Attractions
The things worth booking.
The monuments, museums, viewpoints and day trips that people build an India trip around, from the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort to backwater houseboats and the Wagah border ceremony.
For each one we tell you how it is really booked (timed entry, advance only, a tour with a passport check, or just turn up) and give you a booking button wherever we have a partner link; where we do not, the card says how to book it, or that entry is free.
Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Palace
The basalt arch on the Apollo Bunder waterfront, built for a royal landing and now the city's front door: the Taj Mahal Palace beside it, the harbour in front, and the boats to Elephanta leaving from the steps.
How to book: Free to visit, and the square is open around the clock. The harbour boats to Elephanta are ticketed at the jetty; the monument itself needs no booking.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookElephanta Caves
The rock-cut cave temples on Elephanta Island, an hour by boat from the Gateway: the great Trimurti Shiva in the main cave and a UNESCO-listed complex in the harbour's green hills.
How to book: Ferry tickets at the Gateway jetty, then the island entry ticket at the top of the steps. Boats run from about 9am; the last return is in the early evening. Closed Mondays.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookChhatrapati Shivaji Terminus and the Art Deco Quarter
The UNESCO-listed Gothic railway cathedral, still the city's busiest station, and the Art Deco apartment blocks of Marine Drive and Oval Maidan a short walk away: two World Heritage inscriptions in one stroll.
How to book: Free to look; the station is a working railway building, so admire the interior from the concourses. Guided heritage walks of the quarter are bookable through local operators.
Sanjay Gandhi National Park and the Kanheri Caves
A full forest inside the city limits in Borivali: leopards in the wild, the lion and tiger safari, and the Kanheri Caves, over a hundred Buddhist rock-cut caves in the hills.
How to book: Park and cave entry tickets at the gate; the safari is ticketed inside. Go early for the caves and the cool of the morning.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookMarine Drive and Chowpatty
The Queen's Necklace: three kilometres of Art Deco seafront from Nariman Point to Girgaon Chowpatty, made for the sunset hour, with the city's street food at the beach end.
How to book: Free, public and at its best from late afternoon. No booking of any kind; just walk it.
Bollywood Studio Tour
Inside a working Mumbai film studio: standing sets, costume and editing rooms, a live dance show, and the machinery behind the world's biggest film industry by output.
How to book: Booked as a half-day studio experience on Klook, with set tours running through the day; carry photo ID for studio security.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookDharavi Walking Tour
One of Asia's largest informal settlements and one of its hardest-working: pottery, leather, recycling and textiles in a warren of small workshops, seen on foot with a local guide.
How to book: Guided walks only, in small groups, booked on Klook; tours run morning and afternoon from set meeting points, and photography follows the guide's rules.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookRed Fort
The red sandstone citadel of Shah Jahan, seat of the Mughal emperors for two centuries: audience halls, royal baths and gardens inside walls two kilometres long, facing the bazaars of Chandni Chowk.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Closed Mondays. The light and sound show runs on some evenings in season.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookQutub Minar
The 73 metre victory tower begun in 1193, the tallest brick minaret in the world, standing in a complex of early Sultanate tombs, mosques and the rust-free Iron Pillar.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Open daily from sunrise to sunset.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookHumayun's Tomb
The first great garden tomb of India, built in the 1570s and the direct model for the Taj Mahal: red sandstone and white marble at the centre of charbagh gardens on the Yamuna plain.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Open daily; go early or late for the softest light.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookIndia Gate
The 42 metre war memorial arch at the heart of New Delhi, with the Amar Jawan flame, lawns running down to the boat club, and the ceremonial axis of Kartavya Path in both directions.
How to book: Free and open around the clock. Every Old and New Delhi day tour on Klook stops here; the lawns are busiest and best in the evening.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookLotus Temple
The Baha'i house of worship of 27 marble petals, open to every faith and to silence: no sermons, no rituals, just one soaring prayer hall in its gardens and pools.
