Traveling to Jaipur

August 20, 2015

 

Jaipur, also known as the Pink City, and the land of Maharajas, is the capital of the state of Rajasthan, the largest and most traditional state of India. Whenever in the country, traveling to Jaipur is a must!

Jaipur has an ancient history of more than 700 years, and a vast number of temples, palaces and museums, including: Amber Fort, Nahargarh Fort, Jal Mahal, Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar, Albert Hall.

Western movies have been shot in Jaipur (for instance, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" - watch the trailer here), and it has been considered by The Huffington Post, one of the 50 cities in the world to be visited in a lifetime.

Colorful elephants, camels, snake charmers, traditional indian culture can be found in Jaipur. Jaipur is a major hub for arts and crafts. Some of the crafts include bandhani; block printing; stone carving and sculpture, tarkashi, zari, gota, kinari and zardozi, silver jewellery, gems, kundan, meenakari and jewellery, miniature paintings, blue pottery, ivory carving, shellac work, leatherware. The city is also known for its town planning techniques especially around the Royal Palace.  

Check out some tips to help you organize your trip:

 

Accommodation

• If you are looking for cheap but traditional accommodation, we suggest the Hotel Pearl Palace or the Hotel Sunder Palace. They offer traditional Indian architecture and decoration, at very affordable prices, and both have really good restaurants. One room costs around 1000 rupees per night for 2 people, these two hotels have very good ratings on Trip Advisor, and tons of foreign tourists.

• If you would still like to look further, Booking.com is a great place to find hotels anywhere. All you have to do is put the dates of your trip, city, and it will give you a list of available accommodations, which can be filtered by price, location, type of accommodation. The best part is that you get to read reviews from other guests who stayed at the same accommodation, learning about pros and cons of each place, it gives you details of the facilities available on each type of room and pictures of each type of room as well. You just need a credit card to make a reservation, but most of the times the payment itself is made upon arrival at the hotel. If you create an account there (which is free), they offer you extra discounts or special offers, like late check out, or free breakfast.
• If you are a solo traveler, specially a woman, we highly do not advise to find a hotel after arriving at your chosen city. Pre-booking is always a safer option, and make sure to research on websites where you can read reviews about the hotel.

 

Reaching Jaipur

• Jaipur has an international airport with direct flights from Abu Dhabi, by Etihad. 
• In case you are already in India, there are many cities offering daily flights to Jaipur, like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore. Always check on SkyScanner for the best deals, and proceed to the airline's website to purchase. Airlines such as Indigo and Air India accept international credit cards.
• If you want to reach Jaipur by bus or train, there are several options from different places all over India. You can look for options of buses on Red Bus or MakeMyTrip and trains can be researched on Make My Trip as well. As of today, these websites do not accept international credit cards. If you do not have an Indian credit card, you should look for a travel agent, or go to the local bus or train station in order to purchase your ticket with cash. It's not always easy to find available seats at trains in India, but for foreign tourists there is a Foreign Tourist Quota - a few seats reserved only for foreigners, which can only be redeemed a few days before the trip.
• If traveling in large groups, also consider booking a mini bus, as splitting the costs can make the trip worth it. 
• Most people travel to Jaipur from Delhi. In Delhi, there are cheap government buses which can be taken near Dhaula Kuan, or Volvo buses, which are more comfortable buses with A/C. The bus station for Volvo buses is Bikaner House, near India Gate, and there are buses to Jaipur every half an hour. There is also the Kashmere Gate bus station, which is a Inter State Bus Terminus, and also offers daily buses to Jaipur.
• If traveling by train, there are several daily options as well, the most convenient one being the double decker, which leaves daily at around 5:30pm from Delhi, reaching Jaipur at 9:30pm.

 

How to move around in town

• Jaipur is very big, and offers many places to be visited. We recommend you to visit the farthest places first, and then come back and visit the places in town. The following list takes that into consideration. Auto rickshaws can easily offer a service of taking you to all places in one day (or better, split them into 2 days to have more time). Some bargaining is required, but for around 1000 or 1200 rupees/day (which can be split if you are not traveling alone) you can find an auto driver to take you to several places, wait for you outside while you visit the place, then take you to the next place. Several locations offer audio guides, but if you prefer a guide to explain to you about the history of the place, some places have guides as well, such as Amber Fort and City Palace. Beware of scams, so only hire guides which are certified and recommended by the place itself, you can ask at the counter whenever buying your ticket to the attraction.
• For making small trips (for instance from the hotel to a restaurant) you can use a taxi app like Ola cabs, or our favorite, Uber. On Uber a credit card (which can be international) is required, as the trip gets automatically charged on your card whenever you reach your destination. It's safe and often cheaper than bargaining with an auto rickshaw driver.

 

 Check out up next the main touristic attractions of Jaipur.

 

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