When we sat down to plan Rajasthan, the map alone was intimidating — it's a huge state, and everyone we asked had a different opinion on where to start. We eventually settled on the classic loop that most first-timers do: Jaipur, then Jodhpur, then Jaisalmer, and finally Udaipur, flying in and out of Jaipur to keep the road time manageable. It ended up being one of our favourite trips, so here's how the week actually went.

Jaipur: Forts, Bazaars And Our First Taste Of Rajasthani Food

We started in Jaipur, the Pink City, and gave it two full days — which in hindsight was just about right. Amer Fort was the obvious highlight: we went early to beat both the heat and the crowds, and spent a good three hours wandering the courtyards and the mirror-work of the Sheesh Mahal. The elephant rides up to the fort are popular, but we chose to walk up instead and were glad we did — it gave us time to actually look at the fort's approach rather than rush past it.

City Palace and Hawa Mahal filled up our second morning, and we spent the afternoon getting properly lost in the lanes around Johari Bazaar and Bapu Bazaar, picking up block-printed textiles and a truly excessive amount of jootis. For food, we kept coming back to simple thali places for dal baati churma — it's heavy, but it's exactly the kind of meal you want after a day of walking forts.

Jodhpur: The Blue City And Mehrangarh Fort

The drive from Jaipur to Jodhpur took us most of a day, so we treated it as a travel day and arrived in the evening. Mehrangarh Fort is the reason to come to Jodhpur, and it deserves the reputation — the fort sits high above the old city, and the views over the blue-painted houses below are the kind of view you end up photographing far more than you planned to.

We spent an evening walking through the clock tower market (Sardar Market) nearby, which was a lot less touristy and a lot more chaotic in a good way — spice stalls, sweet shops, and vendors selling everything from lanterns to leather shoes.

Jaisalmer: The Desert And A Night Under The Stars

Jaisalmer was the part of the trip we'd been most looking forward to, and it didn't disappoint. The Golden Fort — still a living fort, with families actually residing inside it — is unlike anything else on this route, built entirely from the same honey-coloured sandstone that gives the city its name.

We booked an overnight desert camp at Sam Sand Dunes, a short drive from the city, and it turned out to be the single most memorable night of the whole trip — a camel ride out to the dunes for sunset, dinner under a genuinely enormous sky, and a folk music performance around the campfire before we turned in for the night in the camp's tents.

Udaipur: The City Of Lakes

After the desert, Udaipur felt like a different country altogether — green, calm, and built entirely around its lakes. City Palace, right on the edge of Lake Pichola, was worth the entry fee alone for the views back across the water toward the Lake Palace floating in the middle.

We ended the trip the way we'd hoped to — with a slow boat ride on Lake Pichola at sunset, watching the City Palace and the ghats along the water turn gold. It felt like the right note to end a very full week on.