Why there is no price list on this site
Two couples once travelled with us in the same fortnight, on almost the same route. One journey cost close to twice the other, and both couples were equally happy.
The first couple: lake-view suites, a flight between Jodhpur and Udaipur, and a private dinner on a fort rampart.
The second couple: heritage havelis and smaller palace hotels, every stretch by road with long lunches, and evenings on rooftops.
Facts to know
- Published prices
- None, by design
- Rates change
- Week by week in winter
- How we quote
- After one conversation
- You receive
- Day-by-day plan and quote
- Changes
- Anything, before you book
- Both luxurious: in the way that mattered to the people taking them. A single number on a web page would have been wrong for both.
- Why low figures mislead: they usually describe a version nobody really wants, in the cheapest room at the busiest time.
- Why high figures mislead: they frighten away people who could travel beautifully for much less.
- Moving rates: hotel rates in Rajasthan change week by week through the winter, and the same room can cost very different amounts in early October and at New Year.
- What this page does: explains exactly what moves the cost, which questions to ask, and which choices are worth paying for.
- Then a clear quote: after one conversation about your dates and how you like to travel, we send a written day-by-day plan. You can change anything before you book.
The choices that shape the cost
Seven things decide almost all of the price of a private journey in Rajasthan. Most of them are in your hands.
Facts to know
- Biggest lever
- Your dates
- Largest share
- Hotels
- Within a hotel
- Room category
- Hidden cost
- Too many hotel changes
- Solo travellers
- Close to double-room price
Your dates
The calendar matters most: Rajasthan's high season runs from October to March.
- The busiest weeks: Diwali, the Pushkar fair, Christmas and New Year, and the last weeks of December and first of January above all.
- Higher rates and minimum stays: hotels often insist on both for those dates.
- Out of season: the same palace in late September or in April may cost much less, and give you more of its attention.
Your hotels
Usually the largest part: of any quote.
- The big names cost more: a grand palace run by one of India's big luxury groups costs more than a family-run heritage haveli, and a famous name in a famous city more than a fort hotel in a small town.
- Not always more comfort: some of our favourite nights are in small heritage properties, with the owning family at dinner.
Your room
As much as the hotel: the room category can change the cost as much as the hotel itself.
- The premium rooms: a historical suite, a lake view or a private pool can cost a great deal more than a standard room in the same building.
- Honest advice: sometimes that is worth every rupee, and sometimes the view is the same from the terrace downstairs. We tell you which.
The number of nights and hotels
More nights, more cost: of course.
- More moves, more cost: less obviously, every move means another long drive, another first night and often a higher single-night rate.
- The comparison: two nights in five places can cost more than three nights in four, and it is far less restful. So we build in two nights or more almost everywhere.
How you move between cities
The car: a private car with a chauffeur is the backbone, charged by the days and distance it covers.
- Flights: they can save a long day on the road, for example between Jaipur and Udaipur, and add their own cost.
- Trains: a good value choice on some routes.
- Charters: helicopters and charter flights, arranged on our helicopter and charter journeys, sit at the far end of the scale.
Guides and experiences
Guides: licensed local guides in each city, and a specialist costs more than a generalist.
- Private experiences: a palace dinner, a private polo match, a hot-air balloon flight or a long day with a craft family are priced individually.
- Safaris: permits are set by the forest department, and the choice of zone and vehicle matters.
The size of your party
By the room: hotel rooms are priced per room, not per person, so a solo traveller usually pays close to the price of a double.
- Shared costs: cars and guides are shared across a party, so the cost per person falls as the group grows, until you need a second vehicle.
- Families: they often need connecting rooms or suites, which we plan early because they are limited.
Season, the biggest single lever
In May the pool at a Jodhpur palace can be almost yours alone, and the hotel manager has time to show you the stables himself.
Three bands: we describe the year in three broad bands, each with its own beauty and its own rates. None is wrong, but each suits a different traveller.
The weather in detail: our best time to visit Rajasthan guide and month pages such as Rajasthan in December and Rajasthan in July.
Facts to know
- High season
- October to March
- Dearest weeks
- Late December, early January
- Peak suites
- Book 9-12 months ahead
- Shoulder weeks
- Early October, late March
- Best rates
- April to June
- Monsoon
- July to September, gentle rates
- High season: October to March, with the best weather, the biggest crowds and the highest rates. The finest suites for late December and early January are often booked nine to twelve months ahead.
- Festival weeks cost more again: Diwali in October or November, the Pushkar fair around the Kartik full moon, the Jaisalmer Desert Festival in February and Holi in March all fill hotels in their cities.
- Shoulder weeks: early October and late March often bring very good weather, a little more room and sometimes gentler rates.
- The hot months: April to June, often above 40°C in the desert, is when many palace hotels offer their best rates. We plan around early starts, long lunches and pools.
- The monsoon: July to September keeps rates gentle while the hills turn green and Udaipur's lakes fill. Some parks close their core zones, so a safari-led journey works differently.
