Travel has hit record highs since rebounding from the pandemic, and the news is full of
“hidden gems,” “new hotspots” and especially stories of “overtourism.” So, for a change of pace and escape from the social media-driven masses, it’s a perfect time to consider India, which is less crowded, a great value proposition, and chock full of stunning hotels and attractions. Here is why now is the time to visit India, a bucket list travel destination.
Interestingly, one currently red-hot country, Japan, has seen its tourism spike driven by publicity of the exceptionally strong dollar to weak yen. For the past couple of years, the strong dollar has been a boon to American travelers going almost everywhere abroad, but especially Japan. However, India is also one of the most affected currencies, and the rupee hit an all-time low against the dollar less than three months ago, but without making headlines—yet another reason to go now. But that’s just one of many.
“The sheer variety of major, incomparable Bucket List experiences in India, from the breathtaking palaces to deep dives into India’s colorful architecture, culture and history, to taking a mind-blowing tiger safari make India like no other destination,” said Marion Miller, Senior India Specialist for award-winning luxury tour operator and India expert Micato Safaris. Miller is one of just five global A-List Advisors for India honored by Travel + Leisure magazine, which wrote, “The advisors on the A-List are esteemed experts in the field, each offering a unique skill set that will make your travel dreams a reality. Travel advisors enhance each trip they work on by having the knowledge and connections that take trip planning a step further.”
Miller’s colleague, Emily Baldwin, also an A-List Micato advisor (for African safaris), added: “I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head—there’s overtourism everywhere else but in India.” One other important but under-publicized recent change has been a dramatic infrastructure improvement in India’s roadways. Traffic and transport horror stories that have been the norm for decades are now fading, at least on some of the most popular tourist routes.
Must-see attractions start with the Taj Mahal, one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. But if palatial buildings are your thing, this is just the tip of the iceberg and it’s hard to beat India for its sheer quantity of jaw dropping palaces and temples. Notables include the Lake Palace, an “island” building like no other in Udaipur that was built by a maharana, used as a set in a James Bond film, and is an absolute stunner; the Hindu Konark Sun Temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site from around 1250 AD; the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, so iconic it has become a landmark synonymous with the mega-city of Mumbai; there’s the architecturally stunning Victoria Memorial; the incomprehensively sprawling Mysore Palace; the pink sandstone 18th Century Hawa Mahal place in Jaipur; the much more modern Lotus-flower shaped Lotus Temple in Delhi; also in Delhi, the vast Red Fort complex and grounds; the holiest Sikh site, the Golden Temple, a 425-year old stunner in a lake connected by an ornate bridge; and countless royal palaces turned hotels, where you can enjoy both history and unrivalled luxury accommodations.
No other country boasts this kind of lodging category to this degree, and that is in addition to a huge slate of modern and “non-palace” luxury hotels. There are so many of these grand royal palaces turned luxury lodgings that you could travel for weeks just staying in them, and several publications have tried to narrow the field with Top 10 lists. The Telegraph went to 14 and Qantas’ inflight magazine chose 16, writing that, “One of the greatest legacies of this noble heritage is India’s collection of grand palaces, many of which have now become hotels. A stay at one of these splendid residences not only offers an opulent place to lay your head – it’s also a uniquely immersive way to experience India’s royal past.”
The Telegraph, my favorite newspaper travel section, just did a story on why India is being overlooked by Westerners and wrote, “Since the pandemic, there have been innumerable instances of overtourism around the globe. Increased demand to see the world has caused air fares to surge and anti-visitor protests to mushroom. But a handful of destinations have escaped the international post-Covid crowds – among them, India, where international arrivals were down almost 10 per cent compared with pre-pandemic levels in the period between January and June 2024. It’s a country that should see more global visitors than it does.”
India is the world’s most populous nation, the seventh largest in area, and ranked in the Top 10 in the world for both cultural and natural attractions by the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Development Index, yet it is 39th among world nations for tourism. That’s surprising, but a good thing for those who do make the trip.
The palace hotels Miller mentioned are stunning, but there are few (if any) other countries that can rival the overall quality of the top luxury hotels of India, a fact many travelers who have not visited are unaware of. Perceptions of widespread poverty often cloud the fact that there are several dozen hotels in India any of which might well be the nicest place you have every stayed. This feature I wrote for Forbes years ago is a bit dated, but the luxury hotel angle is even more valid than it was then.
The best-known flagship Indian hotel brands, Oberoi and Taj, are in the top tier globally, but their properties even better in India, while jaw dropping local brands like Leela do not operate outside the country. I have spent 30-years visiting the most famous and acclaimed luxury hotels all over the world, and I was blown away by the consistently exceptional quality in India, where both staffing levels and service standards are extremely high, exceptional décor and opulent finishes widespread, and food front and center. One Indian hotel general manager told me his brand would never consider expanding to the U.S., because to staff it and run it like they are used to doing would be prohibitively expensive, no matter what they charged. If you love high-end lodging, you will be blown away in India, from contemporary urban hotels to historic palaces to safari lodges to Himalayan mountain resorts.
