I'm leaving in a few weeks for India, tagging along with my husband as he works in his company's office over there. We will be living in a hotel in Hyderabad for a month. I was under the impression we'd be taking two or three weekend trips; he asked me to plan them and figure out the costs. We discussed Agra, Ranthambore national park and Kerala houseboat trips. Now last night after seeing the prices for these wknd trips (I researched on my own, also consulted a travel agency his company recommended to compare costs) he had a bit of a sticker shock and said that he'd prefer we just go to Agra and leave it at that.

I admit I'm not a budget hotel person, but I wasn't selecting $300 US/night properties either. The problem is every place I wanted to visit requires a flight so that's adding several hundred dollars to the cost of every trip. (the flights I found were about $160/pp). We will have a driver 24/7 through his company, so if we could drive places that would help a lot with cost.

That being said, are there any cities in a reasonable (under 4 hour) driving distance of Hyderabad that would be nice for a weekend trip? Besides Agra I'd like to go to at least one other city. Knowing that I will likely never have the chance to come back to India after this, I don't want to just hang out in HYD the whole time. Thanks!

There are'nt any cities,worth a mention,4 hrs drive from Hyderabad.The 'closest' being either Mumbai,Chennai, Bangalore,maybe Panjim (Goa).All are a short flight away(1 1/2Hrs).All these by road are betw 8-10hrs & is exhausting.

To reach Agra,you either fly into N.Delhi or Jaipur and road it there.The same with Ranthambore,fly into Jaipur & another 4hrs drive.
That goes with Kerala too.A flight to Kochi,then down to Alleppey for the houseboats experience.

There's a new highway between Hyderabad and Bangalore that should have speeded things up a bit. If it doesn't have to be a city you could look at whether there's a route to get you to Badami in a reasonable time. I'm surprised you're getting such high quotes for flights - how far ahead are you booking? Have you checked whichbudget.com for cheap airlines? E.g. Indigo, JetLite.

Thanks. I kind of guessed there wasn't much nearby.

I haven't checked whichbudget - the flight quotes were from the travel agent. Thanks for the tip!

Hyderabad is a very interesting city in itself; of course you may get a chance to see most of it on your own during the month you are there. The Golconda fort, the old city, the museums, the food. The film studios, the pearl shopping. So don’t discount it as an interesting place. The local political battles going on there currently are better than most soap-operas.

In my experience, it is the smaller towns and village of India which are far more interesting than the cities. While Delhi offers a good bit in terms of museums and sights, and would be fine for a weekend as there are frequent flights from Hyderabad and good hotel options, most other major cities are rather thin on sights, e.g. Mumbai. I would think you would want to get away from cities. Staying in the local Hyderabad area would give you this opportunity.

For a start, you might want to get the book “Weekend Breaks From Hyderabad”. This is part of a series of books by Outlook Traveler, see http://traveller.outlookindia.com/bookhome.aspx. I have their books for Mumbai and Delhi and think they are quite useful. (They also have books on driving trips in India and also major pilgrimages. ) You may be able to order it on-line, if not you should find it in Hyderabad bookshops like Oxford Books, which has two outlets in Hyderabad, see http://www.oxfordbookstore.com for locations. Also the <i>Lonely Planet</i> guide for India may be helpful, as they cover the south fairly well, IMO.

In my experience, there is <i>always</i> something interesting close by in India. They don’t make the major guidebooks (like Fodors), but they are there. By asking around and doing a little ground work, I have no doubt you will find places within a few hours drive of Hyderabad of interest. A local festival or pilgrimage site could be very interesting. For sure a place like Warangal is on my list to see during my next trip to Hyderabad, and is about 150 km from Hyderabad, so should be within your driving range mentioned above, my estimate is that it is about a 3-hour drive, but part of this is on a major highway, so it could be less. There are also trains which make the journey in 1.5-3 hours. It has significant Hindu ruins and temples and what appear to be interesting festivals. It only has about a million people, so from an Indian standpoint is not really a big city compared to say Mumbai which has about 20 million people, but from most other people’s standpoint, a million people is a city.

You also may want to get away from India, so consider things like you can fly non-stop to Bangkok, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur in 3-5 hours, don’t require visas, and may lend themselves to a weekend. (I assume your husband is on a business visa and you may want to get one as well, as this will make re-entry into India much easier, no 2-month waiting period necessary.)

