Most of Delhi’s best days begin outside Delhi.
Whether the Taj is worth a three in the morning start. What the express train costs against a car and driver. Which Old Delhi food walk gets into Chandni Chowk before the crowds. Reviews of the tours sold out of New Delhi.
The Taj at sunrise, Old Delhi on foot, and the train that beats the traffic.
Four bookings a first Delhi week hangs off. What each costs, how early it leaves, and what the travellers who took it say.
01The city itselfOld & New Delhi City Tour – Half or Full Day Options AvailableRed Fort, Jama Masjid, Humayun’s Tomb and the lanes in between. More travellers take this one than anything else on the site.
02The three am startTaj Mahal and Agra Fort Private Sunrise TourAt the Taj gate as it opens, Agra Fort after breakfast, back in Delhi for dinner. The marble is coolest and emptiest in that first hour.
03The train optionTaj Mahal Day Tour from Delhi by Superfast Train – TOP RATED TOURAgra and back on the superfast, so neither end of the day is spent gambling on expressway traffic. Winter seats go weeks ahead.
04The Old Delhi walkThe Great Indian Food Tour: Old Delhi Food and Heritage WalkChandni Chowk with somebody who orders for you: parathas, chaat, jalebi, and the spice market floor that makes the whole street sneeze.
Agra by car, by express train, or before the sun is up.
The Taj is 230 kilometres down the Yamuna Expressway and how you cover that road decides the whole day: a car you can stop where you like, a train that takes under two hours, or a departure early enough to be at the gate when it opens.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Same Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car
At sunriseAt the gate for opening, home to Delhi by dark.
By express trainUnder two hours each way, and no expressway to gamble on.
There and back in a dayTaj, Agra Fort and the Baby Taj between two hotel doors.
A night in AgraMehtab Bagh at sunset, then the marble again at dawn.
All 171 Taj Mahal days from Delhi →
The days out of Delhi that get booked before anything else.
Every tour we have reviewed →Same-day runs to Agra, the Old and New Delhi city loop and the express-train Taj trips carry more travellers than everything else here.
1
Old & New Delhi City Tour – Half or Full Day Options Available
See Delhi with a private guide such as Vimal, Suhani, Aman, or Tabrej, depending on assignment. Choose Old Delhi, New Delhi, or both. Expect a tuk-tuk through Chandni Chowk, Jama Masjid, Humayun’s Tomb, Lotus Temple, bottled water, monument fees, and hotel or airport transfers.
From · $38
Read our review →
2
Same Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car
from $62
3
Taj Mahal Day Tour from Delhi by Superfast Train – TOP RATED TOUR
from $100
4
Full Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car
from $62
5
Taj Mahal & Agra Private Day Trip with Transfers
6
Taj Mahal Tour from Delhi by Express Train (Viator Award Winner)
from $75
7
All Inclusive Private Taj Mahal Luxury Tour from Delhi by Car
from $62
8
Same Day Taj Mahal, Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car
from $50
Old Delhi is eaten on foot. New Delhi is driven.
Chandni Chowk is a walking, tasting, cycle-rickshaw kind of morning, and no car will fit down it. The Lutyens half of the city — Humayun’s Tomb, Qutub Minar, the Lodhi gardens — is spread out enough to need a driver. Most city tours sell both halves as one long day, which is the right way to do it.
- 1Old & New Delhi City Tour – Half or Full Day Options Availablefrom $38
- 2Old & New Delhi Private Tour – Half or Full Day (Rated Excellent)from $20
- 3Old & New Delhi Full or Half Day Sightseeing Tourfrom $24
The Golden Triangle, and how many nights it really needs.
Every circuit from Delhi →
Three days is the standard sell and it is tight: Agra on the first, the long road west on the second, Amber Fort and the pink city on the third. A fourth night puts Ranthambore’s tigers within reach, and after that you are into Rajasthan proper.
Agra, Jaipur, and the city most people give one afternoon.
Marble at Agra, a fort above the pink city three hours further west, and a capital with two Mughal capitals buried inside it. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
What a day out of Delhi actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A guided morning in Old Delhi costs less than lunch at the hotel; a private car to Agra and back is the number most Delhi budgets get built around.
Old Delhi food walks, rickshaw mornings, monument entries and the shared runs down to Agra.
