I am planning a trip in October 2009 and need some recommedations for a good travel agent.

We will visit Bombay, Aurangabad, Udaipur, Jodphur, Simla and Delhi. I am looking for an agents who will recommend hotels, book flights, has a knowledge of making train reservations and hiring a car and driver.

Thanks for your suggestions.

We used www.yatrik.com and were very satisfied.

If you haven't already, read through the various postings on India and take notes. The more familiar you are with how you want to use your time and what you want to see, the less likely you are to have a travel agent fit your trip into what THEY want.

We were very happy with Castle & King

We also used Ajay at Yatrik.com for our Feb. 2009 trip and were very, very happy. If you do a quick search on the Board, you will see that many others have utilized his services and have also been very pleased. Yatrik arranged our entire trip and we were pleased with our accomodations, guides, itinerary and drivers. The only down side to our trip was that I caught a severe case of bronchitis on the second day of our trip. A week later in Jaipur I finally decided that I needed to see a doctor. We called Ajay in Delhi at 7:30 pm with the cell phone we were provided by Yatrik and by 8:00 pm a doctor was knocking at our door. Ajay continued to follow up with us on a regular basis to see how I was feeling. You can't go wrong with them.

With yatrik.com you don't get just a bunch of reservations, you get real people who monitor your trip at every step. We never called yatrik but they called us several times to make sure we were happy. It was nice to know that if anything went wrong, as it did for wj1, all we had to do was make a call and they would deal with it.

Sounds like an ad for Yatrik.
There are many other fine agents and I would suggest that you search this Forum for the various agents recommended by others who have posted.

Sorry, JerryS, I'm not a tout for yatrik, just a very satisfied customer. Read my trip report for details:

http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...o-to-india.cfm

Jerry, Marija is a regular here on the Asia Forum. She isn't advertising. You, on the otherhand, chime in but don't offer any names of the "many other fine agents". Kindly help if you have such information.

Sorry Jerry, I'm not a tout either, just a satisfied customer. I certainly haven't been as active on the Forums as Marija, but if you click on my name you will see that I have made numerous posts over many years. One of the reasons I chose Yatrik was the number of excellent recommendations by other posters. (I believe Boston Harbor was the first.) I think you jumped the gun on this one.

Hi guys, I'm following along. I've been into the yatric site but it seems to have no real hard information on it. Kinda airy fairy... nice poems and aspirations, nothing solid. Am I missing something here?

Now, dogster, isn't India airy-fairy? The site is weird but yatrik.com provides great service for the first (scary, rhymes with airy fairy) trip to India. Next time we go we won't need such hand-holding but it was reassuring on a first trip. Actually, they never held our hands but it was good to know that if we ever displeased Ganesh or some deity and came upon bad days we could call our buddies at yatrik and be rescued...

Enough, yatrik. Mr. Dogster tell us about your perilous journey home, the treatment of your injuries, and all that transpired while you were gone and we were patiently waiting for crumbs of information to fall our way. Please!

I've written this before, but I'll repeat it. Dogster or Cicerone are the ultimate India travel agents. Which one you choose depends upon what type of experience you want.

Well, ladies, in response to numerous [well, two] requests, observe the miracle soon to occur in the new postings.

I believe I was the first one (or one of the first) that recommended Yatrik on Fodors and I am not a tout (other than for my own business . Ajay is terrific and everyone who has used him has been happy--including my highly budget conscious friends. [email protected] They give five star service whether you are staying at the Oberois or Trident or a guest house. He is often less expensive than others. I agree that their site is a bit "airy", but their service is four-seasons quality. They even redid my itinerary mid trip as I wanted to stay in Mumbai for another day and they changed hotel and air without any charge or complaint.

I fully concur with the comment of Cicerone giving fabulous, priceless advice--for me and so many others--belated thanks again Cicerone. Dogster? Humm. As they say when watching dangerous things on TV, "These travels are undertaken by a trained professional. You should not attempt this on your own"

lol Boston. Only an idiot would do what Dogster does. He exists so that you don't have to.

Marija, I'm so glad you posted the link to your trip report. I believe I was AWOL during your reporting and missed it. I enjoyed every minute and laughed out loud at least four times. I'm so glad you had such a great time! Nameste.

And, Dogster? Carry on my friend, carry on. You go where I would never think of going, but wish I would have the nerve. Wistfully, Your vicarious travel partner, BH.

I just returned from India and our trip was planned by
http://www.indiantravelpromotion.com/aboutus.html

Our consultant was AJAY. I gave him clear instructions on what we wanted to do.

We changed drivers because the one we got at one stage did not speak English so we asked for another driver for drives of 6+ hours. Our request was met promptly!

We were very satisfied and would book with them in a heartbeat!

SV

Oh, spassvogel mentions a very good point! Make sure your driver speaks English. You don't want to be stuck with someone you can't communicate with, especially if there's a problem along the trip route.