Guiding in India

India works a little differently to Sri Lanka. Rather than a single chauffeur guide, you travel with your own private driver and a good-quality air-conditioned vehicle for the length of your trip, and then meet expert local guides at the places that deserve them. Your driver looks after the journey and is with you throughout, while a specialist guide brings each city, monument or park to life. It is the combination that works so well: the continuity of your own driver paired with deep local knowledge at every stop.

Your driver stays with you from place to place, looking after the route, the vehicle and the day to day logistics. Most have a good level of English, ranging from easy everyday conversation to a great deal more. Your guides are local experts at each destination, with strong communication skills and genuine depth in their subject, whether that is Mughal history in Agra, the temples of Tamil Nadu or the wildlife of a tiger reserve.

We and our local partners choose them with real care, drawing on years of feedback from our clients. We brief them properly, we match them to you and we hold them to a high standard. In the national parks you will also have expert naturalists who know the terrain and the animals intimately. It is this network, built over many years, that lets everything run smoothly across such a large country.

Yes, wherever we can. If you are passionate about textiles, food, architecture, birds or photography, tell us and we will do our best to arrange guides and local hosts who share that interest. If you are travelling with children, we will look to pair you with a driver and guides who are particularly good with them.

In many cities we can request a female local guide, and the picture is improving year on year. Please let us know your preference and we will do everything we can to arrange it for your particular route.

In most cases, yes. Your driver tends to stay with you across a region, which means they get to know you and how you like things. On longer trips that cross very different parts of the country, or where there are internal flights, arrangements can change, and we will always explain this clearly when we plan your itinerary.