Irani cafe.

When it is time to leave, your driver collects you from the hotel and takes you to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, a drive of about an hour depending on traffic, using the coastal road where possible. A meet-and-assist representative stays with you through check-in and the security queues where the airport allows, and your tour manager calls before boarding to make sure every detail has gone as promised. You fly home with a phone full of photographs, a suitcase noticeably heavier than when you arrived, and seventeen days of India seen at its very finest, in the company of people who know it best.