What a village stay means here
In a village, the day is built around water, animals and light. Women are up before dawn to fetch water and light the chulha, the clay stove. Men take the cattle out. By dark the lanes are empty and the stars are out. You fall into that rhythm within a day.
Three kinds of stay: a simple room with a farming or herding family, a night in a desert hamlet of mud-walled huts, or a family-run country fort or rawla where the household still lives upstairs.
- Kinds of stay
- Village homes, desert hamlets, family country houses
- Typical length
- One or two nights
- Group size
- Usually just your party
- Food
- Home-cooked, mostly vegetarian
- Pay
- Direct to the host family
- What they share: a real family, a working village outside the gate and time to sit still.
- What they are not: staged villages built for tourists, or visits where people are photographed and left behind.
- Why it matters: village Rajasthan is where the crafts, the music, the food and the faith of the state are made. The cities show the results. The villages show the people.
- How it fits a journey: most guests add one or two village nights between cities, often on the Village Rajasthan journey, which strings country houses and farms across four old regions.
The stays we arrange, from simple to grand
A room in a farming family's home
What it is: a clean, simple room in the house of a family we know, usually in Shekhawati, Marwar or the hills of Mewar.
- Comfort: a proper bed, fresh bedding and a bathroom we have checked. Hot water may come in a bucket.
- The pleasure: cooking with the women of the house, walking the fields with the men, and dinner by the fire.
- Who it suits: curious, flexible travellers happy to trade polish for warmth.
A desert hamlet near Khuri
Where: around Khuri, about 45 kilometres south-west of Jaisalmer, among low dunes and khejri trees.
- The houses: round mud-walled huts with thatched roofs, cool by day and warm at night, painted with white patterns on the walls.
- The evening: a walk to the dunes at sunset, a shepherd bringing his flock home, and a sky with almost no lights for miles.
- Honest note: Khuri also has simple camps of mixed quality. We stay only with families we trust.
A family country house, a rawla or garh
What it is: the fort or rawla of a noble family, turned into a heritage hotel and still lived in, such as Rohet Garh, Rawla Narlai or Deogarh Mahal.
- Comfort: real hotel standards, with pools, good kitchens and proper bathrooms.
- The village link: the estate and its villages have known each other for centuries. Walk out of the gate and you are in the lanes.
- Read more: our piece on the rawla and the thikana explains the old estates.
A community-run village in Kutch
Where: Hodka, a village of bhungas, round mud houses with conical thatched roofs, on the Banni grassland of Kutch.
- Who runs it: Shaam-e-Sarhad, a village resort run by the community itself.
- The stay: bhungas and tents, village food and the embroidery and leatherwork families of Banni next door.
A day with herders, without the night
- For the time-pressed: a morning walking with a Rabari family and their flock in Jawai, or with Bishnoi families south of Jodhpur, gives much of the feeling without a night away.
- Read more: with the Rabari herders and the Bishnoi villages.
Where we arrange village stays, region by region
Shekhawati, the painted farming country
The landscape: flat, sandy country of low dunes, thorny scrub and khejri trees, with millet after the rains and mustard flowering yellow in January and February.
- Village life: families still churn buttermilk by hand, plaster their courtyards with clay and dung, and sleep on the roof in summer.
- Where we stay: with farming families near Mandawa and Nawalgarh, or at Alsisar, whose fort-palace feels more like a private house than a hotel.
- Read more: our Shekhawati guide.
Marwar, Bishnoi villages and country forts
Rohet: the family of Thakur Dalpat Singh has held the estate since 1622 and began its village safari in 1988, to Bishnoi homes, Raika camel herders and potters.
- Khimsar: the fort of 1523 has a dune village about fifteen minutes away, with round cottages modelled on the huts of a Marwari desert hamlet.
- The Bishnoi: villages south of Jodhpur where blackbuck graze near the doorsteps and families welcome guests for tea.
- Read more: our Rohet and Khimsar guides.
The Thar around Jaisalmer
Khuri: quieter dunes and a village of mud houses, our choice for a night with a desert family.
- Around Sam: herding hamlets near the Sam dunes, best visited at dawn before the camps wake.
- On the way: Kuldhara, the abandoned Paliwal village, a reminder of how hard desert life has always been.
Godwar and Jawai, granite hills and Rabari herders
Narlai: an old trading village of carved temples under a granite hill. Rawla Narlai, built in the seventeenth century as a royal hunting lodge, became a hotel in 1996.
- Jawai: farm lodges and homestays around Bera and the reservoir. Standards and ethics vary widely, so we book only places we have visited.
- The Rabari: herders in white turbans and heavy silver, who know every leopard's track.
Mewar, lakes, hills and old estates
Deogarh: the palace of the Chundawat Rawats, once lords of around two hundred villages, still partly the family's home.
- The countryside: village tanks full of winter birds, the slow metre-gauge train through the Aravallis and farming hamlets in the hills.
