Jaipur: Private Half/Full-Day Sightseeing with Car and Guide

Pick the version that fits your day

This is the same route in four shapes, and the honest answer is that most people over-buy. Read this before you choose.

Half day by tuk-tuk is the cheapest and, in October to March weather, genuinely the nicest way to move through the old city. Open sides, no windows between you and the street, and it fits down lanes a car cannot enter. Four or five hours covers Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Jal Mahal.

Half day by private car is the same stops with air conditioning. In April, May and June that is not a luxury.

Full day by tuk-tuk adds Amber Fort, which is 11 km each way uphill. A tuk-tuk makes that climb, slowly.

Full day with car, guide and lunch is the complete version, and the only one that includes someone to explain what you are looking at.

What you will see

Hawa Mahal — five storeys, 953 windows, and only about a metre deep in places. It was a screen for the women of the court, not a palace to live in.

City Palace — Mughal and Rajput architecture around courtyards, with the two silver urns in the Diwan-i-Khas that a maharaja filled with Ganges water for a voyage to England.

Jantar Mantar — a UNESCO site of masonry astronomical instruments, including the world's largest stone sundial.

Jal Mahal — seen from the lakeside road. There is no boat and no entry.

Albert Hall Museum — Indo-Saracenic, with an Egyptian mummy and a good Rajasthani textile collection.

Amber Fort on the full-day versions.

What is not included

Monument tickets. Budget roughly ₹1,500 per foreign adult if you enter all the major sites, less if you photograph Hawa Mahal from the street like most people do.