North India & the Hooghly: A Self-Launched Delhi-to-Kolkata Adventure

Land at Indira Gandhi International and take the Delhi Metro Airport Express (Orange line) or an Uber/Ola to Paharganj or Karol Bagh — around £2-4 versus the £25+ private transfer G includes. Check into a mid-range guesthouse or hostel private room, buy an Indian eSIM/Airtel SIM at the airport and pick up a Metro card. Spend the evening acclimatising on Main Bazaar with a first thali and lassi. Book your Agra train ticket online tonight via IRCTC or a booking agent (12Go Asia is simplest for foreigners).

🚌Airport Express Metro or Uber (~£3)

🛏Guesthouse/hostel private room, Paharganj or Karol Bagh (~£16/night)

• →Airport Metro transfer
• →Paharganj wander
• →SIM card & Metro card setup

Do the Delhi City Walk experience independently: join a volunteer-run or social-enterprise walking tour of Old Delhi (several NGOs and City Walk-style projects run pay-what-you-like heritage walks from around £8-12) or book a GetYourGuide 'Old Delhi street food & heritage walk' (~£15). Cover Jama Masjid (free entry, ~£2 camera fee, modest dress, shoe covers), the lanes of Chandni Chowk by cycle rickshaw (~£2) and Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib, where you can help in the langar kitchen. Afternoon: Humayun's Tomb or New Delhi's Lutyens' district. Evening train or early-morning train next day to Agra.

🚌Delhi Metro + cycle rickshaw (~£4)

🛏Guesthouse, Delhi (~£16/night)

• →Old Delhi heritage/food walk
• →Jama Masjid
• →Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib
• →Chandni Chowk rickshaw ride

Take the 6am Gatimaan Express from Hazrat Nizamuddin to Agra Cantt (~1h40, £7-12 in AC Chair Car — book online in advance; it sells out). Drop bags at a Taj Ganj guesthouse and go straight to the East Gate for the Taj Mahal (foreigner ticket ~£11, buy online at asi.payumoney.com to skip the queue; closed Fridays). Then Agra Fort (~£6) with an audio guide or a local guide hired at the gate (~£10 split), and the exquisite Itimad-ud-Daulah 'Baby Taj' (~£3). Sunset from Mehtab Bagh across the river (~£3) is the classic second look at the Taj.

🚌Gatimaan Express train Delhi-Agra (~£9)

🛏Guesthouse with rooftop Taj view, Taj Ganj (~£18/night)

• →Taj Mahal sunrise entry
• →Agra Fort
• →Itimad-ud-Daulah (Baby Taj)
• →Mehtab Bagh sunset

Hire a shared taxi or take the local bus from Agra's Idgah bus stand to Fatehpur Sikri (~1h, £1-2), spend two hours in Akbar's abandoned red sandstone capital (ticket ~£6), then continue by bus to Abhaneri to see the Chand Baori stepwell — one of India's deepest and most photogenic (free/£1). From Abhaneri take a bus to Bandikui or Dausa and a train or bus onward to Jaipur (~£3-5 total). In Jaipur, check into a guesthouse in the old walled city. If you want the block-printing workshop G includes, book a Jaipur block-printing class direct through GetYourGuide or with a Bagru/Sanganer cooperative (~£12-20).

🚌Shared taxi/bus Agra-Fatehpur Sikri-Abhaneri-Jaipur (~£5)

🛏Haveli-style guesthouse, Jaipur old city (~£18/night)

• →Fatehpur Sikri
• →Chand Baori stepwell
• →Optional block-printing workshop in Sanganer/Bagru

Take a local bus or Ola/auto to Amber Fort (~£2) and arrive for opening at 8am; entry ~£6, plus the Sheesh Mahal mirror palace. Combine with the Panna Meena ka Kund stepwell and Jal Mahal on the way back by auto. Afternoon: Hawa Mahal (view from the street or ~£2 entry), City Palace (~£8) and Jantar Mantar (~£3). Skip the paid 'historian talk' and instead use a free walking tour or a licensed guide at Amber (~£12 split). Evening: catch a Bollywood film at the Raj Mandir cinema (~£2-4) — a genuinely brilliant cultural experience.

