India Gate & Humayun's Tomb (Delhi)
Mughal grandeur and leafy boulevards.
Delhi & Jaipur in pictures
Delhi & Jaipur
Where the family came from
Destinations › Asia › Delhi & Jaipur
India's capital and the pink city of Jaipur make a classic first trip — Mughal monuments, Rajput forts and some of the best food anywhere. The Delhi–Jaipur leg is best by train.
Fly from Toronto to Delhi (usually one stop). For Delhi to Jaipur, the train is the way — book it on IRCTC (there's no international API, so book direct).
The Delhi Metro is excellent and cheap; use app cabs (Uber/Ola) for door-to-door. In Jaipur, autos and app cabs cover the old city.
Mughal grandeur and leafy boulevards.
The pink city's palace façade and hilltop fort.
Chandni Chowk's legendary street food.
Agra is an easy add-on by train.
The white colonnaded circle at the middle of Lutyens' Delhi. Not charming - it's a business district - but it is the most practical first-timer base in the city: Rajiv Chowk is the metro's main interchange, New Delhi railway station is close for the Jaipur train, and the Airport Express runs straight in. Pavements are wide and mostly flat by Delhi standards. Just south of the station is Paharganj, the cheap backpacker strip: convenient for trains, but crowded, chaotic and thick with touts. Don't put visiting parents there.
Leafier, quieter, better everyday food, and where a lot of GTA families with Delhi relatives actually end up staying. Well served by the Yellow, Magenta and Violet metro lines and close to Qutb Minar and the Mehrauli ruins. The trade-off is distance: Old Delhi is a long run north, and in rush hour that can be an hour each way.
Inside the old city walls, which means you're sleeping in the middle of the thing you came to see: Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Johari Bazaar jewellery lanes are all on foot. The Jaipur Metro's Pink Line runs into the walled city at Chandpole, Chhoti Chaupar and Badi Chaupar, which is genuinely useful. It is also loud, dense and full of traffic and hawkers from early morning. Light sleepers should think twice.
The calm alternative, ten to twenty minutes' drive from the old city. Wide tree-lined streets, converted haveli hotels, room to breathe, and enough restaurants that you don't have to go into the old city every evening. Bani Park in particular is full of family-run heritage guesthouses. This is the Jaipur base for anyone travelling with elderly parents or young children.
The densest eating in India, and best walked rather than planned. Paranthe Wali Gali is a lane of shops doing nothing but stuffed griddled parathas. Around Jama Masjid and down Matia Mahal you get kebabs, nihari and korma. Khari Baoli, at the western end of Chandni Chowk near Fatehpuri Masjid, is Asia's largest wholesale spice market and worth it for the smell alone. Go hungry, eat where there's a local queue and visible turnover, and skip anything sitting out.
Delhi's own snack canon - crisp fried things drowned in yoghurt, tamarind and chutney. Chandni Chowk, Karol Bagh and the Lajpat Nagar market are the classic hunting grounds. Dilli Haat at INA is the easy version: a permanent open-air crafts market where Indian states run food stalls, so you can eat Bengali, Kashmiri and Naga food in one afternoon. Cleaner, calmer and much less intimidating with parents in tow.
Baked wheat dough balls, cracked open and soaked in ghee, eaten with lentils and a sweet crumbled churma. It is heavy, it is regional, and it's the thing to eat in Jaipur. A full Rajasthani thali brings it alongside gatte ki sabzi and ker sangri - desert cooking built around ingredients that keep, because historically fresh vegetables didn't. Order it at lunch, not dinner.
Pyaaz kachori - a fat fried pastry stuffed with spiced onion - is the Jaipur breakfast, best around Johari Bazaar and the MI Road side. Mirchi vada is its chilli cousin. Ghewar, a honeycombed disc soaked in syrup, is a monsoon and Teej festival sweet. And lassi comes in unglazed clay kulhads around Chandpole that you smash when you're done. All cash, and all better than your hotel breakfast.
Old Delhi. Take the Yellow Line to Chandni Chowk rather than driving - the roads in there are a car park. Walk to Jama Masjid (a big flight of steps up to the gate, and you go barefoot on stone that gets scorching by midday), then into the lanes for parathas, then west to the Khari Baoli spice market. Hire a cycle-rickshaw for the lane section; it's the only civilised way through the crush and the rider knows the shortcuts. Red Fort is a short ride east if you still have energy.
Taxi or Uber south to Humayun's Tomb - the first great Mughal garden tomb on the subcontinent, and the model that Mughal royal mausolea followed all the way to the Taj. It is also a much calmer experience than anything in Old Delhi: broad flat paths, big lawns, good light late in the day. Walk or ride over to the Nizamuddin area, then finish at Lodhi Garden at dusk, where the whole of South Delhi comes out to walk.