The standard Agra day by private car, the express-train Taj trips and the long full-day city tours.
Three- and four-day Golden Triangle circuits, tiger safaris, and a car with a guide held for a whole week.
The Taj opens at sunrise, and that is the hour worth losing sleep over.
The gates go up twenty minutes before sunrise. For the first hour the marble turns from grey to pink to white, the coach parties are still somewhere on the expressway, and the forecourt is quiet enough to hear parakeets over the river. Cars leave Delhi around three; no train runs that early.
Three things that happen in Delhi and nowhere else.
Street food and old stone belong to every big city. A wholesale chilli market that floors visitors in a minute, a lane you can only enter by cycle rickshaw, and a temple that closes the day with a fountain show do not.
The spice market that makes you sneeze
Asia’s largest wholesale spice market has worked out of the same lanes at the western end of Chandni Chowk since the seventeenth century. Sacks of dried red chilli are opened, weighed and re-bagged on the floor all morning, and the dust that comes off them takes down most first-timers inside a minute. Guides know which stairway leads up to a rooftop where you can stop coughing and look at the whole thing from above.
- 1Old Delhi Street Food Tour – Explore Spices in Chandni Chowk★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 334 reviews
- 2Old Delhi Food-Spice Market-Temples Tour Soon Featured on NETFLIX★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 304 reviews
- 3Chandni Chowk Delhi Food Tour with 15+ Tastings★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 285 reviews
Old Delhi at cycle-rickshaw pace
The lanes off the main bazaar are too narrow for a car and too long to walk in May, which is why the cycle rickshaw is still the working transport here rather than a novelty. You go through the wedding-card street, the silver market and the low tangle of wiring overhead at not much above walking speed, a foot higher than everyone else, which turns out to be exactly the right height to see it from.
- 1Old Delhi Food, Heritage&Cultural Walk with Rickshaw ride to Masterji Kee Haveli★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 742 reviews
- 2Delhi Food Walk: Rickshaw Ride, Street Eats & Market Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 401 reviews
- 33-hour Old Delhi Heritage Walking tour with Rickshaw Ride★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 240 reviews
The Akshardham fountain show
The temple complex on the east bank of the Yamuna is carved out of pink Rajasthani sandstone with no steel in it anywhere, and it ends its day with a musical fountain and light show in a court shaped like a stepwell. Phones and cameras have to be left at the gate, so nobody in the audience is filming it, and that is a large part of why the thing works.
- 1Akshardham Evening & Morning tour exhibition water fountain Show★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 49 reviews
- 2Akshardham Light & Fountain Show with Pick-up & Drop-off★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 35 reviews
- 3Akshardham Temple Tour Exhibition, Light & Water Show with Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 29 reviews
Four Delhi bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be arranged the night before over a thali. These four run on closing days, train quotas and a park season that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Sunrise Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by CarThe Taj is shut to visitors every Friday, and in the cool months the sunrise slots are the first tickets to go.
- 02Taj Mahal & Agra Tour by Gatimaan Express TrainOne useful pair of fast trains covers Delhi to Agra and back in a day. The tourist quota on them clears weeks ahead in winter.
- 03Private 4-Day Golden Triangle Tour with Ranthambore Tiger SafariSafari zones are allotted in advance by ballot, and the park shuts through the monsoon from roughly July to September.
- 043-Days Private Golden Triangle Tour: Delhi, Agra & Jaipur by CarA three-day circuit means one driver and two hotel nights held together across three cities. That is not a next-morning arrangement.
Delhi passes 45°C in June, and then the monsoon lands on it.
From late April the middle of the day is unusable: an open monument turns into a griddle by eleven and the pre-dawn start stops being optional. July to September trades the heat for warm rain, flooded underpasses and a city that smells of wet dust. Both have the same answer. Be out before nine, then get under a roof, into a kitchen, a temple hall or an air-conditioned bazaar.
By where the day ends up
By kind of day — marble, market, kitchen or road
Delhi, Agra, Jaipur: the week almost everybody does first.
The newest reviews from Delhi and Agra.
The rest of the new ones →
Evening tour of Agra city with Sunset Taj Mahal & Agra Fort
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Same Day Sariska National Park Tour with Tiger Safari
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