Three days in Delhi. One of them belongs to Agra.
Which day trip gets you onto the marble at sunrise. What the Gatimaan Express costs against a car and driver. Where to eat through Chandni Chowk without losing the afternoon. Reviews of every tour you can book out of Delhi.
The four days a first Delhi trip gets built from.
A city day across both Delhis, a day in Agra, the express train south, and one long morning eaten through Chandni Chowk. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first dayOld & New Delhi City Tour – Half or Full Day Options AvailableQutub Minar, Humayun’s Tomb and the Jama Masjid in one run, with a driver holding the car between stops.
02The Agra dayFull Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by CarTaj Mahal, Agra Fort and the Baby Taj, door to door by car. Leave Delhi before six and the road is still empty.
03There and back by railTaj Mahal Day Tour from Delhi by Superfast Train – TOP RATED TOURIndia’s fastest train down to Agra after breakfast, back in Delhi the same evening. No 200km of trunk road either way.
04The Old Delhi morningThe Great Indian Food Tour: Old Delhi Food and Heritage WalkParatha alley, the spice market at Khari Baoli, kebabs by the Jama Masjid. Come hungry and wear shoes you can lose.
Every Delhi trip gives up one day to Agra. The choice is how you cover it.
Two hundred kilometres each way, three ways to do it, and one decision that shapes the whole day: what time you want to be standing in front of the marble.
A walled city, a set of imperial boulevards, and 200km of trunk road to Agra.
Shahjahanabad’s lanes on one side of the ridge, Lutyens’ roundabouts and the Mughal tombs on the other, then the Yamuna road south to the marble and the fort above it. Six starting points, and the best day out in each.
Chandni Chowk is a walking city that happens to have traffic in it.
The lanes off the main bazaar are too narrow for a car, which is why every good Old Delhi morning ends up on foot. Paratha alley, the spice halls at Khari Baoli, the steps of the Jama Masjid when the call goes up.
Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, in the order almost every itinerary takes them.
A loop of three or four days with the same car and driver the whole way. These are the runs travellers rate highest, plus the extra night that turns it into something slower.
What a day out of Delhi actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between a morning in Chandni Chowk and a private car to Agra is wider than most people plan for.
Monument entry, Old Delhi walking mornings, rickshaw runs and the food crawls through Chandni Chowk.
The Agra day in full: car or express train, Taj plus the fort, and lunch somewhere with air conditioning.
Multi-day Golden Triangle runs, a private car held for the whole trip, and the tiger-safari detour.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Delhi.
Every Delhi tour we have reviewed →The tours that carry the most travellers out of this city, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Old & New Delhi City Tour – Half or Full Day Options Available
See Delhi’s Mughal monuments, Sikh and Bahá’í temples, spice markets, and grand government buildings on a private half or full-day tour.
From · $38
Read our review →
2
Old & New Delhi City Tour – Choose Half or Full Day Experience
from $38
3
Same Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car
from $62
4
Taj Mahal Day Tour from Delhi by Superfast Train – TOP RATED TOUR
from $100
5
Old and New Delhi Private Full or Half-Day Tour
from $2
6
Full Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car
from $62
7
Taj Mahal & Agra Private Day Trip with Transfers
from $4
8
Taj Mahal Tour from Delhi by Express Train (Viator Award Winner)
from $75
Three things that only happen in Delhi and Agra.
Grand monuments and old bazaars turn up all over the subcontinent. A seventeenth-century market you can still eat your way through, marble that changes colour at dawn, and a 160km/h train laid on for a day trip do not.
The lanes of Shahjahanabad
Shah Jahan laid out his walled capital in 1648 around one broad avenue with a canal down the middle. The canal is long gone and the avenue carries traffic, but the lanes behind it are unchanged in width, which means unchanged in use: Khari Baoli still moves spice by the sack, Paranthe Wali Gali still fries in the same three shops, and the only way through any of it is on foot or on the back of a cycle rickshaw.
- 1Old & New Delhi City Tour – Half or Full Day Options Available★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,811 reviews
- 2Old & New Delhi City Tour – Choose Half or Full Day Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,513 reviews
- 3Old and New Delhi Private Full or Half-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 3,776 reviews
The Taj before the coaches
The gates open around sunrise and for the first hour the marble does the thing photographs never quite carry: it comes up pink, turns cream, then goes white as the sun clears the far bank of the Yamuna. Getting there for it means leaving a Delhi hotel at four in the morning. It also means the forecourt is nearly empty, and that the day is still cool enough to walk the fort afterwards.
- 1Sunrise Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Car★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,243 reviews
- 2Private Sunrise Taj Mahal Trip from Delhi all Inclusive★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,537 reviews
- 3Private Taj Mahal Sunrise, Baby Taj & Fort Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 743 reviews
India’s fastest train, laid on for a day trip
The Gatimaan Express leaves Hazrat Nizamuddin after breakfast, runs at 160km/h and puts you in Agra in about a hundred minutes, with a meal served at the seat. It goes back the same evening. For anyone who has done the road once, the train is the argument: no truck convoys, no toll queues, and the whole 200km handled while you eat.
- 1Taj Mahal Day Tour from Delhi by Superfast Train – TOP RATED TOUR★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,166 reviews
- 2Taj Mahal Tour from Delhi by Express Train (Viator Award Winner)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,849 reviews
- 3Private Taj Mahal and Agra Tour by Express Train★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,605 reviews
Four Delhi bookings that answer to somebody else’s calendar.
Most of this city can be arranged the night before over a plate of kebabs. These four run on closing days, dawn slots and a train timetable that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Same Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by CarThe Taj Mahal is shut to visitors every Friday, so a fixed one-day slot in Agra can miss it entirely.
- 02Taj Mahal and Agra Fort Private Sunrise TourSunrise trips leave Delhi around four in the morning and each driver takes a set number of seats.
- 03Taj Mahal Day Tour from Delhi by Superfast Train – TOP RATED TOURThe fast trains to Agra run to a published timetable with a fixed seat count, and the winter fog thins the schedule further.
- 043-Days Private Golden Triangle Tour: Delhi, Agra & Jaipur by CarThree cities across three or four days sets the shape of everything else in the trip, so it is booked first, not last.
May flattens the afternoons and January fogs the road to Agra.
Two seasons rearrange a Delhi itinerary. From May the middle of the day runs past 43°C and every open monument empties by noon. From late November the fog closes in before dawn and holds up the Agra road and the early trains. Both point the same way: start early, then spend the middle of the day under a roof or over a plate.
By place — the two Delhis, Agra, and the road between
By kind of day — monument, market, kitchen or trunk road
Old Delhi, New Delhi, Agra, Jaipur: the loop almost everybody does first.
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