Kartavya Path and the ceremonial centre - India Gate at one end, Rashtrapati Bhavan at the other, with a long flat processional avenue between. It is exposed and there's no shade, so do it early or skip it outright between April and June. The National Museum is a short hop and is properly good on the Indus Valley and Mughal miniatures - but check it's open and where its collection currently sits, because a relocation has been in the works for years.
Yellow Line to Qutab Minar station, then an auto to the Qutb Minar complex - a red and grey sandstone tower begun in 1199 and finished around 1220, standing in a UNESCO-listed field of ruins with the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the Iron Pillar. The Mehrauli Archaeological Park is next door and has almost nobody in it. Finish in Hauz Khas: a village of shops and restaurants wrapped around a medieval reservoir and tomb complex.
Train to Jaipur. Reserved air-conditioned services in the Shatabdi and Vande Bharat class do the run and are far better than the road - a proper seat, food brought to you, and no traffic. Book on IRCTC well ahead, and check the departure station printed on your ticket rather than assuming: Delhi has several main terminals, and not every Jaipur-bound fast train leaves from New Delhi station - some use Delhi Cantonment or Hazrat Nizamuddin. Arrive and spend the afternoon at the City Palace and Jantar Mantar's oversized stone astronomical instruments, both in the walled city, then see Hawa Mahal from the street opposite in the late golden light when the pink sandstone actually glows.
Amer Fort, and get there when it opens - the coach parties arrive mid-morning and the courtyards fill fast. It's a steep approach: a narrow road climbs to the Suraj Pol gate and jeeps run up it, which is now considered the ethical choice given the welfare problems documented with the elephant rides. Come down via Jal Mahal sitting out in its lake, and finish at Nahargarh Fort on the ridge at sunset for the view over the whole city.
The obvious one, and genuinely doable in a day from Delhi by fast train from Hazrat Nizamuddin, or by road on the Yamuna Expressway. It also works as a stop between Jaipur and Delhi if you're looping. Two things to plan around: the Taj is closed to tourists on Fridays, and polluting vehicles can't approach the monument, so from the designated parking areas you either walk or take an electric bus. Add Agra Fort while you're there - most people skip it and shouldn't.
Roughly two and a half to three hours west by road. Pushkar is a small lake town wrapped in ghats and temples, including one of the very few temples anywhere dedicated to Brahma, and meat, fish, eggs and alcohol are all banned in the town. Ajmer is about ten kilometres away and has the Dargah Sharif, one of the most important Sufi shrines in South Asia. A long day and a full one, but it shows you a completely different register of Rajasthan from Jaipur's palaces.
A hill fort-palace restored and terraced into the hillside, sitting on the main Delhi-Jaipur highway - though be clear it is not the midpoint: it's a good deal closer to Delhi than to Jaipur, roughly 117 km from New Delhi against 155 km from Jaipur. Half of Delhi drives out for the day. It works best as a deliberate stop on the road transfer rather than a there-and-back, and it breaks up a drive that is otherwise unrewarding. Be aware the fort is built in tiers - lots of steps, no lifts.
Delhi splits sharply into things that are easy and things that are genuinely hard, and knowing which is which is the difference between a good trip with your parents and a punishing one. The easy part is the metro. It's air-conditioned, cheap, enormous - ten colour-coded lines, 271 stations and around 374 km of route - and signed and announced in both Hindi and English. Most stations have lifts and escalators, though it's worth confirming for your specific station rather than assuming, and there is reserved seating. The first coach of every train is reserved for women, which matters given that the Government of Canada explicitly notes foreign women are often the target of unwanted attention in India and advises being extremely vigilant on public transport, taxis and auto-rickshaws. Every station entrance has airport-style security screening with separate queues for men and women, so add a few minutes at each end. On the Airport Express, the run between IGI and New Delhi station takes only about a quarter of an hour of actual travel since the line's speed was raised, with trains roughly every ten minutes, and it is a far better arrival than negotiating with the taxi touts. The hard part is everything between the metro station and the monument. Delhi pavements are broken, parked on, or simply absent; crossings are informal; traffic does not stop for you. A wheelchair or a stroller on a Delhi street is a real struggle, and even a steady eighty-year-old will find it exhausting. Budget for autos and Ubers door to door and accept the cost. Air quality is the one to take seriously. Delhi's pollution is at its worst in winter - roughly November to January - and it is not a background irritation but a genuine health risk for anyone with asthma, COPD or heart disease. If you're bringing a parent with a respiratory condition, avoid those months or plan for indoor