That is all just lodging, but a big appeal of India is the cuisine, which has become popular in pretty much every corner of the globe. But it is highly regionalized, and like most distinctive cuisines, much better at the source. I know an Ivy League university executive who just returned from her first trip and told me that she was saddened by the realization of how Indian students in this country must feel given that she now knows the Indian restaurants here cannot begin to compare.
Beyond food and lodging, both exceptional, the cultural ramifications of religion permeate life in India, from dress to food to design to architecture, and while Hinduism is the biggest influence, there are healthy populations of Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam, and smaller groups of Jainism and Zoroastrianism. Buddhism also has a big impact on travelers visiting places like China, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Japan and Bhutan, but it was born in India. So was yoga, now widely practiced worldwide, but for those who love it, this is the dream place to take a class (or retreat).
As one of the biggest countries on earth, there is also incredibly diverse nature and scenery, with multiple UNESCO World Natural Heritage Sites, towering waterfalls, caves, and destinations that range from sea level world-class beach resorts such as Goa to the snowy peaks of the highest mountain range on the planet, the Himalayas, including the third highest peak on earth, Kangchenjunga, at over 28,000-feet.
Also less well known is the amazing wildlife viewing, and India is the world’s marquee safari destination after Africa, the best place on earth to see the largest (and arguably most beautiful) of all cats, Bengal tigers (tigers do not exist in Africa at all). But these stunning creatures are no one-hit wonders, and also come with a full complement of neighbors including leopards, hyenas, sloth bears, other wild cats, wild boar, crocodiles, cobras, pythons and much more. Elsewhere in India you will see plenty of elephants. Like the best luxury African safaris, lodging in and around the National Parks where you see tigers is also stunningly over the top—and just got even better.
Mega-cities are urban centers of over ten million people, and while the U.S. has two, India has six, the most popular to visit being Delhi, with its old city, and ultra-modern Mumbai. But many of the most popular tourism sites are smaller cities, including Agra (the Taj Mahal), Jaipur, Udaipur, the Lake City, and Varanasi, the spiritual epicenter of Hinduism, on the Ganges River, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on earth.
There are several new and notable hotels worth visiting, it’s not overcrowded, your dollar goes very far, the food is amazing and it’s easy to get to, with non-stop flights from several U.S. cities on American, United and Air India. These are all good reasons why you might consider planning a trip to India.
But most of all, India is one of those special places that gets its hooks in many travelers. There are plenty of “hot” tourist spots people go to because they are currently popular, like Barcelona, or were sets for shows like White Lotus, and then check off their to-do list and forget about in the search of the next shiny new place. But like Africa or Japan, India is not one the world’s many “been there, done that” destinations, it is a profoundly moving, spiritual and exotic place that greatly affects many visitors in a way that makes them return, often again and again. Whether that happens to you remains to be seen, but you won’t know until you try it. It has been several years since I last visited, and I left feeling like I had barely scratched the surface. Now the craving is back, and I am planning a return shortly. This is not lip service, it’s how I honestly feel, and I travel far more than most people, and have more choices, all around the globe.
However, India is not to be taken lightly in terms of planning a trip, and it is one of those places that you really need expert help to get the most out of, see the coolest things, safely enjoy the best food and intra-India transport, especially driving, pick the very best lodgings and especially to enjoy access to insider experiences. While the lodging in big cities and top tourist spots is beyond reproach, the story is much different in less popular and more rural locations where you really have to know your stuff.
Everyone who goes to India wants to visit the Taj Mahal, take a yoga class, eat at great restaurants, maybe take a cooking class, and/or see the tigers, but all of these things can be done superficially or in a life changing way. That’s why I have used Micato Safaris, widely regarded as the best tour operator for Africa and India (while best known for its ultra-luxury African safaris, the family that owns Micato is from India, where they have fully staffed offices, eschew the subcontractors that almost all tour operators use for full-time India-born experts, and have very deep personal connections).
Micato is the only travel company in any field to ever win one of the highest honors in the industry an unprecedented 10 times (and coming up on a likely 11th), Travel + Leisure magazine’s World’s Best Award. That’s against companies in lots of other fields and with bigger geographic scope, but there is something to be said for doing what you are good at, or in this case, great at. Just about every high-end travel agent and advisor I know swears by them, and while I have experienced a lot of the most acclaimed travel companies across the globe, from active travel to boutique cruises to all sorts of guided tours, I can say without hesitation that Micato is the best I’ve seen in any niche.