🚌Local bus/auto-rickshaw (~£3)

🛏Haveli-style guesthouse, Jaipur (~£18/night)

• →Amber Fort
• →Hawa Mahal
• →City Palace & Jantar Mantar
• →Raj Mandir cinema

Take a local bus or shared jeep from Jaipur's Sindhi Camp bus stand towards Tonk and get off at Pachewar (~2h, £2). Small heritage haveli homestays here take individual bookings direct (email ahead — around £20-28 a night including home-cooked meals). Spend the afternoon walking the village: potters' wheels, silversmiths, cobblers, old temples and mud-walled houses. Ask your host to arrange a cooking demonstration in the evening — this is the closest independent equivalent to G's included village immersion, and you're paying the family directly.

🚌Local bus/shared jeep Jaipur-Pachewar (~£2)

🛏Heritage haveli homestay, Pachewar (~£24/night, incl. meals)

• →Village walk
• →Potters and artisans
• →Host-led cooking demonstration

Return by shared jeep to Tonk or Jaipur and take a train back to Delhi (~£4-8). Alternatively travel Pachewar-Jaipur-Delhi by bus. In Delhi, treat yourself to a proper final northern dinner and reroute your bags — pack a separate small river bag for the West Bengal leg. Book tomorrow's flight to Kolkata (IndiGo/SpiceJet, £35-55 if booked a week or two ahead) and pre-book your Hooghly river cruise or train tickets east.

🚌Shared jeep + train to Delhi (~£7)

🛏Guesthouse, Delhi (~£16/night)

• →Travel day
• →Paharganj dinner
• →Book Kolkata flight

Morning flight Delhi-Kolkata (~2h, £40). Check into a guesthouse in Sudderth Street or Ballygunge (around £16-22). Afternoon: independent walking loop of the Dalhousie Square area — Victoria Memorial (~£5), St Paul's Cathedral, the Marble Palace (free), Kumartuli's idol-makers' lanes, and the Howrah Bridge at sunset. Evening: Park Street for a Kolkata biryani or a kathi roll for under £4, and a drink at an old-school Anglo-Indian institution. Book tomorrow's river arrangements: either a scheduled small-ship Hooghly cruise (a handful of operators run 6-8 night sailings from Kolkata between October and March, roughly £900-1,400 pp sharing, bookable direct or via Responsible Travel/associations), or the overland train-and-hotel version described on the following days.

🚌Flight Delhi-Kolkata (~£40), metro/taxi into the city (~£3)

🛏Guesthouse/hotel, central Kolkata (~£20/night)

• →Victoria Memorial
• →Dalhousie Square walking loop
• →Kumartuli idol-makers
• →Howrah Bridge sunset

Train-and-hotel version: take a suburban train from Howrah or Sealdah to Serampore (~£0.50, 40 min) and explore the former Danish colonial quarter — St Olav's Church, Denmark Tavern, the old government house. Continue by local train or bus to Chandannagar (former French possession, ~£0.50) for the French colonial riverside and the Chandannagar Museum, then Chinsurah for the Dutch cemetery and the Hooghly Imambara. Walk across the Hooghly at Barrackpore or Srirampur and stay in a small riverside guesthouse or return to Kolkata for the night. If you've booked the cruise, this is the first sailing day — boarding near Kolkata, sailing past Serampore and mooring at Barrackpore.

🚌Suburban trains and buses along the Hooghly (~£3)

🛏Riverside guesthouse near Barrackpore/Chinsurah, or return to Kolkata (~£18/night)

• →Serampore Danish quarter
• →Chandannagar French quarter
• →Dutch cemetery, Chinsurah
• →Hooghly Imambara

Take the morning train from Howrah to Ambika Kalna (~2-2.5h, £1). Do exactly what G does, independently: hire a cycle rickshaw at the station for a two-hour loop of Kalna's 108-Shiva temple complex and the extraordinary terracotta Nava Kailash and Siddheswari temples (~£3-4 for the rickshaw). Then continue by bus or shared auto to Mayapur (~45 min, £1), whose skyline is dominated by the vast ISKCON Chandrodaya Mandir — free to enter with a modest dress code. Overnight in Kalna or Mayapur in a simple guesthouse.

