Situated seven miles northeast of Jaipur, this was once the royal Rajput capital. Its exterior is stunning, and its ravishing Sheesh Mahal (“Palace of Mirrors”) and marble former audience hall are worth a visit.  Don't miss the views down into the gardens below. At the end of the visit, you can grab a café and pop into outposts of Tulsi and Hot Pink in the rampart rooms. There are often snake charmers by the exits as well. Members can contact our Bookings Team for help organizing custom touring.

Set in a stunning 400-year-old haveli, this pristine museum showcases block printing, in turn working to preserve and raise awareness about the endangered craft. Visitors can watch daily printing and wood carving demonstrations and tour galleries explaining regional prints and the dyeing process. The restoration of the haveli itself won the family owners a UNESCO conservation award and is worth seeing in its own right.

A delightful introduction to Mogul and Rajput architecture and culture, the City Palace, in the center of Jaipur, displays the extravagant handiwork for which the region has long been known. An architectural whimsy of elaborate carvings and columns adorned with floral designs in gold and colored stones, the building houses an excellent museum with extensive collections of historical costumes, armor, carriages, carpets, furniture and paintings. After viewing the gorgeously painted Hall of Private Audience, gaze up at the present maharaja’s palace, known as Chandra Mahal, or Moon Palace. Note: there’s a quiet café tucked away on the palace grounds as well as a nice gift shop. The Jantar Mantar observatory is also worth a visit. Members can contact our Bookings Team for help organizing custom touring.

An interaction with an elephant is an unforgettable experience by itself, but getting the chance to paint it (a traditional practice in Jaipur) is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Members can contact our Bookings Team for help.

Adjacent to the City Palace, the so-called Palace of the Winds is a five-tiered, pink confection built in 1799 for the ladies of the royal household. Peering through the lacy sandstone carving the women could view daily life on the streets without being seen. The apparently vast building is really a trompe l’oeil, since the top three stories are each just one-room deep. Members can contact our Bookings Team for help organizing custom touring.

Visit some of the many community projects around Jaipur, ranging from a farm where a family has rescued elephants and you can help bathe and paint them in traditional Jaipur style to a village school where you can engage with students.

If you're an Indagare Custom Planner member, contact Indagare to arrange this tour.

Visit with master craftsmen. Depending on your interests, your tour can focus on the decorative arts and housewares with visits to hand-block studios and stone and wood workers as well as shops specializing in these products or can be arranged around fashion with visits to the ateliers of jewelers and designers. Members can contact the bookings team to arrange.

Explore the city’s history with visits to the most important historic sites in the company of a guide who can explain the history and significance of the Palace of the Winds, the Jantar Mantar Observatory; the City Palace and the Amber Fort. Members can contact the bookings team to arrange.

This quirky, fabulous observatory, on the grounds of the City Palace, was built between 1726 and 1734 by the founder of Jaipur, Maharaja Jai Singh II, who was also an astronomer. Within it are eighteen astronomical instruments that predict weather and record planetary movements. It’s a bit Le Corbusier meets Palladio, and definitely worth seeing. When you understand the scientific complexity and accuracy and see how it is married with elegant design, you may just see how the founder was clearly the Steve Jobs of his time. Members can contact our Bookings Team for help organizing custom touring.

Brigitte Singh’s hand-printed textiles are something of a legend; in fact, the red poppy print that launched her career is permanently on view at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Singh left her native France in 1980 to study miniature painting in Jaipur; she ended up falling in love with her mentor’s son and staying in Rajasthan. Her studio, near the Amber Fort, which is a bougainvillea-covered haveli is worth a visit, if only for the serenity and loveliness of the place. Visitors can see blockprinters at work, using carved wooden block to precisely transfer dyes onto cotton, and then go upstairs to purchase everything from tunics to bedlinens. (Note the stock varies widely; sometimes it is quite low.) Lucky visitors might spot Brigitte herself and get a chance to learn more about the process and even discuss how printing traditions in the south of France originate from India.