From Delhi: 3-Day All-Inclusive Private Golden Triangle Tour

All-inclusive, and worth checking what that covers

On the hotel options here the car, the driver, the licensed guides, the accommodation and the monument entrances are all in the price. Entrance fees across the three cities run about ₹2,600 per foreign adult, which is the part people usually forget to budget for.

Delhi

Qutub Minar, begun in 1193 — the tallest brick minaret in the world, standing in a courtyard assembled from the stone of twenty-seven dismantled temples, with the iron pillar that has not rusted in sixteen hundred years.

Humayun's Tomb, built in the 1560s by the emperor's widow: the first great Mughal garden tomb in India, with the four-part charbagh and double dome that the Taj repeated sixty-seven years later.

India Gate and the Lutyens axis, and Old Delhi — Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk — if the day allows.

Agra

The Taj Mahal, ideally at sunrise. Shah Jahan began it in 1632, the year after Mumtaz Mahal died bearing their fourteenth child; twenty-two years and twenty thousand workers, with marble hauled 400 km from Makrana in Rajasthan.

Agra Fort, and the Musamman Burj where he died a prisoner of his own son, looking downriver at the tomb he had built.

Amber Fort and Jaipur

Fatehpur Sikri on the road, then Amber Fort on its ridge above Maota Lake with the Sheesh Mahal, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Hawa Mahal.

Four options

Car, driver and guide; or with three, four or five-star hotels and entrances included.

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays, which determines how the three days are arranged.

Three days is the minimum that works for this route. If your dates allow four or five, the trip changes character.