🚌Howrah-Kalna train (~£1) + bus to Mayapur (~£1)

🛏Simple guesthouse, Kalna or Mayapur (~£15/night)

• →Kalna terracotta temples by cycle rickshaw
• →Mayapur ISKCON temple

Travel Kalna to Murshidabad by bus via Nabadwip or by train via Katwa/Berhampore (~£2-3, 3-4 hours). Base yourself in Berhampore on the east bank and cross by ferry to Hazarduari Palace — a hundred doors of Neoclassical excess built for the Nawabs of Bengal (~£4 including camera fee). Add the Katra Mosque, the Nizamat Imambara and the Khushbagh Mughal-style garden tombs (~£2). Cycle rickshaws between sites cost pennies.

🚌Bus/train Kalna-Murshidabad (~£3), ferry and rickshaws (~£2)

🛏Hotel in Berhampore or Lalbagh (~£16/night)

• →Hazarduari Palace
• →Katra Mosque
• →Khushbagh gardens
• →Nizamat Imambara

Day trip by shared auto and bus to Matiari (~45 min from Berhampore), the brassworking village where families have hammered out vessels for generations — you can watch and buy directly from the workshops for a fraction of Delhi prices. Later, continue to Plassey and walk out to the commemorative obelisk marking the 1757 battle that changed the course of Indian history. Return to Berhampore for the night.

🚌Shared auto/bus (~£3)

🛏Hotel in Berhampore (~£16/night)

• →Matiari brass workshops
• →Plassey battlefield obelisk

Morning train or bus from Berhampore back to Kolkata (~4h, £3-5). Spend the afternoon on anything you missed: the Indian Museum (~£5), Mother Teresa's Mother House, the Kalighat temple, or a slow afternoon in the coffee houses of College Street. Alternatively take a ferry downstream on the Hooghly for a £0.30 river ride past the ghats.

🚌Berhampore-Kolkata train (~£4), metro/ferry (~£2)

🛏Guesthouse/hotel, Kolkata (~£20/night)

• →Indian Museum
• →College Street coffee houses
• →Hooghly ferry ride

Book a GetYourGuide/Klook Kolkata street-food walk (~£15-25) or go self-guided through the Terreti Bazaar and old Chinatown for momos and Kolkata Chinese. Visit the Dakshinapan and Gariahat markets for Bengali textiles and dokra metalwork, and a craft cooperative for Kantha stitching. Evening: catch a Bengali film or a Rabindra Sangeet performance at Rabindra Sadan, or wander the fairylit Maidan.

🚌Metro/taxi (~£3)

🛏Guesthouse/hotel, Kolkata (~£20/night)

• →Kolkata food walk
• →Gariahat and Dakshinapan markets
• →Bengali film or cultural performance

Optional day trip: shared bus to Godkhali (~2.5h, £2) and a shared boat into the Sundarbans fringe of the mangroves with a local guide for a few hours (~£18-25), back in Kolkata by evening — a taste of the delta without a multi-day tour. Prefer a slower day? Do the Botanical Gardens, Shantiniketan art at the Academy of Fine Arts, and a final Bengali thali. Sort your bags and check in online for tomorrow's flight.

🚌Bus to Godkhali and back (~£4)

🛏Guesthouse/hotel, Kolkata (~£20/night)

• →Optional Sundarbans day trip
• →Or Botanical Gardens and Academy of Fine Arts

Take the Metro or an Uber to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport (~£3-5) and fly home. If you have time, a last cup of Darjeeling tea and a kathi roll at the airport rather than the buffet.

🚌Metro/Uber to airport (~£4)

🛏—

• →Departure