India
India33 guides across 7 destinations — where to go, when, what it costs and what to eat.
Destinations in India
Practical essentials for India
Indian rupee (INR)
Hindi and English are the Union's official languages alongside 22 scheduled languages; English is widely used in cities and tourism.
Type C/D/M, 230V 50Hz
Indian Railways links the cities and Delhi, Mumbai and Jaipur have metros with their own smart cards and QR tickets; in town it is app taxis and auto-rickshaws.
Not obligatory but common — round the bill up or leave 5–10% where no service charge appears, and small notes for porters and drivers.
Tap water is not safe to drink — use sealed bottled or properly filtered water and avoid ice from unknown sources.
Left-hand side; the 1949 International Driving Permit is required alongside your national licence.
112 (unified); 100 police, 108 ambulance, 101 fire
Country-level guidance, checked against official sources. Currency, fares and entry rules change — confirm anything time-critical before you travel.
Recent stories from India
Green Udaipur: gardens, lakesides and easy escapes
Udaipur's quieter genius is green: queens' pleasure gardens, a lakeside promenade, hillside terraces and a ridge sanctuary of dry forest — and the hours, seasons and short drives that make each of them work.
Boutique or Grand: How to Choose a Goa Hotel
A fort-topped headland resort in the north, a Portuguese townhouse in Panaji or a palm-shaded estate in the south. Goa hotels split by character, not just price.
Three Days in Mumbai, and What a Fourth Buys You
Mumbai is a peninsula rather than a grid, so the only itinerary that survives contact with the traffic is one that moves in a single direction, and here is that route day by day.
Jaipur’s Most Photogenic Corners, Ranked
The Pink City rewards a camera more generously than almost anywhere in India. Eight places worth planning your light around, ranked by what they give back.
In Goa, the Good Second Day Starts at a Ferry Slip
The beach belt is only about four kilometres deep, and behind it sit tidal islands, ancestral houses you can eat lunch inside, a twelfth-century temple nobody got around to destroying, and prehistoric carvings in a riverbed.
Which Delhi Do You Want to Wake Up In?
Delhi is several cities stacked on one map, and the neighbourhood you book decides which one you actually get to live in - here is how that choice plays out at a backpacker's budget, a comfortable middle, and the top end.
Cheap Eats in Varanasi That Outperform Their Price Tag
Varanasi's old-city lanes hold one of India's great vegetarian street-food cultures - here is what to eat, in what order, what it costs, and when in the year it actually works.
Monsoon in Jaipur? The All-Indoor Day Plan
When the monsoon breaks over the Pink City the forts and the observatory are a write-off, but Jaipur's arcaded bazaars, palace galleries and museums make a full day that barely needs an umbrella.
A Hungry Traveller's Map of Goa, Village by Village
Goa's food changes every few kilometres — wood-fired bakeries in Panjim's Latin Quarter, fish thalis in a plain Assagao village room, chef-led kitchens set back from the north beaches and the shacks on the sand — so here is where to eat and exactly what to order in each.
The Varanasi Neighborhoods Most Visitors Never See
Past the Dashashwamedh corridor lie the quarters where Varanasi actually lives: the scholars' lanes of Bengali Tola, the looms of Madanpura, the wrestling pits below Tulsi Ghat, and the fort and the stupa across the water.
Pink City or Leafy Grid? Where to Stay in Jaipur
Jaipur splits neatly between the walled old city and the calmer districts around it — including some of India’s most famous palace hotels. A first-timer’s guide to choosing.
The Ganges Runs North Here. Plan Varanasi in the Same Direction.
The river bends north past Varanasi and its ghats are counted in the same direction, from Assi in the south to the city's newest riverfront in the north: a four-day route built to follow that line.