Hotels and rooms: where most of the budget goes
Ask for a lake-view room at a palace in Udaipur and you are paying for one thing: the moment you open the shutters at dawn.
Some of Asia's finest hotels: many of them real palaces and forts, falling into a few families that each cost differently.
Each style in depth: our palace hotels, heritage havelis, desert camps and wildlife lodges pages.
- When a view is worth it: at a lake or a fort hotel, yes. In a garden resort, where every room looks onto lawns, rarely.
- One night of a suite: a historical suite on a special date gives most of the pleasure at a fraction of the cost of several nights.
- Ask what is included: breakfast, dinner, airport transfers, safaris and spa treatments vary from hotel to hotel.
- Upgrades: never guaranteed, and we never promise one we cannot confirm in writing.
The great palace hotels
The famous names: Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, Umaid Bhawan Palace in Jodhpur and Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur among them.
- What you get: real royal history with the service of a large luxury group.
- The cost: usually the most expensive rooms in their cities, especially the historic suites.
The modern luxury resorts
Traditional style, modern comfort: hotels such as The Oberoi Rajvilas and The Oberoi Udaivilas, with wide gardens and pools.
- The cost: similar to the great palaces.
- What you pay for: space, calm and consistent service rather than history.
Heritage havelis and fort hotels
Family-run: properties such as Samode Haveli in Jaipur, Rawla Narlai or Deogarh Mahal usually cost noticeably less than the great palaces.
- The trade-off: rooms vary more, and the plumbing is sometimes older, but the character and the hosts are often the highlight of a journey.
- Balancing a budget: mixing two or three of these with one grand palace is our most common way to save without losing any magic.
Desert camps and wildlife lodges
Priced differently: luxury tented camps in the Thar and lodges near Ranthambore and Jawai often differ from city hotels.
- Check the inclusions: some include meals and safaris, and some charge them separately.
- Like with like: when we compare lodges, we compare what you actually receive, never an all-in rate against a bare one.
Route and pace: fewer moves, better value
The most expensive thing on many journeys we are asked to rework is not a hotel. It is a day spent in the car.
A large state: the drive from Jaipur to Jaisalmer takes most of a day, and Udaipur to Jaisalmer is longer still.
Zigzags cost: a route that crosses the state back and forth adds car days, fuel, the driver's overnight stays, and nights in hotels you barely see.
Facts to know
- Jaipur to Jaisalmer
- Most of a day
- Zigzag routes
- Add car days and nights
- Flights
- Mostly via Delhi or Mumbai
- Ideal stay
- Two nights or more
- Flow in one direction: with a flight to bridge the longest gap, a route is usually both cheaper and more pleasant.
- How we plan drives: our guides to road distances and drive times and getting around Rajasthan.
- Flights: Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaipur have regular ones, mostly through Delhi or Mumbai. Direct routes between Rajasthan's own cities are limited and change by season.
- Only when it saves a day: we check current schedules and suggest a flight only then. See airports and flights for Rajasthan.
- Pace saves quietly: two nights or more in each place means fewer transfers, fewer wasted evenings, and sights at their best hour.
- What a good pace looks like: our two weeks in Rajasthan and one week in Rajasthan journeys.
Local tip
If you are choosing between more places and more time, choose more time.
Experiences: what is worth paying for
Guests rarely remember the price of a private dinner on the ramparts. They always remember the singer.
Some of the best cost little: a dawn walk through the walled city, chai with a printing family, a sunset from a fort wall.
Others take real planning: because they need permissions, staff and exclusive use of a place.
A great guide: worth more than almost any upgrade. We use licensed local guides, pay them fairly, and choose specialists for architecture, miniature painting or wildlife.
- Private dinners: palace and rampart dinners are priced individually, because they involve permission, staff, music and lighting. See a private dinner in a palace.
- Safaris: permit fees are set by the forest department, and vehicle and zone change the cost.
- No guaranteed tiger: in Ranthambore the forest department allots the zones, so no amount of money guarantees a particular zone or a sighting.
- Festivals: they add cost through hotel rates and extra planning, such as good viewing places at a procession or a camp at the Pushkar fair.
- Artisan workshops: usually modest in cost, and we make sure the makers are paid properly for their time, whether or not you buy.
- No commission stops: we never take guests to shops or showrooms for commission, which keeps prices honest and your days free of sales stops.
Where we would spend, and where we would save
Our own family, travelling in our own state, follows a simple rule: spend on what you will feel every hour, and save on what you will see for ten minutes.
Facts to know
- Spend on
- Lake or fort room
- Spend on
- A fine guide
- Spend on
- One special night
- Save with
- A heritage haveli
- Save by
- Fewer hotel changes
- Save in
- Shoulder weeks
Spend on the room at the lake or the fort
- The view is the experience: in Udaipur, Jaisalmer and the fort hotels.
- Worth more: a lake-facing room on Pichola or a room on the ramparts beats an upgrade in a city hotel where you will be out all day.
Spend on the guide
- From rooms to a story: a fine guide changes Amber Fort, Mehrangarh or Chittorgarh.
