How we would plan your days
Close together: Jodhpur's sights cluster within a few kilometres, under the ridge of Mehrangarh.
Easy to see badly: in the glare of late morning, with three coach groups.
- Most items take
- One to three hours
- Two nights
- Eight or nine of them
- Three nights
- Add the countryside and a day trip
- Monuments
- First, while the stone is cool
- Markets
- Late afternoon
- Built around the light: monuments first, markets when the old city wakes after its rest, a long shaded lunch, and evenings on a rooftop as the fort turns gold.
- Marked for you: the ones nobody should miss, and the ones that only make sense in certain months.
- Fuller guides: where we have one, the link takes you there. Start with our main Jodhpur guide.
- Leave gaps: the best moments come between the sights, a tailor who invites you to sit, a priest who explains a shrine, a guide's cousin who insists on tea.
- Why guests return: those in-between moments.
The fort, the palaces and the royal memorials
- Mehrangarh
- Opening time, a whole morning
- Rock park
- First light, or after the fort
- Jaswant Thada
- Late afternoon
- Umaid Bhawan Museum
- Late morning
- Mandore
- A winter late afternoon
Be at Mehrangarh as the gates open
Never skip it: Rao Jodha began the fort in 1459 on a lone sandstone ridge, and his descendants kept building for centuries.
- Seven gates: the climb is a walk through Rathore history.
- At opening time: Moti Mahal and Phool Mahal are calm, the light soft on the screened windows, and you can hear the pigeons. By eleven they are crowded.
- Take a guide: the audio guide or, better, one of our historians, and give it a whole morning.
Spend an hour in the museum galleries
Don't rush: many visitors hurry past on the way to the view. A mistake.
- The collection: howdahs, palanquins, Jodhpur school miniatures and the armoury, among Rajasthan's finest, well shown by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust.
- Slow down at: the palanquin gallery, where royal women of the zenana were carried through these courts behind curtains.
- And at: the turban gallery, showing how each community of Rajasthan ties its cloth.
Walk the Rao Jodha Desert Rock Park
Where: below the fort's northern walls.
Its story: created in 2006 on ground choked with invasive thorn, cleared and replanted with native desert plants under the ecologist Pradip Krishen.
- The trails: over pink rhyolite, past small ravines and old water channels, with the fort above.
- When: first light, or straight after the fort, walking down to Jaswant Thada.
- Bring a hat: there is little shade, which is rather the point of a desert garden.
Watch the marble glow at Jaswant Thada
Built: commissioned in 1899 by Maharaja Sardar Singh for his father, Maharaja Jaswant Singh II.
- The glow: thin Makrana marble lets light through, so late in the afternoon the walls glow from within.
- The setting: a small lake, terraced gardens, and one of the city's best views back to Mehrangarh.
- Respect: still the royal family's cremation ground.
See how a desert kingdom met the twentieth century
Small is good: the museum wing of Umaid Bhawan Palace.
- Inside: clocks, Art Deco furniture, photographs and a line of vintage cars.
- The story: the last great palace of princely India, built on Chittar Hill between 1929 and 1943, and why Jodhpur feels the way it does.
- Pair it: with lunch in the city, for an easy, shaded late morning.
Wander among the cenotaphs of Mandore
The old capital: about nine kilometres north, its fortress now a ruin.
- The devals: tall red sandstone memorials built like temples, with spires and carved pillars. The largest is Maharaja Ajit Singh's.
- Hall of Heroes: painted gods and folk heroes carved out of the rock.
- When: a winter late afternoon, when the stone turns warm and the langurs settle in the trees.
The blue city and its bazaars
Walk Brahmpuri with someone who grew up there
The bluest quarter: Brahmpuri climbs the slope below the fort.
- Why a local: the lanes twist, split and dead-end, and alone you see the walls but miss the life.
- What our guides know: which families welcome a visitor, which shrine has a story, which rooftop has the best fort view.
- When: the first two hours after sunrise, when women wash steps and the blue looks almost luminous.