days and N95 masks. The alternative problem is heat: April to June regularly clears 40C, and the monsoon from June to September brings flooding. October, and February to March, are the sweet spot. Sight by sight: Humayun's Tomb, India Gate and Kartavya Path, Lodhi Garden and Dilli Haat are broad, flat and manageable. The Qutb complex grounds are level but the old paving is uneven. Red Fort involves a lot of walking. Jama Masjid means a steep flight of steps and bare feet on hot stone. In Jaipur, the Pink Line metro to Chandpole or Badi Chaupar drops you inside the walled city, which helps enormously, and City Palace is relatively flat. Amer Fort is not - it is laid out on four levels, each with its own courtyard, plus six sections each with their own gate and courtyard, all on top of a steep approach from the road. You can jeep up to the Suraj Pol gate but the inside is not step-free. Be honest with whoever you're travelling with before you commit to it. Practical wins: request airport wheelchair assistance when you book rather than on the day. Indian Railways can arrange station wheelchair assistance if you ask ahead, and a reserved air-conditioned chair car on a Delhi-Jaipur fast train is a far gentler morning than the highway. Finally, brief everyone before you land. Tap water is not drinkable anywhere - sealed bottles only, check the seal, skip ice from carts, skip pre-cut fruit and anything raw that's been rinsed. Travellers' diarrhoea is the default illness, so pack what you'd want at 2am rather than hunting for a pharmacy. And run through the standard scripts: the 'your hotel has closed, let me take you to a better one' routine; taxi drivers at IGI who aren't from the prepaid counter or an app; and the gem, jewel and carpet export scam the Government of Canada specifically flags, where someone - often a taxi driver - offers you a lucrative deal to carry goods out of the country. The answer to all three is a flat no and keep walking.
Indian rupee. Cards are fine in hotels, malls, chain restaurants and most sit-down places. Autos, cycle-rickshaws, markets, street food, temple shoe-minders and tips are all cash. Day-to-day India now runs on UPI QR codes, but that generally needs an Indian bank account - some visitor and prepaid options exist, but don't build your trip around them. Carry cash, and hoard small notes, because nobody ever has change.
Not obligatory, but normal and appreciated. Rounding up the bill in restaurants is standard - though check first, because a lot of mid-range and upmarket places already add a service charge, and you're not required to pay more on top of it. Small notes for porters, hotel housekeeping, and a driver who's had you out all day. Hand it over directly rather than leaving it on a table.
230 volts, 50 hertz. Plug types D and M - three large round pins in a triangle, D for normal appliances and M for heavy ones - and most sockets are hybrids that also accept the round two-pin type C. A Canadian flat two-pin will not fit anything, so bring a universal adapter. Because the mains is roughly double Canada's, only plug in dual-voltage gear. Power cuts and voltage dips are common; a surge-protected adapter and a power bank are worth the space.
Not safe to drink in Delhi or Jaipur, full stop, including in good hotels. Sealed bottled water only and check the cap seal is intact. Avoid ice from street carts, salads and pre-cut fruit that have been washed in tap water, and juices topped up with water. Freshly cooked, piping hot street food from a stall with a long queue is generally a safer bet than a quiet air-conditioned restaurant with slow turnover.
Hindi and English are both official and English gets you a very long way - signage, metro announcements, hotels, restaurants and anyone in the tourism trade. You will genuinely not need Hindi. In Jaipur's markets you'll also hear Rajasthani and Marwari. That said, 'namaste' and 'dhanyavaad' cost nothing and are noticed, and a bit of Hindi or Punjabi from a GTA traveller usually gets a warm reaction.
The Government of Canada advises a high degree of caution throughout India because of the threat of terrorism, and separately advises avoiding all travel to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir - relevant if relatives suggest adding it on. In Delhi and Jaipur the risk is mostly commercial: pickpocketing in crowds, and a well-practised set of scams. Use only the official prepaid taxi counter or a ride-hailing app at IGI, and elsewhere agree the fare first or insist on the meter. Treat any unsolicited offer involving gemstones, jewellery or carpets - especially one where someone offers to pay you to carry them home - as a scam, because the advisory says it is one. And take the women-only metro coach; it exists for good reason.
October to March is cool and comfortable; summers are very hot and the monsoon runs July–September.
Compare the ways to get there, then build a day-by-day plan.
Fly from Toronto to Delhi (usually one stop). For Delhi to Jaipur, the train is the way — book it on IRCTC (there's no international API, so book direct).
The Delhi Metro is excellent and cheap; use app cabs (Uber/Ola) for door-to-door. In Jaipur, autos and app cabs cover the old city.
October to March is cool and comfortable; summers are very hot and the monsoon runs July–September.