- Best value: on any journey.
Spend on one special night
- The memory guests keep: a birthday or anniversary in a palace suite, a desert camp under the stars or a dinner on a bastion.
- One is enough: a single such night lifts a whole journey.
Save with a heritage haveli
- Less, and often more: a family-run haveli in Jaipur's walled city, in Bundi or in Shekhawati costs less than a grand palace, and often gives you more of Rajasthan's real character.
Save by changing hotels less
- Each change removed: saves a transfer, a first night and sometimes a single-night premium.
- And gives back: a full day of rest.
Save by choosing the shoulder weeks
- Fine weather, gentler rates: early October, late March and the first half of September often bring both.
- Around the holidays: the weeks either side of Christmas and New Year are much quieter than the holiday itself.
How we quote
Our quotes begin with a conversation, not a form, because the most useful thing we can learn about you rarely fits in a box.
Facts to know
- A plan
- No charge, no obligation
- Start
- Website, email or WhatsApp
- You receive
- Day-by-day plan and quote
- Revisions
- Each with an updated quote
- Terms
- Booking conditions sent with quote
- Simple to start: on our plan my journey page, by email or on WhatsApp.
One conversation
What we ask: your dates, who is travelling, what you have loved on past journeys, and how you feel about long drives and early mornings.
- Comforts that matter: a bath, a pool or a quiet room.
- Your budget: not to fill it, but so we spend it where it counts.
A written plan and a clear quote
- Day by day: the hotels and room categories we suggest, the reasons for each, and a clear quote.
- Alternatives: where useful, for example a grand palace against a heritage haveli, so you can see what each choice changes.
Changes until it is right
Change anything before you book: a hotel, a room, the pace, the order of cities.
- Updated each time: every revision comes with a new quote.
- No rush: we would rather spend another week refining than have you travel with a plan that is nearly right.
Booking and confirmation
- Confirmed for you: hotels, cars, guides and experiences, with the documents for your journey.
- No surprises: the payment schedule, cancellation terms and what happens if plans change are in our booking conditions, sent with the quote.
What a quote usually covers, and what it leaves out
The surest way to compare two quotes is to read the lines underneath them. Here is what ours usually contain.
Hotels: in the room categories named, with the meal plan for each stay stated clearly.
Your car: a private air-conditioned car with an experienced chauffeur for the whole journey, including his own costs on the road.
Meetings: at airports and stations, with help at check-in when you arrive.
Facts to know
- Included
- Hotels, car, guides, planner
- Also included
- Chosen experiences, flights, taxes
- Not included
- International flights, visa, insurance
- Also excluded
- Shopping, extra meals, tips
- Guides: licensed local guides for the sightseeing in the plan.
- Your choices, itemised: the experiences, safaris and special dinners you have chosen.
- Flights or trains: when they are part of the plan.
- Taxes: Indian taxes on hotels and services, shown clearly rather than added later.
- Your planner: on WhatsApp throughout the journey.
- Usually not included: international flights, visa fees, travel insurance, personal shopping, drinks and meals outside the plan, and tips. See money and tipping, the India e-Visa and travel insurance for India.
Families, celebrations and longer stays
A grandmother, two parents and three children need very different things from a palace than a honeymooning couple, and the quote should show it.
Connecting rooms and suites: children often need them, and both are limited in heritage buildings, where rooms were never designed in pairs.
Extra beds: some hotels charge for one or for older children, and some do not.
- Cars and guides: a larger party may need two cars or one larger vehicle, and a guide who is good with children is worth asking for.
- Several ages at once: our family journeys and multi-generation journeys explain how we plan.
- Small celebrations: a birthday dinner on a terrace or a surprise on a boat is simple to arrange.
- Big occasions: a wedding, a vow renewal or a private event for many guests is its own project, with venue fees, decoration, music, permissions and catering, and its own quote. See destination weddings in Rajasthan.
- Longer can be better value: three weeks lets you slow down, mix grand nights with simple ones, and settle into the rhythm of a place.
- Dodging the dearest dates: a longer journey lets us move cities around them. Our three weeks and more journey shows how.
Our honest advice before you ask for a quote
The happiest guests we know decided on two things before they spoke to us: their dates and their priorities.
Dates first: tell us whether they are fixed or flexible. A week's movement can change a hotel's rate, or the room you want, more than any other decision.
Fixed around a peak? For Christmas, New Year, Diwali or a major festival, start early. The best rooms go first and do not come back.
- Then priorities: for some guests it is one great palace, for others tigers, textiles or time with a village family. Tell us, and we build the rest around it.
- What luxury means: not everything at the highest price, but nothing that feels compromised.
- Be honest about pace: most first-time visitors try to see too much. Fewer places, more nights and the right hours give a better journey, and usually better value.
- Where to begin: our journeys page shows how we combine places, and our Rajasthan travel guide introduces the state.
Local tip
Decide your dates and your one priority before you call us. The rest of the conversation takes care of itself.