India Travel Guide

India offers an eclectic mix of ancient civilizations, fascinating religions, monuments and cultures with modern technology, economy, and media.    Any place boasting such a clash of old and new is sure to dazzle your mind and make you seek out all of its extremes.  The sheer size and diversity, with a dash of sensual overload, really does make for an ultimate vacation experience.  As if current trends of discount airfare to India weren’t enough, India has a welcoming way of testing personal boundaries, in that nothing in this country is predictable; all you should expect is the unexpected.  Many consider India a litmus test for travelers—some are all too happy to leave, while others wish to stay for a lifetime.  When planning to visit India, climate plays a crucial factor.  In general, India’s climate is defined by three seasons - the hot, the wet (monsoon) and the cool, each of which can vary in duration from north to south.  The most pleasant (and dry!) time to visit most places is during the cooler period from November to around mid-February.

Hotel choices in India vary widely depending on your budget and location. Cheap travelers’ hotels are numerous in big cities, where you can get a room for less than $10US.  Rooms at guest houses with a double bed and a bathroom can be found in many tourist venues as well.  Good budget hotels in India, such as the rapidly expanding international arm of Country Inns & Suites, are not hard to find, and accommodation in clean dormitories is available for as low as $1US in many of the popular districts in India, but must be sought out locally.  Two important factors to keep in mind when choosing a place to stay are 1) safety, and 2) cleanliness.  Malaria is alive and well in certain areas of India, and one of the best ways to combat malaria is to choose lodgings with air conditioning and sealed windows (an insect repellent spray containing DEET will also help).  The Sheraton India chain of luxury hotels has an impeccable track record of cleanliness and service throughout the country.

From India’s mountainous tip to the steamy south, the country has enough opportunities for sights and experiences to fill multiple lifetimes.  The vibrant history and frantic cities rub elbows with its deep well of sacred calm.  Iconic locales such as the Taj Mahal, deep-breath beaches, and a prominent layering of cultures are just the start of the India experience.  Remote regions offer breathtaking wildlife tours, while the inner-cities are a mecca (literally in some cases) for arts and science.  Religious festivals and countrywide ceremonies are a staple in India; be prepared to participate for maximum enjoyment (Holi, the festival of color, is definitely not a spectator sport)!  It’s also worth noting that India is obsessed with cricket.  Children will be playing the sport in the streets, and attending an international match at one of India’s mega-stadiums (capacity of 45,000+) is an experience you won’t soon forget.

India is quite large, and there are many interesting ways to travel around it.  However, few of them could be described as efficient or punctual.  Flights get canceled, trains are delayed by hours or days, buses show up late if even at all.  Allow yourself a considerable time buffer for any journey that has a fixed deadline (say your flight back), and if all else fails, try to remind yourself that getting there should be half the fun.  With its large size and terrible roads, flying is definitely a viable option in India, especially as prices have tumbled in the last few years.  India’s offshore islands and remote mountain states are served by daily flights, but check-in queues in general can be terribly long, especially in Delhi and Bangalore.  You can drive in India if you have a local license or an international driving permit, but unless you are used to driving on extremely chaotic streets, you probably will not want to.  The average city or village road is (sometimes dangerously) narrow, often potholed and badly marked.  National Highways are better, but they are still narrow, and Indian driving discipline is non-existent.  Should you decide to take a vehicle onto India’s roads, just don’t forget that driving is on the left side – at least most of the time.