- Around Kumbhalgarh: herding and farming villages below the great wall. See Kumbhalgarh.
Dhundhar and Hadoti, close to Jaipur and Bundi
- Samode: a working village with a painted palace at the top of its street. Step out of the gate into school runs, brass water pots and jalebi frying. See Samode.
- Around Bundi: farming villages of Hadoti among lakes and green hills after the monsoon. Our Bundi itinerary shows how we fit a village morning in.
A day and a night in a village, hour by hour
Afternoon, arrival
- Welcome: a glass of water, then sweet tea in the courtyard. Someone will tie a red thread on your wrist or mark your forehead with tilak.
- Settle in: a short tour of the house, the cattle and the well.
Late afternoon, the fields
- Walk out: with the men to the fields of wheat and mustard, past the khejri trees and the village pond.
- Or ride: a camel cart to the edge of the dunes for sunset.
Dusk, the kitchen
- Cook together: the women of the house show you how to pat bajra rotis by hand and cook them on the chulha.
- Lamps and bells: the evening aarti at the village temple, and cattle coming home in the dust.
Evening, dinner and stars
- Eat: rotis with ghee, a dal, a vegetable from the fields and buttermilk, sitting together.
- After dinner: a fire, stories, perhaps a song, and the roof for stargazing. Villages are asleep by nine.
Dawn, the second morning
- Wake to: roosters, the hand-mill grinding grain and the clank of a bucket at the well.
- Join in: milk a buffalo, badly, as we did, then breakfast of parathas and tea before the car collects you.
The farming year, and what you will see
July to September: the rains come, if they come. Farmers sow bajra, pearl millet, with moth and moong beans, and maize in Mewar. Villages are green, busy and muddy.
October and November: the harvest is in, grain dries on the flat roofs and weddings begin. Diwali lights every doorway.
- July
- Rains come; bajra, moth and moong sown
- October
- Kharif harvest in, grain drying on roofs
- Winter
- Wheat, gram and mustard where there is water
- January to February
- Mustard flowers yellow across Shekhawati
- March onwards
- Fields empty, herders move further
- December to February: where a well or tank allows, the winter crop of wheat, gram and mustard grows. The best months for a stay.
- March: Holi, the harvest of the winter crop and the last cool evenings.
- April to June: the fields empty, the herders move their animals further for grazing and families wait for the rain. Too hot for most guests.
What you will eat
Bajra roti: thick millet bread patted by hand and cooked over the fire, eaten with ghee and jaggery in winter.
Ker sangri: the desert berries and the beans of the khejri tree, dried and cooked with spices. Every family has its own recipe.
- Kadhi and dal: a yoghurt curry thickened with gram flour, and spiced lentils, the everyday dishes of every home.
- Chaas: salted buttermilk, churned by hand in the morning and drunk with lunch.
- Rabari milk tea: herding families make rich, sweet tea with fresh milk over a small fire in the fields. A small sip is the polite response even if you don't drink tea.
- Vegetarian by default: most village homes are vegetarian, and many Bishnoi and Jain households keep strict kitchens. Don't ask for meat or alcohol.
- Safety: we brief your hosts on bottled water and freshly cooked food. Our Rajasthani food guide explains the dishes.
What most visitors miss
The painted doorways: in many villages, women paint welcome symbols, peacocks and Ganesh on the walls around the door, renewed for Diwali and weddings.
The tanka: a covered rainwater tank in the courtyard that keeps a household alive through the dry months. Ask to see how it is filled.
- The village pond: the johad or nadi, dug and kept by the community for cattle, washing and birds, often with a shrine on its bank.
- The sacred grove: many Thar villages protect an oran around a local shrine, where no tree may be cut.
- The chabutra: the raised platform by the door, or under the village tree, where men sit to discuss the season and settle quarrels.
- Mandana: the white chalk and red clay patterns women draw on floors and courtyards for festivals, especially around Diwali.
- The craftsmen: potters, leatherworkers, weavers and smiths often live in their own lanes. A morning with one is a lesson in how the village works.
Crafts you can watch in the villages
Durrie weaving: Bishnoi and other families near Jodhpur weave flat cotton rugs on pit looms in their courtyards.
The potter's wheel: turned by hand or with a stick, for water pots, lamps and the clay cups of chai stalls.
- Durries
- Flat cotton rugs, Marwar villages
- Pottery
- Village potters across the state
- Embroidery
- Rabari, Meghwal and Banni families
- Block printing
- Bagru and Sanganer near Jaipur
- Buying rule
- Pay the maker the price asked
- Embroidery: Rabari women and the Meghwal and Muslim families of Banni in Kutch stitch mirrorwork and fine embroidery by lamplight.
- Block printing: a family of printers in Bagru, near Jaipur, still prints cotton by hand with carved wooden blocks. See block printing in Bagru.
- Buy well: our crafts page explains how to tell handwork from machine work.