How to book: Entry is free and no ticket exists; the temple is a headline stop on Klook's Old and New Delhi day tours. Closed Mondays.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookAkshardham Temple
The vast pink sandstone temple complex on the Yamuna bank, carved by thousands of artisans and opened in 2005: mandir, exhibitions, gardens and a musical fountain show after dark.
How to book: The temple itself is free; the exhibitions and the evening water show are ticketed, and Klook sells a tour with the show included. Closed Mondays, and phones and cameras stay outside.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookNational Museum, New Delhi
Five thousand years in one building on Janpath: Harappan seals, Gandhara sculpture, Mughal miniatures, royal arms and a famous hall of textiles, two minutes from India Gate.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook and at the door. Allow half a day; the audio guide is worth taking.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookTaj Mahal
Shah Jahan's white marble mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal, the most famous building in India and best seen as the light changes: pink at dawn, white at noon, gold at dusk.
How to book: Timed entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and skip-the-line tours run from Agra and Delhi. Closed on Fridays. Sunrise entry is the quietest of the day.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookAgra Fort
The red sandstone palace-city of Akbar and Shah Jahan: audience halls, the marble Khas Mahal, and the tower room where the imprisoned Shah Jahan watched the Taj Mahal across the river.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Open daily from sunrise to sunset.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookItimad-ud-Daulah, the Baby Taj
The tomb that taught the Taj its craft: a small marble jewel box inlaid with pietra dura, built in the 1620s for Nur Jahan's father, in gardens on the east bank of the Yamuna.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Far quieter than the Taj itself, and often paired with it in one morning.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookFatehpur Sikri
Akbar's red sandstone capital, built in the 1570s and abandoned within fifteen years: the Buland Darwaza gateway, the great mosque, palace courtyards and the tomb of Salim Chishti, preserved almost intact.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide. The site sits about 40 kilometres from Agra and is usually visited as a half-day trip from the city.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookAmber Fort
The great hilltop palace-fort of the Kachhwaha rajas, above Maota Lake: the mirrored Sheesh Mahal, painted gateways and ramparts that run over the ridges like a smaller Great Wall.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Open daily; arrive before the tour buses for the courtyards in peace.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookHawa Mahal
The palace of winds of 1799: a five-storey pink facade of 953 latticed windows, built so the royal women could watch the bazaar below unseen, and now Jaipur's defining image.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the door. The museum inside climbs to a ramped top floor with the city's best old-town view.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookJantar Mantar, Jaipur
Sawai Jai Singh's observatory of giant masonry instruments, the largest of his five across India: a 27 metre sundial that reads time to two seconds, built in the 1730s and still accurate.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide. Open daily; a guide makes the instruments legible and is worth the small fee.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookCity Palace Jaipur
The palace complex at the old city's heart, part museum and part royal residence: the four seasonal doors of the Pritam Niwas courtyard, the armoury, the textile gallery and the Chandra Mahal beyond.
How to book: Museum entry is ticketed at the gate; the palace is a headline stop on Klook's full-day Jaipur tours, which pair it with Amber Fort, the Hawa Mahal and the Jantar Mantar.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookCity Palace Udaipur
Rajasthan's largest palace complex, built over four centuries along the lake shore: mirrored courtyards, the Mor Chowk peacock mosaics, and terraces that look straight down Pichola to the Taj Lake Palace.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Open daily; pair it with the boat ride below in one visit.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookLake Pichola Boat Ride
The water the city is built around: an hour's circuit past the ghats and havelis to Jag Mandir island, with the City Palace on one side and the Aravalli hills behind.
How to book: Boat tickets are sold at the City Palace jetty and bundled into Klook's Udaipur city tours. The sunset sailing is the one everyone wants; book it ahead in season.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookGolden Temple, Amritsar
Sri Harmandir Sahib: the gold-leafed sanctum on its holy pool, the Guru Granth Sahib sung through the day, and the langar kitchen serving a hot meal to anyone who sits down, tens of thousands daily.
