What luxury means in Shekhawati
Not marble and butlers: in Jaipur or Udaipur, luxury hotels compete on those. In Shekhawati, every hotel worth recommending is a heritage building.
Family-run: a fort, a castle or a merchant's haveli, restored and opened by the family that owns it.
The rooms: individual, often beautiful, sometimes quirky.
- Style
- Forts, castles and havelis
- Run by
- Mostly the owning families
- Expect
- Atmosphere, silence, personal service
- Bring patience
- For stairs, hot water, Wi-Fi
- Modern five-star
- Just beyond the region
- The service: personal rather than polished.
- The great pleasures: atmosphere, silence and the feeling of living inside the history you came to see.
- Rooms vary: greatly in size and light, even within one hotel, and some have steep stairs and no lifts.
- Small quirks: hot water may take a minute in the mornings, generators cover power cuts, and the Wi-Fi may be slower than you're used to.
- Winter nights: cold enough that you'll be glad of a heater and a thick quilt.
- In return: absolute quiet at night, and waking under a ceiling painted a century and a half ago.
- How we choose: we have stayed in every hotel here ourselves, and we choose specific rooms for our guests.
- For modern five-star comfort: see Shekhawati from a fine base just beyond it, as we explain below. Our journal piece on heritage hotels explained gives the wider picture.
How to choose: castle, haveli or a base nearby
The castle
Castle Mandawa: the most comfortable hotel in town, with a pool, gardens and the ramparts.
- Location: walking distance from the famous havelis.
- For most guests: the obvious choice.
A haveli
Restored mansions: several in Mandawa and the neighbouring towns are now hotels.
- The trade: smaller and simpler than the castle, but you sleep in a painted house.
- After dark: the courtyard is yours once the day visitors have gone.
Two bases
Split your stay: for example two nights at Castle Mandawa and one at Roop Niwas Kothi in Nawalgarh or Alsisar Mahal.
- Why it works: the towns are close together and each has its own character, so a second base adds variety without long drives.
- How we arrange it: our Mandawa itinerary.
How the havelis became hotels
Ancestral homes: when the Marwari merchant families moved east and south, they kept their havelis, coming back for weddings, festivals and family ceremonies.
In between: a caretaker, a chowkidar, lived with his family in a few rooms and kept the doors shut.
Divided ownership: as generations passed, houses were split among dozens of cousins, and agreeing to spend money on a roof became almost impossible.
- Owners moved
- East and south, following trade
- Caretaker
- Chowkidar
- First hotel
- Castle Mandawa, around 1980
- In Fatehpur
- Restored by Nadine Le Prince
- Crumbling: many houses began to fall apart.
- Tourism changed the arithmetic: when the family of Castle Mandawa opened their fort to guests around 1980, they showed visitors would come from Jaipur and beyond.
- Others followed: some restored their havelis as small hotels, others let them to hotel groups.
- From outside: a few, like the French artist Nadine Le Prince in Fatehpur, came from elsewhere and brought a house back to life.
- Your stay helps: the money pays for roofs, plaster and the wages of local cooks, guides and caretakers.
- Why we are careful: we recommend only places that respect the buildings and treat their staff well. Our journal piece on sustainable travel in Rajasthan explains our approach.
Castle Mandawa, the heart of the town
- Built
- 1755, by Thakur Nawal Singh
- Hotel since
- Around 1980
- Run by
- The same family
- Ask for
- A tower or rampart room
- Note
- Steps in parts of the castle
The story
The family: the castle stayed with Nawal Singh's descendants, the Shekhawat thakurs who ruled Mandawa as an estate of Jaipur State.
- Opened to guests: around 1980, among the first noble families in Rajasthan to turn a home into a heritage hotel.
- Back then: almost no one drove out from Jaipur to see painted walls.
- Still theirs: the family still runs it, and their portraits hang in the darbar hall.
The rooms
No two alike: spread through towers, courtyards and former apartments of the old fort.
- The range: some with painted walls and old family furniture, some opening onto terraces, some tucked into thick walls with small windows over the town.
- Newer rooms: more uniform and more predictable.
- Our request: a tower room or one opening onto the ramparts. We know which have the views and which are quiet.
Days and evenings at the castle
Afternoons: the pool, and gardens and courtyards to sit in.
The bastions: terraces for sunrise and sunset.
- Dinner: often in the courtyard by lantern light, with folk musicians.
- The kitchen: both the vegetarian Marwari food of the town and the Rajput dishes of the family.
- Laal maas: ask the day before so it can be cooked slowly.
Who it suits
Almost everyone: couples love the ramparts and courtyard dinners, families the pool and the sense of adventure.
- First-timers: they can walk straight out of the gate into the havelis.
- Who we steer elsewhere: guests who need a lift and level paths everywhere, because parts of the castle involve steps.
A night at Castle Mandawa, hour by hour
Four o'clock, back from the lanes
- As the buses leave: you return from the famous haveli loop to a quiet courtyard.