Getting to Agra from Hyderabad for a weekend is going to be a pain, IMO. There is one flight a day to Agra, from Delhi via Kingfisher, it departs Delhi at 2 pm and returns at 3:30 pm, so you have to work around that. You may have to drive or train from Delhi as flight connections from Hyderabad may not work. All in, for a weekend, IMO you could be looking at 10 hours or so travel time between Hyderabad and Agra. Not exactly great for a “weekend”. I would save Agra for the end of your month if you can and then try to fly home out of Delhi.

I would suggest you get a book called <i>The White Mughals</i> by William Dalrymple (who has written several other very good books on India) before your trip, this would be good to read as it will give you a good history of Hyderabad, as it was quite powerful and the Nizams were very colorful.

Cicerone, Thank you! I will definitely look for that book. It sounds like a great resource. Yes I am excited about all of the things to see in Hyderabad, but like you said I will likely have done most of them during a month-long trip, especially when my husband is at work Mon - Fri and I have plenty of time to waste!

I was thinking about visiting Bangkok but as I mentioned earlier my husband wasn't keen on spending the money to be flying all over the place on the weekends, so I was trying to find some places close to HYD to visit in order to cut costs. I don't really care if it's a big city, just a place with interesting things to see and do. Warangal does sound like it has a lot to offer w/ the temples - a quick Google search says 2 hrs 15 min from Hyderabad so that would certainly be doable.

Agree on Agra, but we don't have the opportunity to extend the trip past his last day of work so any travel has to be on wknds unfortunately. I'd hate to miss it since we may never return to India, so we have to suck it up and do it in a quick weekend.

There was a place I didn't visit near Hyderabad to the northeast that was supposed to have some worthwhile temples. Began with a "B", I think - I don't have that guidebook with me anymore - take a look at Lonely Planet "South India".

For ideas in and around Hyderabad, you might want to look at a group called the Twin Cities Expatriates Group of Hyderabad and Secunderabd, see http://www.hytea.org/. I don’t really know anything about this group, but I have joined the American Women’s Associations in the various cities I have lived, which is a similar organization, and they are a good source of activities and trips. You can have a temporary membership for US$11 a month (6 month minimum, but still seems reasonable). I also see from their website that there is a Hash House Harriers group in Hyderabad, which if you are a runner (or if you just like beer) can be a fun activity and a way to meet locals (mainly expats in my experience, but they are a good source of info for trip ideas), see http://www.hyderabadhash.com/

You could consider places like Aurangabad and Madurai, which are reachable via reasonable connecting flights, are extremely interesting, and lend themselves well to a 2- day visit. The problem I see is that flight times are in the middle of the day or the morning, so if you can take a Friday or a Monday as part of a weekend, then going to those places may work. Hotels are cheaper in those places than the big cities you have been looking at, try the Lemon Tree in Aurangabad, see http://www.lemontreehotels.com/.

A very useful website for hotels in India is http://sawdays.co.uk/, click on the book for India. You can also buy the book, <i>Special Places to Stay India</i>, but the website will give you a very long list of hotels to start with. There is a small Indian chain called Neemrama which operates a number of unique hotels in palaces and other old buildings and could be something to consider if you want a different experience. Go to http://www.neemranahotels.com. In addition to Lemon Tree, some other budget hotel chains which are generally OK, are Country Inn & Suites http://www.countryinns.com/hotels/indcigs. and Ginger Hotels, a division of Taj, see http://www.gingerhotels.com/. The Sarovar group has some nice hotels in both the budget and more upscale range, see http://sarovarhotels.com/.

Thursday,guess you are referring to Bhubaneswar,the capital of Orissa.Magnificent temples as in the Konarak-Sun Temple, the Lingaraja temple & the Puri Jaganath temple.A lovely State.Rich in culture & architecture.Would highly recommend it.

Thanks, all. Lots to think about!!

No, I'm totally not referring to Bhubaneswar, although it's certainly worth visiting it's a lot further than the place I was thinking about. If you have the LP South India, it's in the Karnataka chapter and is just to the north east of Hyderabad.

I disagree with Cicerone about the Ginger hotels - I was very disappointed with the one in Mysore. Try the Keys chain instead.