How to book: Entry is free, and the temple is open almost around the clock. Klook's guided Amritsar tours pair it with Jallianwala Bagh and the Wagah ceremony; cover your head and wash your feet at the entrance, as everyone does.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookWagah Border Ceremony
The Beating Retreat at the India and Pakistan border: rival guards in peacock headgear high-stepping and slamming the gates as the flags come down, with stadium stands on both sides roaring them on.
How to book: The ceremony is free but seats fill fast; Klook sells the trip from Amritsar with transport and dinner, and it is the version most visitors take. It runs every afternoon, earlier in winter.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookPartition Museum
The only museum in the world devoted to the Partition of 1947, in Amritsar's old Town Hall: oral histories, refugee camp photographs, and the objects families carried across the new border.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook and at the door. Give it a slow hour; it pairs naturally with the Golden Temple a short walk away.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookVaranasi Sunrise Boat Ride
The classic Varanasi hour: a rowing boat out before dawn from the ghats, pilgrims bathing and praying as the sun rises over the far bank, the cremation ghats and temples sliding past in silence.
How to book: Booked as an early tour on Klook, usually with hotel pickup and the Ganga Aarti; private boats can also be arranged at the ghats the evening before. The evening aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat is the same city's other anchor.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookVictoria Memorial, Kolkata
The vast white marble memorial of 1921 at the Maidan's southern end, part monument and part museum of the Raj: paintings, manuscripts and the royal gallery in gardens of lawns and lakes.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. The museum is closed on Mondays; the gardens open daily and are a morning institution.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookIndian Museum, Kolkata
Founded in 1814 and still India's largest museum: an Egyptian mummy, Ashokan lions, Gandhara and Pala sculpture, and whole galleries of textiles, masks and Mughal painting in a Chowringhee palazzo.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the door. Allow at least half a day, and start with the archaeology galleries.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookSabarmati Ashram
Gandhi's home from 1917 to 1930 and the base from which the Dandi March set out: his cottage Hriday Kunj, the prayer ground, and a calm museum on the west bank of the Sabarmati river.
How to book: Entry is free. The ashram opens Klook's full-day Ahmedabad tour, which runs on through the old city to the Adalaj Stepwell; guides at the gate work for donations.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookAdalaj Stepwell
The finest of Gujarat's stepwells, built in 1498: five storeys of carved pillars, niches and galleries descending to the water table, cool and dim whatever the heat above.
How to book: A small entry fee at the gate. The stepwell, about 18 kilometres north of the city, is the closing stop on Klook's full-day Ahmedabad tours.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookShaniwar Wada
The fortified palace of the Peshwas from 1732: massive teak gates and bastions around gardens and foundations, in the middle of the old city where Pune began.
How to book: Entry is ticketed at the gate; the palace is the closing stop on Klook's guided Pune tours, which take in the Aga Khan Palace and the Pataleshwar caves in the same run.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookAga Khan Palace, Pune
The palace of 1892 where Gandhi, Kasturba and Mahadev Desai were interned in 1942: their samadhis in the garden, a museum of the freedom movement, and 19 acres of lawns in the city's east.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook and at the gate. The Gandhi rooms and the photo gallery of the Quit India years repay a slow visit.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookGolconda Fort
The Qutb Shahi citadel on its granite hill: a fort of clapping portals and whispering galleries where a handclap at the gate is heard at the summit pavilion, 120 metres up and a kilometre away.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Climb in the morning cool; the sound and light show retells the fort after dark.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookRamoji Film City
The largest film studio complex in the world: whole streets, palaces, railway stations and gardens of standing sets, with stunt shows, rides and film-making tours across 1,600 acres.