- Tea on a terrace: with something fried and a sweet from the bazaar, while the light on the old walls turns from white to gold.
Six o'clock, the ramparts
- Sunset from the bastions: below, the painted lanes fill with cows coming home, children on bicycles and the smoke of evening cooking fires.
- Then the bells: somewhere a temple bell rings, and then another.
Eight o'clock, dinner in the courtyard
The scene: lanterns lit, a small group of musicians tuning up on a carpet in the corner, dinner under the stars.
- The food: a Marwari thali, perhaps a laal maas ordered the day before, and hot rotis from the kitchen.
- In December: a fire to sit by.
Six o'clock the next morning, dawn
- Back on the terrace: wrapped in a shawl with tea, as the town wakes and the milk carts come out.
- By eight: you can be in front of the Newatia haveli, alone, in the best light of the day.
The Desert Resort, on the dunes outside town
The place: the Desert Resort Mandawa is a village of mud-plastered cottages on the dunes just outside town, built in the local style and painted inside with folk motifs.
The difference: quieter and more spacious than the castle, with wide views across the fields.
- Its best hours: a sundowner on the dunes and star-filled nights.
- Choose it if: you want calm and space and don't mind driving into the old town for the havelis.
- Who it suits: families with children who want room to run, and couples who would rather hear the wind than the bazaar.
- A popular mix: many guests stay at the castle and come out to the resort for a sunset drink.
Sleeping in a painted haveli
Hotel Mandawa Haveli
The house: an 1890 merchant's house inside the town, restored as a small hotel.
- The paintings: across two floors around its courtyard, with a rooftop restaurant looking over the lanes.
- The trade: rooms simpler than the castle's, but sleeping in a painted mansion is the real thing.
- Ask for: a room facing the courtyard.
Vivaana, at Churi Ajitgarh
Where: a short drive from Mandawa, in the village of Churi Ajitgarh.
- The house: a nineteenth-century Shekhawati haveli restored as the Vivaana Culture Hotel, with painted rooms, a pool and a spa.
- Who it suits: one of the more polished haveli stays in the region, for guests who want a little more comfort and calm than the town offers.
Other haveli hotels in Mandawa
The range: from careful restorations to simple family guest houses.
- Standards vary: widely, and change over the years, so we recommend only those we have checked recently.
- What to expect: our guide to Shekhawati havelis to stay in and our page on heritage havelis.
The best stays in the painted towns nearby
- Fatehpur
- About 20 km
- Nawalgarh
- About 30 km, half an hour
- Alsisar
- About an hour
- Churu
- About an hour, north-west
Roop Niwas Kothi, Nawalgarh
Where: about thirty kilometres away, a country house in its own gardens.
- Known for: its Marwari horses, and an evening ride through the fields is the highlight of a stay.
- Ask for: a room in the original building rather than the newer wing.
- A base for: Nawalgarh's two great haveli museums.
Koolwal Kothi, Nawalgarh
- The house: built in the 1930s and still owned by the family, now run by the WelcomHeritage group.
- The feel: a gentle, characterful stay in the middle of the town's painted lanes.
Alsisar Mahal
The history: the fort-palace of the thakurs of Alsisar, restored and opened as a heritage hotel in 2006, about an hour from Mandawa.
- Around it: a quiet farming village with unrestored havelis and temples.
- Choose it for: calm, a pool and a rural Rajasthan that feels far from the tour buses.
The Piramal Haveli, Bagar
Where: the village of Bagar, near Jhunjhunu.
- The house: a small 1928 haveli in an unusual mix of Rajasthani and Italianate styles, with two pillared courtyards and painted walls.
- Run by: the Neemrana group, as a guest house.
- Who it suits: simple and charming, for travellers who like small places with a story.
Malji ka Kamra, Churu
Where: about an hour north-west.
- The house: the 1920s pleasure house of a Churu merchant, a fantasy of stucco, columns and frescoes, now a small heritage hotel.
- Our use: for guests continuing to the blackbuck of Tal Chhapar or into the desert.
Haveli Nadine Le Prince, Fatehpur
Where: twenty kilometres away in Fatehpur.
- The house: restored by the French artist Nadine Le Prince, with a few guest rooms.
- The trade: simple by palace standards, but you sleep inside one of the region's most beautifully painted houses.
- Book well ahead: rooms are few.
Palaces on the road to Shekhawati
Samode Palace
Where: about an hour north-west of Jaipur, on the way to Shekhawati.
- What's there: a painted Durbar Hall, a Sheesh Mahal and pools overlooking the hills.
- Why: a night here before Mandawa turns the drive into a pleasure.
Alila Fort Bishangarh
Where: a warrior fort on a granite hill, about an hour and a half north of Jaipur.
- What it is: a contemporary hotel with rooms in the fort's thick walls.
- Why: the most polished stay within easy reach of Shekhawati, and it pairs beautifully with a couple of nights at Castle Mandawa.
Neemrana Fort-Palace
- Where: on the road from Delhi.
- Why: a terraced fort-palace and a good place to break the journey before turning west into Shekhawati.
