2/3 week India Itinerary?
 

I'm planning on going to India by myself this summer (early-mid July) for a friends' wedding and am trying to figure out what the best route would be for me to take if I'm there ~2.5 to 3 weeks. I have to be in Chennai for the wedding July 3/4 so I'm either flying into Chennai on July 2 or into Delhi a few days before then fly into Chennai. I've been looking into many different options but there's so many different and interesting regions that I want to just go everywhere. Obviously this is not realistic so just wanted to get people's recommendations based on time and potential weather as I've read that time of year is the rainy season.

Potential plan - Arrive in India anywhere between June 30-July 2
- Leave India by July 18/19. Would love to stay longer but it's highly doubtful I'll be able to


Any thoughts/recommendations are much appreciated!

My thoughts and suggestions are as follows:

Have you received the invitation to the wedding? The reason I ask is that it is not unusual, in my experience, for the wedding to be spread out over several days and even over several locations. This may affect how much free time you have to travel after the “wedding”. If there are several events, you aren’t expected to go to every event to which you are invited, although that is certainly a fun and interesting thing to do if you can. (I went to a wedding in April in which the ceremony and a dinner were held in Mumbai on the 12th, another dinner was held in Bangalore on the 16th and another dinner in Visakhapatnam on the 19th.)

I see you live in Chicago. Bear in mind that you can get non-stops to Chennai from several international locations: London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Dubai, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Singapore among them. Most any of these may make a good stopover for a few days (assuming you have time), or you should be able to connect directly to a Chennai flight. You can arrange flights to go into Chennai and back home out of Delhi which will save you some time and backtracking.

July is the monsoon season in much of India EXCEPT for the south east coast where Chennai is located. So if you want a beach vacation, stay on the south east coast, which is very lovely and not touristed nearly as much as northern India and places like Goa. Otherwise, with the monsoon, just bear in mind that rain/flooding can affect travel and some sightseeing. I would avoid beach areas on the west coast like Goa or Kerala, unless you don’t mind poring rain (it has a certain charm and is very green, but is not for everyone). I would also avoid Mumbai. Delhi and northern Indian will be overcast and rainy, but not with the deluges which the west coast receives. It will of course be very very hot and quite humid, as it is the summer, so don’t try to fit too much into any one day.

As I have no idea of your interests (city versus country, shopping versus museums) it is hard to give specific advice for an itinerary. But one place to consider would be the coastal area south of Chennai. A drive from Chennai south along the coast to Pondicherry, with stops to see the temples at Mahabalipuram and Chidambaram would be wonderful, IMO. Then you can go inland to Madurai and even Mysore if time permits. This area of south India has the largesst amount of large and colourful temples to be found anywhere. (Some of this could be covered by train, but the coast road should be driven, IMO. Hire a car and driver. Be sure that the driver takes the East Coast Road, which is extremely scenic and has light traffic. Don’t take National Highway 45 which is inland, far more crowded with trucks and is not really scenic at all.)

Then of course there is Varanasi and Agra (for the Taj Mahal) and Rajasthan (take a pick of Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Jaislamler as well as others). There are also hill stations to consider like Ooty (the hill station for Chennai); bear in mind that Darjeeling and Shimla, the north India hill stations, can be quite rainy then, so perhaps not ideal. Ladakh may be a good choice, different culture, religion and geography and quite dry in the summer (they don’t get the monsoon as the Himalaya stops it).

Not having been (yet) perhaps i'm wrong, but...wouldnt Rajasthan in July/August be unbearably hot--l over 110 degrees F??
Last yr was unusually hot in the north(beyond even the usual hot oven temps) , but we met someone on plane to London, who said temps in Rajasthan had hovered near 115 F! Being English, she loved it, but i made a mental note to take a pass on the area in summer.

Yes it will be very very hot, as I have mentioned in my original post. However, becuase of the monsoon, it is overcast, which helps. It is better to go in July than in April, IMO, as pre-monsoon has virtually no cloud cover which makes sightseeing even harder. But no doubt in July it will be hot. Outdoor pools will be like bath water and not refreshing. But if taken slowly and with an understanding of what to expect, it is doable, althought not as enjoyable as it would be in cooler weather, IMO. That is why I was suggesting other places as well which may be cooler.

Thanks for the tips, the wedding will be July 3/4 so I'll be in Chennai until then. I arrive on Jun 29 and will do some sightseeing around the area until the wedding. Then as of now I'm planning to fly to New Delhi on Jul 5 and the thought is do Delhi, Agra and Rajasthan until Jul 16 when I'll fly to Mumbai for my flight back on Jul 17.

I don't really have an itinerary yet for 7/5-7/16 but I was thinking of including Agra/Jaipur/Ranthambone Park/Jodhpur/Udaipur in there with maybe some small towns in between. I would love to go to Jaisalmer but I feel like I might not have enough time especially considering I probably won't have a fast paced trip due to the heat. Any suggestions on specifics?

The other thing that I'm thinking about now is mode of transportation. I've heard pros/cons about both hiring a driver and taking trains, any thoughts on what might be better for around Rajasthan? The more I read it seems that maybe a combination of both but would love to hear from others as well.

Thanks!