Near Delhi

Near Delhi

Weekend Getaways

Within a comfortable Friday-night drive of the capital.

13 places

Uttar Pradesh
Agra
Almost everyone rushes Agra as a day trip from Delhi, and almost everyone regrets it — the Taj deserves a dawn and the city has a second monument nearly as good. Go to the Taj at sunrise, and know that it closes on Fridays. The marble changes colour through the first hour in a way no photograph has ever conveyed; by nine the light has flattened and the crowd has arrived. If you only have one slot, take that one. Agra Fort is the thing people skip and should not. Shah Jahan spent his last years imprisoned in it, looking downriver at the tomb he built for his wife, and you can stand where he stood. It is a working piece of Mughal military architecture rather than a monument to grief, and it is quieter. For the view most people never see, cross the river to Mehtab Bagh in the late afternoon and look at the Taj from the back, across the Yamuna, with nobody in front of you. The city outside the monuments is hard work — persistent touts, heavy traffic, little to hold you. Sleep here for the sunrise, then move on.
Uttarakhand
Bhimtal Lake
Bhimtal is the largest lake in Nainital district and the largest in Kumaon, the region known as the lake district of India, and second in Uttarakhand by surface area. A masonry dam built in 1883 created the storage, so the level you see is held rather than natural. At the centre is an island developed for visitors, with an aquarium on it, a small attraction that will not hold an adult long. The water works for a living as well, supplying drinking water and supporting aquaculture across several fish species.
Chandigarh
Chandigarh
Chandigarh, India's first planned city designed by Le Corbusier, is famed for its orderly sectors, modernist architecture and green spaces. The whimsical Rock Garden, the vast Sukhna Lake and the Capitol Complex (a UNESCO site) make it a uniquely walkable, design-led city.
Delhi
Delhi
Delhi is not one city, it is seven of them stacked on the same ground, and the reason first visits go wrong is trying to see it as one place. Old Delhi and Lutyens' Delhi are ten minutes apart on the Metro and belong to different centuries. Give each a separate morning rather than stitching them together — the whiplash is what exhausts people. Start in Shahjahanabad early, before the Chandni Chowk lanes fill and the rickshaws stop being able to move at all. Jama Masjid's southern minaret is worth the climb for the one view that makes the layout of the old city legible from above. The Metro is genuinely excellent and will save you hours; use it and ignore anyone who tells you Delhi traffic is unavoidable. On Thursday evenings there is qawwali at Nizamuddin Dargah, which is the single most affecting hour in the city and costs nothing. Be honest with yourself about when you come. From late October into January the air is often severely polluted, and no amount of planning fixes a week you spend indoors with a headache. February and March are the reward months.
Uttar Pradesh
Fatehpur Sikri
Fatehpur Sikri is a planned Mughal city and fort complex near Agra, built entirely of red sandstone, that served briefly as Emperor Akbar's imperial capital. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Madhya Pradesh
Gwalior
Gwalior's fort sits on a sandstone plateau above the city and is one of the least visited great forts in India, which is most of its appeal. The approach past the Siddhachal Jain caves is what to slow down for: colossal Jain figures cut directly into the cliff face on the way up, the largest of them close to twenty metres. Then Man Singh Palace at the top, with turquoise tilework of ducks and elephants on the outer wall, and interiors you can walk through without a crowd. The Sas Bahu temples on the eastern edge are eleventh century and finely carved. Teli ka Mandir, unusually tall and shaped like nothing else on the site, is worth walking to. Gwalior is also a music city — the Gwalior gharana is one of the oldest surviving Hindustani classical traditions, and Tansen is buried here. The Tansen festival in December is when you would hear it properly. October to March. The fort is a long exposed climb with very little shade, so this matters more than usual.
Rajasthan
Jaipur
Jaipur repays getting up early more than almost anywhere in Rajasthan, because by ten the coaches have arrived and Amber Fort stops being a fort and becomes a queue. Be at Amber for opening. Walk up rather than taking the elephants — the welfare of those animals is a long-running problem and a jeep does the same job. Inside, the Sheesh Mahal is the room everyone photographs, but the Ganesh Pol above the second courtyard is the better piece of work. Hawa Mahal disappoints people, and it is worth knowing why before you stand in front of it: it is a screen, one room deep, built so the women of the household could watch the street unseen. There is almost nothing behind the facade. The good view is from the rooftop cafés opposite, looking back at it. Jantar Mantar is the one to book a guide for. Without someone to explain them the instruments are handsome shapes; with someone, they are a working observatory and the visit turns into the best hour of your day. For jewellery go to Johari Bazaar, for fabric to Bapu Bazaar, and for everyday chaos and better prices to Chandpole. October to March. April onwards the stone gets too hot to touch by mid-morning.
Uttar Pradesh
Mathura & Vrindavan
Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, and neighbouring Vrindavan, where he spent his childhood, form the heart of the Braj pilgrimage region — a land of thousands of temples, devotional music and the most exuberant Holi celebrations in India.
Uttarakhand
Mussoorie
Famously nicknamed the 'Queen of the Hills', this historic colonial-era hill station looks out over the Doon Valley and Shivalik ranges. Mussoorie is a legendary hill station at an altitude of roughly 2,009 metres in the Dehradun district of Uttarakhand. It stands as one of India's oldest and most commercialised mountain getaways, established during the British Raj.
Uttarakhand
Nainital
Nainital is a charming Kumaon hill station built around the emerald, eye-shaped Naini Lake. With its boating, the crowded Mall Road, cable car to Snow View and surrounding viewpoints, it is one of North India's most beloved lake resorts.
Uttarakhand
Rishikesh
Famed globally as the 'Yoga Capital of the World', this crowded, restless city on the Ganges blends ancient spirituality with high-adrenaline adventure sports. Rishikesh is located in the foothills of the Garhwal Himalayas where the sacred Ganges leaves the mountains to enter the plains. It is a world-renowned destination for spiritual seekers, yoga enthusiasts, and extreme adventure travellers.
Himachal Pradesh
Shimla
Shimla, the former summer capital of British India, is one of the country's most popular hill stations. Its colonial Mall Road, the Ridge, Christ Church and the UNESCO-listed Kalka-Shimla toy train make it a perennial favourite in the Himalayan foothills.
Uttar Pradesh
Taj Mahal (Agra)
The Taj Mahal stands in white marble on the southern bank of the Yamuna River at Agra. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned it in 1632 to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and nothing else the Mughals built comes as close to perfection. The whole structure is symmetrical, and the geometry is exact. You come in through a grand red sandstone gateway, then across a formal geometric garden divided by long reflecting pools. The mausoleum sits on a massive marble plinth, a central dome above it and four identical minarets at the corners. The white marble is intricately inlaid with semi-precious stones, and it changes colour through the day — soft pink at dawn, brilliant white under noon skies, shimmering gold under a full moon.