Best of Northern India Tour: Jaipur to Varanasi

We had to end our 23-day trip on day five since my wife fell and fractured her hip. The first five days of the trip were wonderful. We had great drivers and tour guides, and our hotel in Delhi was great.

Zicasso’s travel specialist and the tour team gave us outstanding support and made arrangements to help us get back to New York for my wife's hip replacement. This tour company is one of the best tour companies I have dealt with. You do not know how good a tour company is until you have a major problem. To our travel specialist, thank you for arranging a great tour and helping us.

Zicasso’s travel specialist and the tour company were terrific! They made the process very easy and in every city we were welcomed by a representative from the company.

The overall trip was fantastic! Our driver was excellent. His driving skills were masterful and made our journey very comfortable. The overall traffic in India was overwhelming and while we've heard stories about it, it is something you need to experience for yourself. Our driver did a great job of navigating the traffic in an efficient manner and we always felt very safe.

Agra was amazing. Getting up before sunrise to see the Taj made the experience even more memorable. Thank you for arranging that. Compared to some of our friends who have gone, the lack of significant crowds at that time made a big difference to the overall experience. I was not as impressed with our hotel in Agra. It felt more like a large chain hotel and lacked the five-star luxury that I would have expected. The visits to the marble factory and tapestry collective were excellent. We really enjoyed the visits and ended up with amazing souvenirs. We loved our guide in Agra. He was by far the best one we had on the trip. He took the time to learn all of our names and was very engaging during our day together. We asked him a lot of questions about the culture and lifestyle in India, and he was great.

Jaipur was great. The Amber Fort and elephant ride were definitely the highlights in that city. The large cannon we could have done without. It didn't really add anything. We enjoyed the City Palace and the astronomic gardens as well. The hotel was fabulous and truly a five-star experience. Our rooms were very spacious and the food was great. We had an outside dinner planned at a restaurant in Jaipur (one of your recommendations) and our driver was so helpful in getting us to and from the restaurant. Our guide was good, but less friendly and more transactional. One of our group felt like he was more of a professor lecturing to us. Nonetheless, the information was very good.

Jodhpur was probably the other major highlight for us. We loved the city. The stay in the old city and our hotel in Jodhpur was excellent. The restaurant on site had amazing food and the rooms were again very spacious, with amazing views of the fort. Another five-star luxury experience. We were amazed by the beauty of the fort and impressed with the way it was built on top of the mountain. Amazing! We also enjoyed the City Palace and, in the future, would suggest arranging a dinner or lunch at the hotel there so we could have gone to see what the rest of the palace looked like by visiting the hotel.

The drive from Jaipur to Jodhpur was very long. Not much to do about that. It was obviously very convenient to have all of our luggage with us in the van between cities and doing flights may have taken the same amount of time. We also really enjoyed our guide here. He took us on tours of the local areas in the old city, including the stepwells, market, and blue city. While it was very enjoyable, it was also a little overwhelming for some of our group. Probably one of them would have chosen to stay at the hotel rather than walk around the blue city, but everyone else had a great time on that tour.

Udaipur was lovely and we really enjoyed the City Palace tour and the boat ride on the lake. I would have suggested staying at one of the hotels on the lake there as an option. Had we not been at the wedding, I would have loved the experience of staying at one of the hotels on the lake. Our hotel in Udaipur was nice, but far from everything. Obviously, we had no choice, as that's where the wedding took place.

Overall, an amazing trip. Once in a lifetime. I would love to go back to India and focus on other parts of the country.

It was an excellent trip. Zicasso's agency was highly responsive and helpful.

We were very happy with the trip and Zicasso’s travel company. It was well organized and everything went smoothly. The selection of all the hotels was excellent, but outstanding for their service were our lodges in Bandhavgarh, Kanha, and Tadoba, as well as our hotels in Thekkady and Periyar, both of which offered nature walks, cooking demonstrations, and fascinating dance performances. A big compliment also to all of our drivers for their exceptional driving skills!

Zicasso’s travel agent put together an incredible trip for us. We started in the north, Rajasthan, then went to the south, Kerala, for three weeks. Every detail was thought through—the greeters at the airport, the excellent guides, and the most memorable hotels. In fact, thanks to the travel agent, we visited a village in Agra and a farm in Kerala, neither of which we would have done on our own and which were very special.

I cannot recommend this travel company highly enough—a first-class operation, first-class service, and a first-class trip.

Zicasso’s travel specialist was masterful in planning our itinerary for our trip to India. His recommendations for the national parks and our accommodations were spot-on.

The reason we came to India was for the wildlife, and that was spectacular, but the varied itinerary the travel specialist provided added richness and wonderful cultural experiences to our stay in India.

Everything was well planned and executed by the travel company. The WhatsApp connection kept us in contact with their team and it was an added convenience that they attached our boarding passes for the internal flights. I think the travel specialist did an amazing job and it has been an absolute pleasure working with him and his team.