My family and I are planning on going to India this May/June and want to see the the Golden Triangle plus do a Tiger Safari and then some. What agency would you recommend to use or stay away from so that we can customize our tour and do minimal work to prepare for the trip? I've read a lot about United Fairfax Travel (Vinod Negi) and Gate 1 Travel. Has anyone heard anything about these? Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

I've used and highly recommend Indian Panorama, www.indianpanorama.in
I do NOT recommend Explorindya

give a try to castle and king

We just got home from 3 weeks where we used Yatrik.com They were great for us. I highly recommend you get in touch with them. Have fun planning!!!

My husband and I spent three weeks in India in Nov-Dec with Ramesh Meena as our driver. He also does tours and can be reached at: http://www.indiabycaranddriver.com/. He was a wonderful asset to us as we were first-time visitors to his country. You can read my trip report here: http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...a-to-india.cfm. He also was highly recommended by other Fodorites and I suggest that you read their trip reports as well: travelaw (two trips), bonnieheather, MrsMarge, lisasiegel, and live42day. Good luck!

Gem Tours in Mumbai did a great job for us--arranging drivers and hotels and guides. Plus I think they were cheaper since they are based in India.

I have used Deepa Krishnan at Mumbai Magic. I took two groups to India and she did a great job. No glitches ever. She has been lauded in Conde Nast Traveler twice.

another vote for Ramesh Meena

bookmarking

I second Yatrik.com. Ask for Ajay. i used them for my three week trip, and have sent at least five friends to them. They all rave and the costs are usually lower than they could do it themselves. The service is five star.

We also used Castle & King,on RHK's recommendation, and recommend them highly for extraordinary service and guides who were very flexible about doing things we wanted to do. Have recommended others who also were very satisfied. Contact Arvind who owns the business and is very responsive. [email protected]

we are working the few travel agent and your recommendations are very helpful to make the travel plan better.

We also used Indian panorama - they were excellent and I highly recommend them !

Thanks for the recommendations Rhkkmk and robert wilder, we choose the Castle and King for our travel in the month of nov.

John

Enchanting India put together a wonderful trip for us this January-February. They are very responsive, and everything in their control went off without a hitch. I cannot recommende them more highly.

Just signed with Indian Moments for 34 day customized trip to India. www.indianmoments.com. It was down to Indian Panorama and Indian Moments and Indian Moments got the nod because of service, attention to detail and spectacular references.

We are in the process of planning our trip in November and Faith from Indian Panorama is nothing short of wonderful. We made our decision based on all the recommendations we found on Fodor's. She is not only extremely knowledgeable, but an absolute pleasure to work with.

GDKSS, Faith and her staff were and are wonderful to us. Glad you've found this to be the case as well! My original discovery of her came from about five recommendations on IndiaMike Forum where "budget-consciousness" combined with tried and true knowledge, colors most of the posts.
We're about to embark on our second trip planned by Faith and her brother (who specializes in many of the northern areas). They are both delightful, intuitive about needs of clients, openminded, willing to spend a lot of time making suggestions but also honoring yours (or if not possible, respectfully and clearly explaining the rationale). And, the icing on the cake---Faith's prices were and are excellent , surprisingly low, for the level of services and accommodations that were included.
I enquired of many travel planners before previous trip (to South India ) before making what I hoped, before the actual trip, would be the best decision. The answer is in the fact that I'm already dreaming of my third trip to be booked with Faith!!

Thank you everyone for your helpful suggestions! I think we will go with Indian Panorama!