India family holiday

Tailor made 12 day holiday capturing all the fun that this company founder has had again and again in India with her kids, usually on a bike. You have a chauffeur guide.

Delhi Shekhavati, Rajasthan Camel trek Jaipur Ranthambore National Park Karauli village Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary Fatehpur Sikri Agra Taj Mahal

Price

£1450To£1800 excluding flights

Convert currency:

Duration

15 Days

Type

Tailor made

Reviews

Accessibility

More info

All prices are per person, based on a family of 4.
The exact itinerary will be tailored and the price may fluctuate, depending on hotels and activities.
Discounts are available for children, depending on their age and room configuration.
No min age.

Description of India family holiday

India is an incredibly exciting destination, a constant kaleidoscope of colour, noise, mayhem and occasional serenity. There are holy cows wandering in the middle of the road, holy men with long dreadlocks getting into strange contortions and holy temples awash with incense, fragrant flowers and hundreds of pilgrims.

It is a huge country that deserves many visits and we recommend that you concentrate on one particular part of the country for each stay. A good place to start is the princely state of Rajasthan, home to many of India's most beautiful and well known sights, including crumbling forts that are begging to be explored, exquisitely decorated merchants' houses, majestic palaces which are the perfect venue for a game of hide and seek, and the constant backdrop of colour whether from mounds of spices in the market or from the brightly coloured saris of women walking through the countryside with pots balanced on their heads. Not far from Rajasthan is Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, possibly one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

Also popular is the lovely state of Kerala, in the south of India, and a world away from the north. Life here operates at a slightly slower pace and it is a land of peaceful waterways where you can spend the night in a converted rice barge, picturesque coffee and tea plantations that are perfect for a hike (or gentle ramble!) and idyllic beaches.

More adventurous families might want to head into the far north, to the Himalayas, home to incredible scenery and some great activities. Sip a cup of freshly picked tea on a tea estate in Darjeeling, watch the sun rise over the tip of Kanchenjunga, hang out with the monks in Ladakh, ride the rapids down a tributary of the Ganges or cycle in the mountain foothills.

Everywhere you will find the welcome friendly and the children will be permanently wide eyed and fascinated by the incredible experiences on offer.

Price information

£1450To£1800 excluding flights

Convert currency:

Contact Us

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one, we're very happy to help

01273 823 700

Call us Monday after 9am

Calling from outside the UK rosy@responsibletravel.com

Departure information

This trip can be tailor made throughout the year to suit your requirements

Contact Us

If you'd like to chat about this holiday or need help finding one, we're very happy to help

01273 823 700

Call us Monday after 9am

Calling from outside the UK rosy@responsibletravel.com

Travel guides

2 minute summary Best time to go

India doesn’t compromise; it flows, carrying recognisable little bits from the West and turning them into something else entirely. This is why an Indi...

2 minute summary Best time to go

First things first, family adventure holidays aren’t designed for those super high-achieving families who spend the weekends up at dawn, donned in mat...

Holiday information

Our top tip:

The most important thing to pack is patience on a family trip to India. When you go with the flow, you can have the family trip of a lifetime.

Trip type:

Tailor made to suit family ages and requirements.

Activity level:

Leisurely.

Accomm:

4 nights in 3-4* hotels, 2 nights in luxurious mud huts, 2 nights in heritage guesthouse, 2 nights in Maharaja’s residence, 1 night in a deluxe tented camp.

Included:

Accommodation, all breakfasts, chauffeur guide in private a/c vehicle, activities.

Meals:

Budget £3.50 for a really good quality lunch. £1 for street food.

Accessibility

Overview:

We believe that travel is for everyone. This is a really core principle for us and we passionately believe that where there’s a will there’s a way. We take all ages and all levels of fitness and we do everything possible to ensure that our tours are accessible for everyone, irrespective of physical ability or cognitive conditions. In our experience, there is almost always a way of making a tour suitable for everyone. It’s conceivable that there may be some situations that we can’t accommodate but we haven’t come across them yet!

Limited mobility:

Everything that we do is tailor made so if we have guests with limited mobility, for example, we will tailor the programme to take this into account, and will suggest hotels which will suit. Just let us know what your requirements are and we can talk you through the options

Wheelchair:

In most of our destinations, it is not possible to arrange a special vehicle adapted for wheelchairs, but we are able to arrange a large vehicle which will have ample storage for a wheelchair. Some hotels have wheelchair access; these may be few and far between but we can suggest where these might be possible. Where there is no wheel chair access, but not too many steps, hotel staff are always happy to help with lifting the wheel chair.