How to book: A full day out; entry is ticketed, and Klook sells the day with private transfers from Hyderabad hotels. Go on a weekday for the quietest sets.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookBangalore Palace
The Wodeyar palace of 1878, turrets and ivy in a Bengaluru garden suburb, modelled consciously on Windsor: carved interiors, royal portrait galleries and grounds that now host the city's biggest concerts.
How to book: Entry is ticketed at the gate; the palace anchors Klook's full-day Bengaluru tours, which run on to the Bull Temple and Lalbagh with a private car and guide.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookLalbagh and the Bull Temple
Two old Bengaluru anchors in one southern sweep: Lalbagh's botanical gardens of 1760, with the Crystal Palace glasshouse and a rock older than complex life, and Basavanagudi's Bull Temple, home to a single-rock Nandi.
How to book: Both are walk-up visits with small gate fees; Klook's private Bengaluru day tours pair them with the palace and ISKCON, which is the easy way to cover all four.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookMysore Palace
The Amba Vilas Palace of 1912, the Wodeyar seat in Indo-Saracenic splendour: jewelled doors, painted ceilings, the golden throne at Dasara, and a facade lit by nearly a hundred thousand bulbs on Sunday evenings.
How to book: Entry tickets are sold on Klook with an optional guide, and at the gate. Sunday evening, when the palace lights come on, is the city's weekly festival.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookMahabalipuram (Mamallapuram)
The Pallava port of the seventh century, now a UNESCO site: the Shore Temple on the beach, the great Descent of the Ganges relief, Krishna's butterball balanced on its slope, and cave temples still being read.
How to book: Visited as a day trip from Chennai; Klook runs the run down the East Coast Road with Kanchipuram's temples added, or Mahabalipuram alone with a guide.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookFort Kochi and the Chinese Fishing Nets
The cantilevered nets of the harbour mouth, worked as they have been for six centuries, and behind them St Francis Church, where Vasco da Gama was first buried, the Dutch Palace's Ramayana murals, and the synagogue of Jew Town.
How to book: Seen best on foot or by tuk-tuk; Klook's private day tour of Fort Cochin covers the nets, the churches, the palace and Jew Town in about four hours, with Kathakali theatres in the same lanes for the evening.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookAlleppey Backwaters Houseboat Cruise
A kettuvallam houseboat through the Vembanad lagoon and the narrow canals: village life at eye level, kingfishers and paddy fields, lunch cooked on board, and the option of a night moored on the water.
How to book: Day cruises and overnight houseboats are sold on Klook, boarding at Alleppey (Alappuzha) or arranged from Kochi; book ahead from December to February, the peak backwater season.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookDudhsagar Falls
The sea of milk: a four-tiered fall dropping 310 metres down the Ghats on the Karnataka border, with the Goa to Karnataka railway crossing its face on a stone viaduct.
How to book: Reached by jeep safari from the Colem side in the dry season, with a swim at the base pool; Klook runs the day trip from Goa's resort belt. The jeeps pause in the monsoon, when the falls are at their most violent.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookMandovi River Cruise
The evening fleet from the Panaji jetty: Goan folk dance and music on open decks as the boat runs up the Mandovi past Reis Magos fort and the casino ships at anchor.
How to book: Cruises are ticketed at the jetty and on Klook, where the dinner cruises with a Goan buffet are the headline product; sailings run nightly, sunset first.
Search tickets and toursvia KlookBefore you go
An India eSIM
Land connected: a data eSIM bought before you fly keeps maps, ride apps and the booking apps working from the arrivals hall. Tourist SIMs are sold at the airports with a passport if your phone needs a physical card.
How to book: Buy the eSIM online before departure, or a tourist SIM at the airport arrivals halls.
Airport transfers
The metros' airports sit far from their centres: pre-booked cars, the metro lines where they reach the airport, and app cabs are the working options, and a fixed-fare transfer removes the first negotiation of the trip.
How to book: Bookable on the platforms; app cabs and prepaid taxi counters work at every major airport.