Go down the steps of Toorji ka Jhalra
Built: around 1740 by a queen of Maharaja Abhay Singh.
- Brought back: forgotten and full of rubbish for decades, until a careful restoration revealed its rose-red steps and carved elephants.
- When: early, before the cafes on the square open. Sit a few minutes on the upper steps. The geometry is hypnotic.
- Compare: our stepwells guide covers the great baoris elsewhere.
Lose an hour at the clock tower and Sardar Market
Its name: the Ghanta Ghar went up in Maharaja Sardar Singh's reign, and the market bears his name.
- On sale: spices in sacks, bangles, vegetables, steel pots, cheap toys and bolts of tie-dyed cloth.
- When: late afternoon, when shoppers are local and the light low.
- How: watch where families queue, and buy spices from a stall that grinds them in front of you.
Learn to tell real bandhani from a print
Bandhani: thousands of tiny knots pinched into cloth before dyeing. Marwar is one of its homes.
- See it made: in the lanes off the clock tower, women still tie the dots by hand.
- The test: a good piece has slight irregularities and tiny raised points where each knot was tied. A print is flat.
- Where we go: workshops we know, never emporiums that pay drivers a commission. See leheriya and bandhani.
Have a bandhgala made by a Jodhpur tailor
The jacket: the high-collared Jodhpuri bandhgala every Rajput man wears to a wedding, cut better here than anywhere.
- Timing: good tailors need a few days and at least one fitting, so start on your first morning.
- Breeches too: riding breeches carry the city's name around the world, thanks to Sir Pratap Singh and his polo team.
Have a Marwari safa tied on your head
Bigger and brighter: Jodhpur turbans outdo Jaipur's, and every pleat means something: community, season, occasion.
- The trick: a five- or nine-metre length of cloth becomes a safa in under two minutes.
- Who loves it: children, and grandfathers.
- Book it: our turban-tying session, and read the turbans of Rajasthan first.
Browse the furniture warehouses on the city's edge
India's great workshop: for antique and antique-style furniture.
Stacked to the rafters: carved doors, painted chests, old jharokha windows and new pieces made the old way from reclaimed wood.
- Shipping: many ship all over the world.
- Ask plainly: old or newly made? Both are sold, and both can be lovely.
- With us: we go with you, and never take a commission.
Eating your way through Jodhpur
- Mirchi bada
- Janta Sweet Home, Nai Sarak, or near Jalori Gate
- Makhaniya lassi
- Shri Mishrilal Hotel, before noon
- Thali
- Gypsy, Sardarpura
- Home cooking
- Ker sangri, gatte, panchkuta
Eat mirchi bada for breakfast
The dish: a fat green chilli stuffed with spiced potato, dipped in gram-flour batter and fried. Milder than it looks.
- When: morning or early evening, straight from the pan, with chai.
- Where: Janta Sweet Home on Nai Sarak, or the stalls near Jalori Gate many locals swear by.
- Eat safely: our food of Jodhpur guide.
Drink makhaniya lassi at the clock tower
Where: Shri Mishrilal Hotel, at the clock tower's gate, for generations.
- What: thick, saffron-scented, in a tall glass with a lid of cream. Closer to pudding than a drink.
- When: before noon. Share one if you plan to eat lunch.
Sit down to a Marwari thali
What it is: a whole meal on one plate, with dals, vegetables, kadhi, bajra or wheat rotis, rice, pickles and a sweet, refilled until you cover the plate with your hand.
- Where: Gypsy in Sardarpura, the city's best-known thali restaurant and very much a local family place.
- Quieter: a thali lunch we arrange in a haveli courtyard.
- Every bowl explained: our Rajasthani thali guide.
Cook with a Marwari family
Home food: gentler than the street and built for the desert, with ker sangri, gatte in yoghurt curry and panchkuta, five desert ingredients cooked together.
- The morning: grind spices and roll bajra rotis with the women of the house, then lunch at their table.
- A favourite: one of our guests' best memories of the city.
