From sunrise at the Taj Mahal to a houseboat night on the Kerala backwaters, here are 12 experiences worth crossing the world for, and the small group tours that get you there.
India doesn't do things by halves. One morning you're watching marble turn from grey to gold at sunrise; a week later you're at 5,600 metres on a Himalayan pass, or drifting past palm-fringed canals with dinner cooking on deck.
The trick is knowing which India you want first. Here are 12 experiences our travellers talk about long after they get home, along with the small group tours that build a trip around them. Every departure is capped at 12 people, so you're never craning over 40 shoulders to hear your guide.
Everyone has seen the photo. Almost nobody is prepared for how quiet it is at 6am, before the crowds arrive, when the marble shifts through cream and rose and finally white as the sun clears the horizon.
Most of our northern India itineraries also take you across the Yamuna River to Mehtab Bagh the evening before, for the sunset view from the opposite bank that most day-trippers never see.
Do it on: India Express (5 days) or Incredible India (8 days)
Chandni Chowk is one of India's oldest markets and still one of its busiest. You'll travel there by metro alongside commuters, wander into Chawri Bazar for brass and copper and paper, then work through the street food with a guide who knows which stall does the best chaat.
The rickshaw ride to Jama Masjid at the end is the part everyone films.
Do it on: Incredible India, Rajasthan Explorer or Ladakh Explorer
For one day in March the usual rules go out of the window and most of the country turns into a paint fight. Holi marks the end of winter, and it's celebrated by throwing handfuls of coloured powder at anyone within arm's reach. Strangers, friends, children, you.
Celebrating it in a small Rajasthani village rather than a big city is the difference between a crush and a welcome. Travellers who've done it with us tend to describe the same thing: being pulled straight into the middle of it by local kids who were every bit as curious about them as they were about the festival.
Wear something you'll never want to see again, and time your booking carefully. Holi moves with the lunar calendar, so it lands on a different date each year and the departures built around it are limited.
Do it on: the Rajasthan Explorer departure on 20 March 2027, which is timed for the festival
Jaipur earns the Pink City name the moment you arrive. Amber Fort sprawls across the Aravalli hills above the city with courtyards and mirrored halls that took generations to build. Down in the walled city, Jantar Mantar's astronomical instruments still keep time, and the craft markets are full of silversmiths, bangle makers and textile workshops.
You'll try block printing yourself, and on the drive in you stop at Chand Baori in Abhaneri: 3,500 steps descending 13 storeys into the ground. If you fancy seeing all of it from above, a dawn hot air balloon flight is available as an optional extra.
Do it on: Incredible India or Best of India
Ranthambore became a tiger sanctuary in 1973 and remains one of the best places on earth to see a Bengal tiger in the wild. You get two game drives by open-backed canter, plus the ruined hilltop fort inside the park boundary, which is a UNESCO site in its own right.
Even without a tiger sighting, the park delivers leopards, sloth bears, hyenas, jackals and enormous flocks of birds.
Do it on: Temples & Tigers or Rajasthan Explorer
Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and it doesn't soften itself for visitors. The evening aarti ceremony on the ghats is fire, chanting and crowds. The dawn boat ride the next morning is almost silent, gliding past bathers and pilgrims as the city wakes.
A short drive away is Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Two of the world's great religious traditions, an hour apart.
Do it on: Taj to Varanasi or Delhi to Kathmandu
Mehrangarh Fort sits on a cliff 410 metres above Jodhpur, looking down on a sea of blue-painted houses. You walk the old city on foot: the Krishna temple, the centuries-old community kitchen at Ram Rasoda, the stepwell at Toor ji ka Jhalra, and the spice and silver markets around the clock tower. Try the mawa kachori while you're there.
Then it's on to Udaipur, the "Venice of the East", for the City Palace and a boat across Lake Pichola to Jagmandir Island. The trip finishes with an overnight sleeper train back to Delhi, which is an experience in itself.
Do it on: Rajasthan Explorer (15 days)
Ladakh is India, but it feels closer to Tibet. You fly from Delhi to Leh, acclimatise for two days among monasteries and stupas, then head out over Khardung La at 5,602 metres into the Nubra Valley, where Bactrian camels graze on high-altitude sand dunes with snow peaks behind them.
Turtuk, near the Pakistani border, is one of India's northernmost villages and holds onto its Balti culture. Pangong Tso, at over 4,300 metres, changes colour through the day from turquoise to deep navy. You sleep in a tented camp on its shore.
Do it on: Ladakh Explorer (11 days, summer only)
A traditional kettuvallam houseboat, converted for comfort but still hand-built, drifting through palm-lined backwater canals while your captain steers and your meals are cooked on board. Sunset over the water, then dinner on deck.
Before that you take a hand-paddled shikara through the narrower channels around Kumarakom and visit a village to see coir making, the rope craft that has sustained these communities for generations.
Do it on: Kerala Backwaters & Hill Stations (9 days) or Southern India Uncovered
The climb to Munnar takes you past rubber plantations (you'll see tapping in progress), pineapple fields and waterfalls, until the landscape turns into rolling hills carpeted in tea. You'll walk a plantation, watch the pickers, follow the leaf through the factory and finish with a tasting. The local market is worth an hour on its own for the spices alone.
Then down to Thekkady for a boat ride on Lake Periyar, where elephants come to the water's edge and, if you're lucky, a tiger.
Do it on: Kerala Backwaters & Hill Stations
South India is a different country to the north, and Tamil Nadu is where you feel it. The Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram has stood facing the Bay of Bengal since the 8th century. Tanjore's Brihadeeswarar Temple is the high point of Chola architecture. Madurai's Meenakshi Amman Temple, with its towers covered in thousands of painted figures, is one of the most alive religious sites in India, especially during the evening aarti.
In between there's Pondicherry, where the French Quarter's mustard-yellow villas and seafront promenade feel like they've been picked up from the Mediterranean and set down in the tropics.
Do it on: Temples & Spices or Southern India Uncovered (13 days)
If you'd rather your trip built to something, carry on east and north. Cross the border into Nepal to Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace, and visit the Maya Devi Temple and Ashoka Pillar. Then head west to Bardia National Park, one of Asia's least-visited reserves and one of its best places to see wild tigers, one-horned rhino and Asian elephant.
You finish in Kathmandu, riding a rickshaw through the backstreets of Thamel to Durbar Square, then up to Swayambunath Stupa for the view over the valley.
Do it on: Delhi to Kathmandu (16 days, two countries)
If you can't choose between the forts of the north and the backwaters of the south, you don't have to. Best of India runs 16 days, pairing the Golden Triangle with a week in tropical Kerala.
Short on time? India Express covers Delhi, Agra and Jaipur in five days.
On our northern India tours, lunch in Agra is at Sheroes Hangout, a café run by survivors of acid attacks. It's a proper meal and a genuinely moving hour, and it's one of the small ways these itineraries put money back into the communities you're travelling through.
Every India tour we run is a small group of no more than 12, led by local Indian guides, with a $250 deposit to secure your place.
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