From Delhi: 3-Day Golden Triangle Tour– Delhi, Agra & Jaipur

The standard three days, with guides who are actually licensed

Worth stating because it is not universal: the guides on this itinerary hold government licences, which in Agra and Jaipur is the difference between history and folklore.

Day 1: Delhi, then Agra

The capital in the morning — Qutub Minar with its unrusted iron pillar, Humayun's Tomb (the 1560s garden tomb the Taj descends from), and India Gate — then the Yamuna Expressway south.

Day 2: Agra, then Jaipur

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

Your guide covers the calligraphy cut in increasing sizes so it reads uniformly from the ground; the pietra dura inlay, up to sixty stones in a single flower; the four minarets, tilted fractionally outward so an earthquake would drop them clear of the tomb; and the one asymmetry in the whole building — Shah Jahan's own cenotaph, added off-axis by Aurangzeb.

Then Agra Fort, and Fatehpur Sikri on the road west.

Day 3: Jaipur

Amber Fort before the coaches arrive — the Ganesh Pol gateway, the Sheesh Mahal where mirror fragments turned a single candle into a ceiling of stars, and the water-cooled Sukh Niwas.

Then Jal Mahal from the causeway, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and the Hawa Mahal, and the drive back to Delhi.

Three options

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

Practical

The Taj is closed on Fridays.

Around 700 km of driving across three days. Entrance fees are separate unless your option includes them.