Blind/ limited vision:

All of our customers will be travelling as part of a family group therefore we would expect that one of the family would be able to provide necessary assistance to a traveller with limited vision. Information in braille is almost never available but local support can be provided, for example ensuring that porters are available to carry luggage in airports / train stations / hotels so that the travel partner is free to assist the person with limited vision.

Deaf/limited hearing:

As stated above, all of our customers will be travelling as part of a family group therefore we would expect that one of the family would be able to provide necessary assistance to a traveller with limited hearing.

Cognitive conditions:

We have experience in providing appropriate spaces for all travellers, whether this means hotels with access to outdoor space, ground floor rooms, quiet rooms and so on. As all of our customers will be travelling as part of a family group therefore we would expect that one of the family would be also be on hand to provide necessary one on one assistance to a traveller with cognitive conditions as required.

About this Free from food:

If guests have serious dietary issues (or allergies) we will arrange translations into the relevant local language(s) to explain these, and will brief guides to ensure that appropriate food is served.

LGBT:

The staff who are responsible for running our tours will always be LGBT friendly. Many of the destinations in which we operate do not offer equal rights to the LGBT community, and outward displays of affection may be problematic. We will be able to give advice on this on a country by country basis.

Reviews

1 Reviews of India family holiday

4 out of 5 stars

SHOW

Reviewed on 14 Aug 2016 by Janine Jackson

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?

There were many memorable experiences - our rickshaw ride through the Dehli markets was definitely a highlight....what a culture shock! The noise, smells, heat and totally manic traffic dodging around cows in the streets is imprinted on the memory. Seeing the rural life in Rajasthan was amazing - how the locals live in their mud houses, working on the land by hand, and how friendly the people were to us. Staying in a Maharaja's palace was an experience. Seeing the Taj Mahal was so spiritual. And the many palaces, forts, temples and havelis with their frescoes were so interesting.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?

Be vigilant with hygiene if you want to avoid a stomach upset - lots of antibacterial hand gels, avoid meat, dairy and uncooked/unpeelable fruit and veg, and be careful of swallowing swimming pool water. July/August was very humid but the monsoon rain did not affect our trip and made the heat more bearable than May/June time. Begging is rife and hard to ignore. Take pens for the village children. I would not recommend our trip for very young children, but was fab for teenagers.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?

Staying in local homestays/havelis provided much needed income for locals, as did visiting villagers to witness their crafts and purchase goods they had made. The Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary was worth visiting.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?

After some initial concerns about travelling around Dehli and Rajasthan with 2 teenagers, we were pleasantly surprised. Although the itinerary was very busy there was nothing I could really cut out and it has definitely given our two rather spoilt kids a lot to think about! We were only disappointed by one of our many accommodations and we had so much more insight into the culture of the country than if we had stayed in 'chain' westernised hotels. It was a good mix of towns and rural villages and we came home feeling we had definitely got a good understanding of the Indian culture.

Responsible Travel

As the pioneers of responsible tourism, we've screened this (and every) holiday so that you can travel knowing it will help support the places and people that you visit, and the planet. Read how below.

Planet

We operate all of our tours in India in conjunction with a local partner that share our environmental values and have pioneered many social and environmental programmes within India. As an example, we often send travellers to a lovely eco-resort in the Shekhavati area of Rajasthan. The resort uses photovoltaic solar panels to generate electricity for all accommodation and also to provide hot water. All food at the resort is sourced locally and is organic, with a zero tolerance to any kind of chemical fertiliser and pesticide.
In general in India we use small locally owned and family run accommodation which has been built (and furnished) using local materials.
Our UK office is run as environmentally as possible. The majority of our staff either walk or cycle to work and we operate a primarily paper free environment. We do not produce brochures (which often leads to a lot of waste) but market our tours exclusively on the internet.

People

As with our environmental promise, our local partners in India are committed to ensuring that tourism brings about positive social change. Together we have scoured India for unusual heritage properties, in many cases persuading owners of smaller properties to open their houses for small scale tourism. The money that this generates helps to preserve the property but also provides an invaluable source of income in remote village areas.
We also support an initiative whereby we try to support the drivers who escort our groups, to be able to purchase their own vehicle. This means that they are able to be self-sufficient and not dependent on a particular employer for work.
We also support a small village near Jodhpur which has been very active in developing work opportunities for women, something which is fairly uncommon in rural India. The village has set up a very small scale arts and crafts centre which sells good that have been made by the village women, ensuring that all profits are returned directly to the families involved. Many of our travellers visit this village, spending time with the local people and, if interested, visiting the local school.

India family holiday