Comfort, honestly
We check every room: we visit the homes we use and check the bed, the bedding and the bathroom before any guest stays.
Bathrooms: usually a private bathroom with a Western toilet in the homes we choose. Hot water may come heated in a bucket.
- Power: electricity can cut out for an hour or two. Bring a torch and a charged power bank.
- Sounds: roosters, cattle, temple loudspeakers and the hand-mill at dawn. Bring earplugs if you sleep lightly.
- Winter nights: cold in the desert and Shekhawati from December to February. Families provide heavy quilts. Bring warm sleepwear.
- Privacy: you are in a family home. Doors may not lock as a hotel's do, and children will be curious.
- Want more comfort? Choose a family country house instead, such as Rohet Garh, Rawla Narlai or Deogarh Mahal, and visit a village by day.
Etiquette in a village home
Greet first: ram ram in the villages, khamma ghani in Marwar and Mewar. Older people are greeted before younger.
Dress modestly: loose clothes covering shoulders and knees for men and women. A scarf is useful for women.
- Greeting
- Ram ram, or khamma ghani in Marwar
- Dress
- Shoulders and knees covered
- Shoes
- Off at the door and the kitchen
- Eating
- Right hand only
- Photos
- Always ask first
- Shoes off: at the door of the house, the kitchen and any shrine.
- The kitchen is special: enter only when invited, and never in shoes.
- Women's spaces: in many homes, older women keep their faces veiled before men outside the family. Male guests should let the women of the house approach first.
- Ask before photographs: especially of women and children, and accept a refusal with a smile.
- Keep affection private: couples should avoid kissing or holding each other in public.
- Alcohol: never in a village home unless your hosts offer it. Our etiquette guide has more.
How we keep it fair
Fair pay, paid directly: the family is paid properly for the room, the food and their time, and the money goes to them, not to a middleman.
Small numbers: one party at a time, so a home never becomes a hotel.
- Their rules: the family decides what they are happy to share, what they cook and when the day ends.
- No poverty tourism: we never take guests to stare at hardship or to photograph people as scenery.
- No handouts: don't give sweets, pens or money to children. It teaches them to ask strangers. If you want to help, ask us about the village school or a cause we know.
- Buy from makers: if a potter, weaver or embroiderer sells you something, pay the price asked.
- Don't promise: a photograph posted later, a visit next year, help with a visa. Make only promises you will keep.
- Read more: our responsible travel page and the journal on sustainable travel.
What to bring, and what to give
A gift from home: a box of sweets, tea, a picture book of your town or a photograph of your family. Hand it to the head of the house.
Sweets from the bazaar: a box from a good sweet shop on the way is the most Rajasthani gift of all. We stop for one.
- Photographs: print and send pictures afterwards through us. Families treasure them.
- For you: a torch, power bank, earplugs, wet wipes, hand sanitiser, a warm layer in winter and slip-on shoes.
- Leave behind: expensive jewellery, revealing clothes and alcohol.
When to go
October and November: harvest, weddings and Diwali lamps. Warm days, fresh nights.
December and January: cold nights, bright days, fires in the courtyard and the best stargazing.
- Best months
- October to March
- Most beautiful
- January and February, mustard in flower
- Coldest nights
- December and January
- Avoid
- April to June heat
- Monsoon
- July to September, green but muddy
- February and March: mustard in flower across Shekhawati, and Holi in the villages, joyful and loud.
- April to June: fierce heat, often above 40°C. We don't recommend village nights.
- July to September: green fields and full ponds, but rough roads and unpredictable rain. Lovely for day visits in Mewar.
- Festivals: our best time to visit Rajasthan guide lists the village fairs month by month.
Who will love it, and who won't
Repeat visitors
- Why: you have seen the forts, and you want the country in between.
- Try: our Village Rajasthan journey, thirteen nights through country houses and farms.
Families with children
- Why: children make friends across any language barrier within minutes, over a cricket ball or a calf.
- Plan: one night is plenty for young children. See our family journeys.
Solo travellers
- Why: a family takes a lone guest in at once. Women travelling alone are often welcomed straight into the kitchen.
- Read: Rajasthan for solo travellers.
Who should choose a country house instead
- If you need: guaranteed hot water, a locking door, a bar or a pool, choose a family-run fort or rawla and visit the village by day.
- If mobility is limited: village lanes are uneven and many homes have steep stairs. Our accessible travel guide can help.
How we arrange a village stay
We know the families: we work only with hosts we have visited and stayed with, often for years.
We match you: to the region, the family and the level of comfort that suits you.
- We brief both sides: your hosts know your diet, your interests and any health needs. You know their house rules.
- A guide stays close: a local guide who speaks the dialect introduces you, translates and stays nearby, in the village or at a guesthouse.
- The car is never far: your driver stays in the area, so you can leave at any time without awkwardness.
- No published prices: after one conversation we send a quote and a day-by-day plan. Start on our plan my journey page.