India with children: 12 days that work for everyone
India is warmer towards children than almost anywhere we send families, and harder on them than parents expect. The problem is never the destinations. It is the heat, the driving hours and the assumption that a nine-year-old will look at a fourth fort with the same enthusiasm as the first.
- Duration
- 12 days
- Pace
- Relaxed
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Oct, Nov, Feb, Mar
- From
- $2,590 per person
This route has four hotel changes in twelve days, one long drive that we break for lunch, a pool at every stop, and at least one thing each day that is unambiguously for the children rather than for you.
Who it suits: families with children roughly 6 to 16. We adjust it for younger, and we would honestly point you somewhere else for under-fours.
Your specialist: your named India specialist, with our Delhi office on the ground throughout.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Delhi. Private transfer, a hotel with a garden and a pool and rooms that fit four. Nothing scheduled at all. Almost every long-haul flight lands before dawn and the first day is for sleeping.
Day 2: Delhi, gently. A cycle rickshaw ride through the lanes of Old Delhi, which children remember far longer than any monument, then Humayun’s Tomb and the lawns at Sunder Nursery where they can run. Afternoon at the pool. Dinner at Dilli Haat, an open-air crafts and food market where every state has a stall.
Day 3: Delhi to Agra. The fast morning train, about two hours, which children like more than the car. Agra Fort late in the afternoon: it is a fort with elephant gates, tunnels and cannon positions, and it beats a mausoleum at that age. Then a marble inlay workshop where they get to try it.
Day 4: The Taj Mahal, and a free afternoon. At the gate for opening, an hour and a half is plenty, then back for breakfast. The afternoon belongs to your family: the pool, kite flying on the riverbank, or Mehtab Bagh at sunset with the Taj across the water and nobody around.
Day 5: Agra to Jaipur. The long day, roughly six hours, broken at Fatehpur Sikri, the abandoned Mughal capital, and a proper lunch stop. If your children do not travel well, we tell you now and split it with a night at Bharatpur.
Day 6: Jaipur, forts and monkeys. Amber Fort at opening by jeep, before the heat, with the mirrored hall and the ramparts to climb. We do not book elephant rides. Then the Panna Meena stepwell, which looks like an Escher drawing, and an afternoon swim.
Day 7: Jaipur, hands on. Jantar Mantar, where the astronomical instruments are the size of buildings and children are allowed to work out how they function. Afternoon in a block printing workshop, making something they take home, then a puppet show in the evening.
Day 8: Jaipur, free day. Nothing scheduled. Our document suggests a family cooking session, a game of cricket on any patch of open ground, the elephant sanctuary outside the city where the animals are not ridden, or a slow day at the hotel.
Day 9: Jaipur to Ranthambore. Three and a half hours, arriving for lunch. Afternoon safari in an open jeep. Even without a tiger there are sambar deer, langurs, crocodiles, sloth bears and about 300 bird species, and the ruined fort in the middle of the park looks like something from a film.
Day 10: Ranthambore. Dawn safari, then the rest of the day free: the pool, a village cycle ride, or a walk with a naturalist who will show your children what to look for in the dust.
Day 11: Ranthambore to Jaipur. A second dawn safari if everyone is willing, then back to Jaipur for the afternoon. Last dinner somewhere the children choose.
Day 12: Departure. Morning flight Jaipur to Delhi and your international connection, or a car back to Delhi if the timing works better.
What is included
Family rooms or connecting rooms with a pool at every stop, a private air-conditioned car and driver, the Delhi to Agra train, airport transfers, three guided days chosen for children rather than for adults, three jeep safaris in Ranthambore with permits, the block printing workshop and puppet show, all entries, a document written so that you can change your mind about any afternoon, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our Delhi office.
What we change for younger children, and what we would say instead
Under six, we would gently suggest Kerala rather than this route. The drives are shorter, the heat is less punishing, the backwaters and the beach do most of the work, and there is no six-hour transfer day anywhere in it. It is not a lesser trip, it is a better one at that age.
For children of six to nine on this itinerary, we cut one Jaipur day, add a second Agra night and shorten every driving leg. For teenagers, we usually add Udaipur and lose the second Ranthambore night.
Two honest warnings for any age. Your children will be photographed by strangers, constantly and affectionately, and some children find it upsetting until they are used to it. And we avoid Delhi in December and January with young children, because of the air quality.
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