Forts & Palaces on Royal Enfield (Rajasthan, India)

Fifteen nights from Delhi through Rajasthan to the Taj Mahal, guided, on a Royal Enfield.

Six world heritage sites fall along this route and the last of them is the Taj at sunset, which is the right way to finish a fortnight in northern India.

Mandawa opens it in Shekhawati, where merchant families covered their havelis in frescoes in the nineteenth century and then left, so the whole district reads as an open gallery in slow decay. Mahensar follows on unmetalled village roads, with lunch at the fort. Bikaner comes next across semi-desert, with Junagarh and its thirty-seven sandstone palaces inside a moated wall, then Jaisalmer, a golden fortress still inhabited, with a Jain temple and the Maharaja’s palace inside it. The Thar Desert follows with trail riding, Khuri folk singing, Kalbelia dancing, camels on the dunes and a night under canvas. Dechu, Jodhpur with Mehrangarh above the blue city, and Chandelao with its birdwatching and craftsmen close the Rajasthani half, before Fatehpur Sikri and the Buland Darwaza, the largest gateway of its kind in the world.

The bike hire is included; the full inclusions were not itemised on the operator’s page and are worth confirming at booking. October to March is the riding season, since Rajasthan in May approaches fifty degrees. Sixteen days is the most complete Rajasthani itinerary in this database, and the village and desert nights are what lift it above a fort-to-fort circuit. The riding is flat and almost entirely sealed, with a few unmetalled village stretches, so no off-road experience is needed and the pace is set by the stops rather than the roads.