a month in rajasthan with children

We are an Australian family of 4 (2 children aged 6 and 8) planning a month in Rajasthan from Xmas 2007 to late January 2008. This is our 3rd trip to India but first with kids.

We are flying in and out of Delhi, and would like to travel to Jaipur, Agra, Ranthambore, Jodhpur, Bundi, Jaisalmer and Udaipur.

Can anyone recommend a reliable travel agent who could design a ground itinerary for us (accommodation and transport)? As it will be peak season, I would prefer to book everything in advance, and none of the small group travel companies offer family trips that cover all these places at a relaxed pace. We want to avoid long road trips, and would prefer to stay in places for 3-4 nights rather than moving constantly.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions about child friendly places to stay or things to do in Rajasthan, that would be great.

I will also post this in the kids thread.

Thanks very much.

you don't want to pre-book. you are going to get ripped off. even though it is peak season, you can almost always find accommodation in these cities. you're probably best off looking for recommendations on car hire. once you find a suitable agency to give you a good car and driver you can plan your trip to your looking covering the distance at your own pace.

you should also cover Bikaner and the shekawati region. its more rural but quite interesting.

happy travelling

pallav

http://purnea.ee.princeton.edu/~pgupta

Hi

You may consider travelling Delhi - 3 nights - Mandawa - 2 nights - bikaner 2 nights - jaisalmer 3 nights - jodhpur - 2 nights - ranakpur - 1 night - kumbhalgarh - 1 night - Udaipur - 3 nights - Chittorgarh 1 night - Bundi - 2 nights - Ranthambore - 3 nights - Jaipur - 3 nights - Agra - 2 nights and back to Delhi. Between Jaipur and Agra you may like to stay one night at Bharatpur bird sanctuary.

This will not rushing especially with the children. Regarding reliable tour operator - I can recommend Discovery Full Circle Tours based in New Delhi which I have used a number of times now and always found very reliable and reasonable. Their email is mktg@discoveryfullcircle.com if you like to write to them.

good luck
tinoo

If you do not pre-book for the Xmas/New Years period, you will not get good hotels. Hotels have fixed rates displayed on their websites, so there no question of a rip-off. Yes, rates during this period are the highest. You need to find a tour operator with good and safe drivers. Id recommend you work with any of these tour operators (who are all members of the Rajasthan Association of Tour Operators) and who own their own transport and have drivers with long experience and safe hands -
Aravali Safari & Tours aravali2@datainfosys.net , Le Passage to India Jaipur@lepassagetoindia.net , Rainbow Travels (I) Pvt. Ltd. rainbowj@satyam.net.in, Rajasthan Tours P. Ltd. rajtours@sancharnet.in, Registhan Tours Pvt. Ltd. regitour@datainfosys.net, TGS Tours & Travels P. Ltd. tgsjai@gmail.com, VNV Travel Plan Pvt. Ltd. tplanjai@datainfosys.net

With so much time in hand, you could book train travel and hotels yourself, online, in advance, if you are willing to do a lot of research: reading the guidebook thoroughly; checking hotel reviews web sites; and grappling with the Indian Railways web site. The site has improved recently, e.g. you can print some journey tickets yourself rather than having them delivered, and journeys can now be booked 3 months in advance, not 2.
Trainfinder at indiagroove.com is an excellent supplement to the railways site as it is better designed and easier to find information and timetables.
Not all rail journeys need to be booked in advance, e.g. shorter day journeys. Advance booking is more important for major overnight journeys. This is worth noting because the railways restrict you to 4 online bookings a month (although of course you can create different user names).
Car hire would be easy enough to arrange on the ground. There's just been a very useful posting on the subject called Taxies (sic) in India.
Figure out your itinerary in the calendar of Microsoft Outlook, then print copies for reference. (You can create more than one calendar, just as you can create different folders. If in doubt, see Crabby Office Lady on the Microsoft site.)
LP has (used to have) a guide to Rajasthan (which also included Delhi). Look in secondhand bookshops. My copy was published in 2002, so obviously it would be dated, but still useful for basic information and easier to manage than the Brick. They might even bring out a new edition if we all plead with them.

You might want to consider a Rajasthan trip my wife and I took in Nov/Dec 2003, described and illustrated in Our Travel Journals website: www.evcal.org</a><BR>

Hi, i would suggest and recommed to check at www.fourwheeldriveindia.com as we are using them to provide car rental services to our foreign visitors and all impressed with their services. Drivers are well trained in Defensive Driving as the driector of company is trained instructor for Driving Training and even their fleet fitted with GPS Tracking System.

Good Luck,

We are heading for the same area December 14th 07 to January 14th 08 with one 6 year old (also Australians) so would be interested in same information as we go along. Have already got the flights booked and paid for in and out of Delhi, now we just need to get the in-country stuff sorted a bit. OP will PM you and we can trade stories and advice received/obtained if you are interested.

Thanks in advance for any advice received on the forum

Thanks everyone for your helpful responses to this thread.
Much appreciated.

this one does excellent arrangements
You can also study a rajasthan map and then suggest an iterenary and she will help you re-plan and correspond over the net

Try this one .They are registered travel/tour operators.
You can mention my name Jayanthy from Muscat

varsha@compasstours.com

She did our rajasthan trip so beautifully
Even send a second car when the first one gave AC trouble.
Also, U need to do al ittle groundwork.
like plan the places and the number of days depending on what ur interests are.
She will do all internal bookings and car hire
I would recommend you to do a delhi,alwar, bharatpur,sawai modhopur(rathanbhore), ajmer,Pushkar(the pushkar fair is in nov this year ;its very good;she can book you in tents),ranakpur(nathwada temples),chittorgarh,jaipur( make yr routing seeing a map;I am forgetting teh distances and the locations) You can well skip Udaipur becos thers nothing there..then from jaipur u take a train to Jodhpur and then to jaisalmer (if u want do Bikaner ,theres nothing there).From jaisalmer u can fly out

Hioep this was helpful

She will help u with all bookings and a tourist cab will meet u at teh train stations.

You need to pre book via the internet portals as it is peak time for travel especially with Xmas and New year. Try makemytrip.com; they have some excellent deals and can do tailor made packages too.