Destinations!

Oh yes my friend, now comes the fun part - the part that really solidifies the fact that you are going, going, gone to India! See? Once the visa was done, it just starts to roll.

When deciding where to land in India, you should consider what it is you want to see, and what you want to do. You should also consider other important matters such as travelers warnings in effect for any given destination you may decide upon. You, as a Canadian can find those notices here: India Travel Warnings

For me, the choice was clear. Start in New Delhi!

If you don't know too much about any one place in India, Google it! I started by looking at other people's itineraries for their trips to get the names of places to research (Wikipedia) and to learn about the types of things to do in any given area. Try searching with "first trip to India" and read some of the results to get a basic idea of where you can go and what you can do. You'll find that 90% of the people start in Delhi.

Once you've decided on where to start your trip, you'll want to start building a base plan yourself. One word of advice - no matter how well you plan it, it will never match your approximations. Just be aware than anything and everything will conspire to delay your connections from place to place. Leave yourself a wide buffer of time to allow for travel between cities and possible delays. This is just as true for India as it is anywhere else, maybe even more so.

And also be conscious of the fact that you may have to drop destinations off your list due to time constraints too. Who knows? You could meet some cool Australians in Goa and spend 4 days longer there than anticipated. Whatever you plan to do, plan to not have a concrete plan!

But don't give up on the idea of seeing all those amazing places you'd like to see. But also, don't rush through them, as with any trip you may take. You want to enjoy the trip, not feel like it's passing by too quickly. Just saying from experience on other trips, be realistic with your base plan. And you know what? If you don't get to see something this time, there will always be other opportunities!

All of that said, I'm going to share my base plan with you - note that I have 2 months (60 days) in India.

New Delhi - 2 days
Rishikesh - 2 days
Agra - 2 days
Jaipur - 2 days
Udaipur - 2 days
Mumbai - 2 days
Pune - 2 days
Goa - 5 days (various locations)
Mangalore - 2 days
Kerala - 5 days (various locations)
Pondicherry - 2 days
Chennai - 2 days
Kolkata - 2 days
Darjeeling - 2 days
Varanasi - 4 days
New Delhi - 2 days (final days before homeward bound)

The total of my estimation is 40 days visiting cities and places. That leaves me 20 days for traveling between destinations and extending at certain ones. And these are not set in stone. They could be skipped, or others could be added. Just note that I tried to stay within a 66% allocation of available time in my base plan.

For you, pick your Arrival city and the plot out what you'd like to see or do, based on your research! Just try to keep a circuit, so that you can get back readily enough to the city you depart from (usually the same as the one you arrived to). Look at the map below to see an example of my base plan.

In all likelihood this will change though, as I am discovering new things I'd like to see and do everyday - like riding an elephant through the jungle looking for tigers!!! At any rate, be creative with your plan, but also try to be realistic too... plan for what can't be planned.