The West (Rajasthan & Gujarat)5 places
- JaisalmerA city of golden sandstone rising out of the Thar Desert, crowned by one of the world's few forts people still live…
- JodhpurThe "Blue City": a sea of indigo-washed houses spilling down from one of India's mightiest hill forts, Mehrangarh…
- Rann of KutchA salt marsh the size of a small country that dries each winter into a dead-flat, blinding-white plain stretching to…
- UdaipurRajasthan's romantic counterpoint to the desert cities: a white palace-city built around a chain of lakes, with a…
- Jaipur & RajasthanThe capital of Rajasthan, a planned 18th-century city painted terracotta pink, backed by hilltop forts and palaces, and…
The South (the Dravidian peninsula)5 places
- GokarnaGoa's quieter, soulful cousin down the Karnataka coast: an old Hindu pilgrimage town backed by a string of cliff-framed…
- HampiThe ruins of one of the greatest cities of the medieval world, temples and palaces scattered for miles across a surreal…
- Periyar & ThekkadyA tiger reserve in the Kerala hills where you walk rather than drive — three days on foot through the forest, sleeping…
- The Kerala BackwatersA green maze of palm-lined canals, lakes, and rice paddies along the southwest coast, where villages live on the water…
- GoaIndia's smallest state and its most famous coast: 100 km of Arabian Sea beaches, faded Portuguese churches and…
The Himalaya (Ladakh, Himachal, Uttarakhand & Sikkim)4 places
- LadakhA high-altitude cold desert on the Tibetan plateau's western edge, whitewashed gompas on ochre crags, prayer flags over…
- SikkimA tiny former Himalayan kingdom wedged between Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan, rising from subtropical valleys to…
- Spiti ValleyA cold desert valley high in Himachal, quieter and rougher than Ladakh, where whitewashed monasteries stack up on…
- Rishikesh & the Himalayan FoothillsWhere the Ganges leaves the Himalaya and runs clear and cold through a town of ashrams, yoga schools, and swaying…
The Northern Plains (Delhi & the Ganges)3 places
- Amritsar & the Golden TempleThe holiest shrine of the Sikhs: a gilded temple seeming to float on a sacred pool, ringed by white marble, open to…
- VaranasiOne of the oldest continuously lived-in cities on earth and the holiest in Hinduism, where life and death happen openly…
- The Taj Mahal, AgraA white marble tomb a grieving emperor built for his wife, so perfectly proportioned that the most photographed…
The Heartland (Madhya Pradesh)2 places
- Ajanta & Ellora CavesTwo of the greatest works of rock-cut architecture on earth: at Ajanta, a cliff of Buddhist cave-temples with…
- The Khajuraho TemplesA group of thousand-year-old Hindu and Jain temples in the middle of nowhere, their walls covered in some of the finest…
The East (Bengal & the Delta)2 places
- The Sundarbans (Indian side)The largest mangrove forest on Earth — shared with Bangladesh, which holds the bigger share — a tidal maze of channels…
- DarjeelingThe old British hill station of tea and toy trains: a town tumbling down a Himalayan ridge among the world's most…
The Northeast (the hill states)2 places
- Ziro ValleyA flat green bowl of rice paddies at 1,500 metres in Arunachal Pradesh, ringed by pine hills and farmed by the Apatani…
- Meghalaya — Living Root BridgesThe wettest inhabited place on earth, where for centuries the Khasi people have trained the roots of living fig trees…