Desert, water and the Bishnoi country
- Bishnoi rules
- 29, set by Guru Jambheshwar in 1485
- Khejarli
- 1730, up to 363 lives given for trees
- Salawas
- Durries on pit looms
- Rohet
- About forty minutes south
Spend a morning in the Bishnoi villages
The rules: twenty-nine, set by their guru Jambheshwar in 1485, with protection of trees and animals at their heart.
Khejarli, 1730: Amrita Devi and as many as 363 others gave their lives hugging khejri trees to stop them being felled.
- The result: blackbuck and chinkara graze close to Bishnoi homes without fear.
- The morning: a walk in the fields, tea in a farmer's courtyard, time with potters and weavers.
- Unlike anything else: gentle and moving.
Watch the durrie weavers of Salawas
What: durries, flat cotton and wool rugs, woven on pit looms dug into family courtyards, south of the city.
- The craft: slow and rhythmic, with patterns passed down in families.
- Buy direct: it is fair to the weavers, and they will often weave to your size.
- What to look for: our guide on how to buy a rug.
End a day at Kaylana Lake
Where: a reservoir west of the city among low, dark volcanic hills.
- Why: no monument to tick off, which is exactly why Jodhpur families come on Sunday evenings.
- Our way: a flask of chai, a few snacks and the sun going down over the water.
- Winter birds: ducks and grebes.
Ride a Marwari horse at dawn
The breed: inward-curving ears, the war horse of the Rathores, nearly lost in the last century.
- Where: at Rohet, about forty minutes south, where the Rohet Garh family have bred them for years.
- The ride: across farmland at dawn, past Bishnoi hamlets and grazing blackbuck. One of the loveliest hours in Marwar.
- Every level: see our horse safari page.
Music, temples and a little adventure
Hear Manganiyar musicians in a courtyard
Who they are: hereditary Muslim musicians of the Thar, who for centuries sang for Rajput patron families at births, weddings and deaths.
- The sound: huge voices, and songs that remember people long gone.
- How we arrange it: private evenings with families we know, in a haveli courtyard or on a rooftop under the fort.
- Before you go: read our piece on Manganiyar music.
Time your visit for the folk festival
When: every October, around the full moon.
- What: the Rajasthan International Folk Festival turns Mehrangarh into a stage, with desert village musicians alongside artists from around the world.
- Unforgettable: the dawn concerts on the ramparts.
- Plan early: rooms fill months ahead.
Visit the Mahamandir temple
Where: on the city's north-eastern edge.
Built: in the early nineteenth century under Maharaja Man Singh, devoted to the yogis of the Nath sect.
- Inside: carved and painted pillared halls, still a place of daily worship.
- Calm: few visitors come.
- Etiquette: cover shoulders and knees, shoes off at the gate. See our temple etiquette guide.
Fly over the fort on a zipline
The course: run by Flying Fox, starting and finishing inside Mehrangarh, with lines across the walls, the lakes and the Chokelao garden below.
- Verdict: well run, with extraordinary views. Teenagers talk about it for years.
- When: the morning after your fort visit. Check it is operating when you travel.
Cycle the old city before the traffic
When: a winter morning before eight, when the roads around the walled city are empty enough.
- The ride: past the gates, the stepwells and the chai stalls as the city wakes.
- How we plan it: our cycling tours page.
Jodhpur after dark
Take a rooftop for sunset
Everywhere: almost every old-city hotel and guesthouse has a roof, and many look straight at the fort.
- The hour: a drink as the swifts circle and the call to prayer mixes with temple bells.
- Simplest and best: one of Jodhpur's great pleasures.
- Our favourites: sunset points across Rajasthan, and photo spots in Jodhpur for the angles.
Dine under the floodlit walls
RAAS: at RAAS Jodhpur, the restaurant terrace looks straight up at Mehrangarh lit gold.
- Umaid Bhawan: dine on the terrace at Umaid Bhawan Palace, with the fort on its far ridge.
- Private occasions: haveli courtyard dinners and, for groups, inside the fort itself. See our private palace dinners.
