Affordable 3 Day Golden Triangle Tour from Delhi

The honest budget version

Private air-conditioned vehicle with a driver, licensed local guides in each city, and nothing else built into the price. Hotels, meals and monument fees are yours to arrange, which is exactly why it costs what it does.

If you are happy booking your own rooms, this is the cheapest sensible way to do the Golden Triangle without a coach.

Day one: Delhi

Qutub Minar, begun in 1193 — 73 metres of fluted brick and sandstone, the tallest minaret of its kind in the world. In its courtyard, the iron pillar: over 1,600 years old and still unrusted, which metallurgists continue to write papers about.

Humayun's Tomb, commissioned in 1565 by the emperor's widow. It is the first Mughal garden tomb in India — a tomb at the centre of a four-part garden divided by water channels, under a double dome. The Taj is the same idea sixty years later in marble, and seeing this first changes how the Taj reads.

India Gate, and Old Delhi's Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk if the day allows.

Day two: Agra

The Taj Mahal with a guide — the calligraphy cut in increasing sizes so it reads evenly from the ground, the pietra dura flowers of dozens of stones, the minarets tilted outward so an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb.

Agra Fort, and the Musamman Burj, where Shah Jahan spent his last eight years as Aurangzeb's prisoner.

Day three: Jaipur via Fatehpur Sikri

Akbar's capital of 1571, abandoned when its water failed. Then Amber Fort, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Hawa Mahal, and the drive back to Delhi.

Practical

Around 700 km of driving across three days, all on good highway.

The Taj is closed on Fridays. Budget roughly ₹2,600 a head in entrance fees for a foreign adult across the three cities, plus your own hotels and meals.