For the Telegraph’s Ultratravel magazine, UK travel writer Leslie Woit went on a bespoke Micato guided trip to India and described her upgrade to a suite in the luxury Oberoi hotel a third of a mile from the Taj Mahal. In my experience this is a common occurrence as Micato brings a lot of luxury clout to the destinations it operates in, and the best hotels fall over themselves to woo the company’s clients. But this was just the tip of her experiential iceberg and is followed by a private tour of the famous monument, guided by Dr. PBS Sengar, former director of the Archeological Survey of India, the agency that maintains the nation’s historic sites, including the Taj Mahal. As she wrote, “This sort of exclusive is—I am to discover—the standard modus operandi for Micato, whose India and Africa tours have been providing rarefied access and exclusive travel experiences for more than 50 years.”
Who wouldn’t want “rarefied access and exclusive travel experiences,” especially in a place like India? Her VIP guide leads her past a rope with a sign reading “closed,” exploring parts of the Taj Mahal almost no one sees, and she sums up her visit by noting that, “Remarkably, with up to 40,000 visitors on a busy, we don’t see another soul.”
I am the rare traveler who went to India without visiting the Taj Mahal (next trip!), but I still got to experience “rarefied access and exclusive travel experiences,” and learned firsthand how using the right company for travel can make your experience so much better. I visited the City Palace in Jaipur, a still functioning royal residence converted in large part to a museum and tourism attraction, with public and private areas. As I was walked through the complex by my Micato guide, we reached a point where there was a closed doorway manned by a guard, ushering visitors past to continue the public tour. But my guide (every single Tour Director the company employs here was born and raised in India) spoke to him, and we were quickly welcomed into the actual royal residence for tea. No one else was.
Later that trip, when I went to see the tigers in Ranthambore National Park, Micato arranged for me to meet with a filmmaker of a National Geographic crew that had lived in the park filming the tigers on and off for years, giving me much deeper and more interesting insights, which I remember fondly to this day. That, not checking off boxes, is what travel should be about.
I asked Miller what she considered the must-see attractions for first time visitors, other than the Taj Mahal and tigers, and she said, “Jaipur. In a nutshell, it’s a microcosm of everything a first-time visitor to India ought to see: A cyclone of color and texture, hustle and bustle, imaginative architecture, and, not incidentally, world-class shopping, especially if fine jewelry is your thing.” In addition to its famous pink sandstone buildings, royal palaces and palace hotels, Jaipur is a one of the world’s gem cutting capitols, and I bought my wife a pair of Tiger Eye earrings, a fitting gift given its proximity to the inhabitants of Ranthambore National Park. But when I return shortly, my dollars will buy a lot more jewelry.
I mentioned that I wanted to go see tigers again, but as I have been to Ranthambore, the most popular place for foreigners, this time Miller and her comrades steered me to new spots, telling me about two fantastic luxury Oberoi safari properties opening this year. I have had nothing but great experiences with this top-tier luxury brand, and in Ranthambore stayed at their unbelievable Vanyavilas safari resort. About to debut is the Oberoi Vindhyavilas Wildlife Resort, with 21 air-conditioned luxury tent villas, each with private garden and pool, and two non-tented villas. It sits adjacent to Bandhavgarh National Park, with the densest concentration of tigers on the planet, plus three dozen other species of mammals and 300+ bird species. Also opening this year is the Oberoi Rajgarh Palace, Khajuraho, a 200-year-old historic Maharaja’s palace adjacent to Panna National Park and Tiger Reserve, and also very close to the iconic Khajuraho temples, a UNESCO World Heritage site with a large array of 1100 year old monuments.
These new options are the kinds of thing you want to know before planning a trip to India. Micato offers both custom private travel, where every stop along the way is dialed in just for you, and several classic scheduled group departures, less pricey but still extremely luxurious (I’ve done them in Africa), using world-class hotels and with literally everything expect shopping and spa treatments included from the moment you get off the plane. These range from 13-16 days and are focused on Northen India and the international Delhi gateway. All include Agra and the Taj Mahal, plus a range of top attractions such as tigers or Udaipur, the lake city, Varanasi, and Jaipur, the pink city. If you have several travelers and want to keep things simple, you can choose one of the pre-planned group trips and take it private, or just do your own bespoke itinerary.
Micato is also one of the very few luxury tour operators that offers nothing but “guaranteed departures.” This means that if you sign up for a group trip and no one else does, you still get to go, but as a private for the same lower cost. Surprisingly, the industry norm, even among pricey companies, is to simply cancel scheduled trips if a minimum number of participants does not sign up, often leaving travelers high and dry, especially on trips like this that are planned as much as a year out—and after you’ve taken vacation, boarded your pet and bought plane tickets. After I learned this painful lesson the hard way, I wrote an entire story here at Forbes on the importance of using companies offering guaranteed departures, one of the least widely known insider tips for better travel.
For non-custom travel, they also offer several planned 4–8-day post-trip extensions, including a visit to the Indian Himalayas, an island escape in the Maldives or even Bhutan, which can only be accessed from India, Nepal or Thailand. But the one I would recommend for first time visitors is Splendors of the South, a 4-day add-on to the part of India not on the main itinerary, including Chennai, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Mahabalipuram, and Madurai and its amazing Meenakshi Temple and Thirumlai Nayak Palace.