Walk the clock tower when the lights come on
After dark: the tower lit, the stalls glowing, and frying chillies and boiling milk in the air.
- Eat: a hot mirchi bada, then something sweet.
- The feel: busy, cheerful and very safe. More in our night markets page.
Day trips and nights out of the city
- Osian
- About ninety minutes north
- Nagaur
- About two and a half hours north-east
- Khichan
- A long day, near Phalodi
- Ranakpur
- On the road south to Udaipur
Osian, for temples and a dune sunset
History: Osian was a great trading town on the desert routes over a thousand years ago, and kept its early temples.
- The temples: some of the oldest surviving Hindu and Jain temples in Rajasthan, and the hilltop temple of Sachiya Mata.
- When: afternoon light, when the carvings are sharp and golden.
- Then: the dunes at the edge of town for sunset, or a night in a camp.
Khichan, for the demoiselle cranes
When: between about September and March.
- What: thousands of demoiselle cranes from Central Asia, fed grain by the villagers for generations.
- The sight: the morning feeding is one of the great wildlife sights of India.
- How: a long day, so we fit it into a drive towards Jaisalmer. Read about the demoiselle cranes of Khichan.
A night in a village fort
Why: the best way to understand Marwar.
Rohet Garh: a family fort beside a lake.
- Mihir Garh: a newer fort among the dunes.
- Khimsar Fort: at the edge of the desert since the sixteenth century.
- Compare them: in our luxury hotels in Jodhpur guide.
Nagaur and its fort
Ahhichatragarh: Nagaur's fort, its palaces, gardens and water channels beautifully restored by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust.
- Winter: one of Rajasthan's great cattle fairs.
- How: a day trip, or a stop on the road to Bikaner.
The ones that depend on the month
The folk festival: every October around the full moon, so book months ahead if you want the dawn concerts on the ramparts.
Khichan: only between about September and March, when the demoiselle cranes are in.
- October
- The folk festival at Mehrangarh
- September to March
- The cranes of Khichan
- Winter
- Cycling before eight, Mandore afternoons
- Winter evenings
- Ducks and grebes at Kaylana
- Winter fair
- The Nagaur cattle fair
- Cycling the old city: a winter-morning pleasure, before eight, when the roads are empty enough.
- Mandore: best on a winter afternoon, when the red stone warms and the langurs settle.
- Kaylana Lake: any evening, but winter brings ducks and grebes.
- Nagaur: worth timing for its winter cattle fair, one of Rajasthan's great gatherings.
- All year: Mehrangarh at opening time, the Bishnoi villages at dawn and the clock tower at dusk never go out of season.
Picks for families, couples and the curious
Children: the turban-tying session, the vintage cars at Umaid Bhawan, the langurs of Mandore and the blackbuck of the Bishnoi villages.
Teenagers: the zipline over the fort walls, and a dawn ride on a Marwari horse at Rohet.
- Couples: a rooftop at sunset, dinner under the floodlit walls at RAAS or on the terrace at Umaid Bhawan, and a night in a village fort.
- Music lovers: a private Manganiyar evening in a haveli courtyard, and the October folk festival.
- Makers and shoppers: bandhani workshops, a bandhgala fitting, the Salawas weavers and the furniture warehouses.
- History lovers: the fort galleries, Mandore's devals and Nagaur's restored Ahhichatragarh.
What we tell friends before they go
Fort first, early: keep the late morning for the Umaid Bhawan museum or a rest. The heat builds fast on the ramparts.
Shoes with grip: the fort's ramps and the stepwell's steps are polished smooth by centuries of feet.
- Leave the car at the gate: inside the old city we walk or take an auto-rickshaw, and your driver waits outside.
- Greet and ask: say khamma ghani, and ask before photographing people, especially women. A smile usually earns a yes.
- No commission shopping: if a driver or stranger insists on an emporium, politely decline. We recommend makers we know.
- Dress: cover shoulders and knees at temples and Jaswant Thada, and remove shoes where others do.
- Street food: morning and early evening, where the queue is long and the oil hot.