The palaces of Bikaner
- Heading west: Bikaner is about three and a half to four hours away.
- At the end of the drive: Laxmi Niwas Palace and Narendra Bhawan.
Three ways we split nights in Shekhawati
Castle and country house
The plan: two nights at Castle Mandawa, then one at Roop Niwas Kothi in Nawalgarh for the horses and the museums.
- The drive: about half an hour.
- The swap: the bustle of the bazaar for a garden and an evening ride.
Fort in the hills, then the castle
- The plan: one night at Alila Fort Bishangarh or Samode Palace on the way from Jaipur, then two at Castle Mandawa.
- The gain: polished comfort first and atmosphere second, with the drive broken neatly in two.
Mandawa, then the edge of the desert
The plan: two nights in Mandawa, then one at Malji ka Kamra in Churu before Tal Chhapar and Bikaner.
- Who it suits: anyone heading west into the Thar.
- What it shows: how different the painted towns become as you approach the dunes.
Heritage charm or modern comfort: an honest trade
What a heritage room gives: painted walls, carved doors, thick walls that stay cool in the heat, and windows over lanes that have hardly changed in a century.
What it may also give: a bathroom squeezed into a former storeroom, a staircase with steps of different heights, and a courtyard that carries the kitchen's sounds in the morning.
- Heritage gives
- Painted walls, cool thick walls, old lanes
- Heritage asks
- Patience with stairs and bathrooms
- Modern gives
- Consistency, Wi-Fi, level paths
- Modern loses
- The story, and the havelis at dawn
- Our advice
- Two nights inside Shekhawati
- The better hotels: have solved most of these problems carefully, but none can make an eighteenth-century fort behave like a new building.
- What modern gives: at Alila Fort Bishangarh on the way from Jaipur, generous bathrooms, quiet air conditioning, reliable Wi-Fi and level paths.
- What you lose: the sense of sleeping inside the story of the painted towns, and stepping out of your door into the havelis at dawn.
- Our honest advice: at least two nights inside Shekhawati itself, in the best room we can find, with a night of modern comfort on either side if you value it.
Which stay for which traveller
First visit to Shekhawati: two nights at Castle Mandawa, in a tower or rampart room.
Couples: Castle Mandawa for the ramparts at dawn, with a sundowner at the Desert Resort, or a night at Alila Fort Bishangarh on the way. Our Rajasthan for Two journey shows how.
- Families with children: the Desert Resort for space, or the castle for its pool and the adventure of the towers.
- Horse lovers: Roop Niwas Kothi in Nawalgarh, for an evening ride through the fields.
- Art lovers and repeat visitors: a haveli stay, such as the Le Prince haveli in Fatehpur or Hotel Mandawa Haveli.
- A quiet village: Alsisar Mahal.
- Modern comfort above all: Alila Fort Bishangarh or Samode Palace, with Mandawa as a long day trip or a single night.
Practical things to know before you book
The season: about October to March, and the best weeks, November to February, fill up.
The peaks: Christmas, New Year and the weeks of the Shekhawati Festival and Holi. Book two to three months ahead for them.
April to June: temperatures pass 45°C, and some smaller havelis close or run reduced services.
- Season
- About October to March
- Best weeks
- November to February
- Book ahead
- Two to three months for peaks
- Hot months
- April to June, past 45°C
- Winter nights: they can fall close to freezing, so we always confirm heaters and extra quilts.
- Food: most heritage hotels cook good Rajasthani food, and many will prepare a Marwari thali or a family recipe on request.
- Drinks: alcohol is generally available in the larger hotels.
- Dietary needs: tell us in advance and we'll brief the kitchen.
- Mobility: old buildings mean steps and uneven floors, so tell us your needs and we will choose the right room. Our accessible travel guide explains how we plan for it.
- Each month: our best time to visit Mandawa guide.
What we check before we book you in
The outlook: which rooms have the views, and which look onto a service courtyard.
Stairs: whether the room is up a steep stair or on the ground floor, and whether there is a lift anywhere.
- Heat and cold: heaters and extra quilts in December and January, and working air conditioning from March onwards.
- Weddings and groups: whether one is booked on your dates, and where it will be.
- The pool: whether it is open and heated, which varies with the season.
- The kitchen: what it can cook for special diets, and whether a Marwari thali or laal maas can be arranged.
- Breakfast: how early it can be served, so you can be out in the lanes at first light.
What money really buys in Mandawa
The right room: the first thing worth spending on.
A licensed local guide: one who knows which caretakers have the keys.
- A car and driver: for the day trips to Fatehpur, Nawalgarh and Ramgarh.
- Private evenings: dinner on the ramparts or in a haveli courtyard with musicians.
- Small adventures: a camel cart into the fields at sunset, and a cooking session with a local family.
- What guests remember: none of these depend on a five-star rating.
- Costs: our guide to what a luxury Rajasthan journey costs.
- A ready-made plan: our Painted Towns of Shekhawati journey and the Heritage Havelis Trail show where we'd put you each night.
