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13 Best India Travel Guide Books

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• 13 Best India Travel Guide…

India is a vast country with diverse and awe-inspiring landscapes. From sandy shores of the Keralan coast, barren deserts of Rajasthan, the majestic snow-capped Himalayas, ancient temples, to buzzing modern cities, the country has it all. The stunning country also offers a rich mix of traditions, festivals, and spiritual beliefs. All these reasons make India a must-visit! For a memorable trip to India, what’s a better way to understand and learn more about the country than by getting yourself “lost” in the best India travel guide books? These guidebooks are more than helpful in planning your trip. Whatever you want to explore in this ancient country, these travel guide books India will help you make the most of your time in this exotic part of the world.

How To Choose The Best India Travel Guide Books?

Travel guidelines to India are all you need to arrange the perfect trip to India . With travel guidebooks, it’s easier to travel safely. That said, choosing travel guide books India also can be overwhelming. To get the best one, there are some basic things that you can consider before deciding to buy a travel guide book India. Let’s take a look at them one by one!

What’s Included In The Book

A travel guidebook to India should contain information about sights, accommodation, transportation, activities, and restaurants. Detailed maps and historical cultural information also make a good guidebook. Some India travel guide books even include phrases and glossary to help you interact with the locals. Colorful photos in the book would be a great feature for travelers’ inspiration.

Published Date

To avoid misinformation about the places you’re going to visit, we recommend getting the latest edition which published date is no later than a year apart. Hotels, restaurants, sights, and shops are ever-changing, so it’s important to get the updated information.

While traveling, you may not want to be weighed down by a thick travel guide book India. If so, a digital version is the best option for you. Meanwhile, some travelers may want to have a printed edition. This version can be useful along the way, such as for taking notes or using the maps without the need for GPS or gadgets.

Is India easy to travel around?

Well, since India is a huge country, getting around can be slow and require a bit of patience. However, it also offers extensive interesting and fascinating places. You’ll never get bored of traveling in India. If anything, your trip may turn into a fascinating adventure!

Is India dangerous for tourists?

You may have heard infamous rumors about India, but generally, India is considered a safe destination for tourists. That said, you should be aware of certain things like scams and pickpockets. So, don’t forget to bring your underclothing travel pouch for safety. Reading travel guidelines to India before you go, like The Essential Safety & Security Guide to Visiting India and Travel Fearlessly in India is also useful. These books provide useful tips, advice, and strategies on how to travel safely in India.

Is India expensive to visit?

Actually, India is commonly known as one of the best budget destinations for travelers in the world. You’ll find plenty of budget hotels and affordable transportation to get around. It’s a perfect destination for budget travelers.

Essential India Travel Guide

Essential India Travel Guide is

written by Mohan Kapoor. He’s a native Indian who was born in Bikaner, Rajasthan. When he was young, he left the country. But, he returned to India for work. His jobs required him to travel extensively through India. So, he shares his knowledge about the country, life, historical sights, and culture into a useful travel guide. It’s perfect for anyone wanting to travel to India.

Unlike other India travel guide books we have on this list, this book only covers cities and states with the most popular and important tourist attractions. But you’ll get an in-depth look and some fun facts of each city. It includes where to eat, what to see, where to go, and what to expect. It also gives you information about how to be respectful to each of the six main religions,, plus, how to be aware of the pickpockets, and more.

The thing we like the most about this book is that the author provides essential tips. These include what to expect, what type of travel agencies you can trust, important cultural aspects, what food choices are safe, and so much more. Plus, he also shares his own story. In a way, by reading this book you travel virtually to cities and states like Delhi, Goa, and Kolkata even before you arrive in the beautiful and colorful country!

Any type of travelers, including business travelers, backpackers, and party-goers.

The Essential Safety & Security Guide to Visiting India

Are you a solo traveler who yearns to travel to India, but has been disheartened by rumors or publicity about violence there? The Essential Safety & Security Guide to Visiting India will show you how to have a happy and safe trip. So, you’ll know how to survive and enjoy your stay in the great land of India. The author is a native-born Indian diplomat with extensive experience and knowledge of his native country.

The book contains general information, like geography and weather. Before you go, some chapters will help you prepare. Getting started, financial planning , and before you travel are some of them. Information about health, insurance, and getting local connections are also provided. Besides, it covers insightful cultural and historical narratives. You’ll find all this info in the chapter: An Introduction to India .

The author talks about safety and security during your time in India. He guides you on how to act, what to do, and how to handle unique situations to make sure you enjoy your stay. You’ll figure out how to travel safely within India by air and train. He also gives tips on how to obtain travel passage to restricted or protected regions. What’s more, there’s a piece of specific advice for female travelers, making it the best travel guide books India for female travelers.

Backpackers, adventurers, female travelers, and solo travelers.

India – Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture

Whether you’re traveling for work or planning a long-term trip to India, you’ll need travel guidelines to India. It will help you to understand the local culture. India – Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture is indeed a useful book. It helps you to learn important stuff about the country, whether it’s land and people, customs and traditions, or values and attitudes. Also, there are some tips on dos and don’ts and taboos. You’ll even get info about business in India!

This travel guide book India is written by Becky Stephen. She enjoys traveling and learning about cultures. Also, she studied Hindi at Banaras Hindu University and lived in Varanasi for years. The author shares her meaningful experience through a better understanding of the local culture. With this book, you’ll be aware of the essential values and behavioral norms, plus knowing how to make new friends and build relationships with the locals.

The book starts with the introduction and key facts about India. Meanwhile, the Land and People chapter contains several topics. These include a brief history of India, as well as its geography and climate. You’ll also find some information about places to eat, shops, and cultural activities. Besides, there’s a section for top places to visit and a map of India.

Long-term travelers, temporary residents, and business travelers.

Lonely Planet South India & Kerala (Regional Guide)

You’ll love Lonely Planet South India & Kerala . It’s perfect as your travel guidelines to India when visiting that particular region. The information on history and culture is very informative. Plus, there’s up-to-date advice on what to see and what not to see. So, you can discover both popular and off-beaten-path experiences. This makes the book the most comprehensive guide to South India and Kerala. It covers Goa, Kerala, Mumbai, Andaman Islands, Bengaluru, and more.

The authors have also packed the book with sights and experiences. It includes South India & Kerala’s Top 12. With this one of the best travel guide books India, you can choose activities that suit you. Do you prefer relaxing on a yoga retreat by the beach in Goa ? Or, floating along Kerala’s backwaters? This book has it covered. Meanwhile, the itineraries section helps customize your trip to your interests.

Get information on recommended accommodation, like hotels in Mumbai , and also places to eat, drinking & nightlife, entertainment, and shopping. There’s a section about how to travel with children for your next family trip. It gives you info about customs regulations, embassies, and consulates. Plus, full-color maps and images are also provided.

Family travelers, solo travelers, backpackers, business travelers, and long-term travelers.

Insight Guides India

You need to plan your trip to experience the best of India. Both paperback or digital editions of Insight Guide India can help you on your next adventure. It’s one of the best travel guide books India for travelers looking for a cultural experience. The book is written by local authors who have extensive historical and cultural backgrounds. Besides, they provide hundreds of stunning photos that capture the essence of India. Not to forget the detailed maps!

There’s a section that features India’s Top 10 Attractions. Also, it covers several regions, from Delhi in the north, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa, to Kerala. The information on independence, art, and architecture let you know more about the country.

You’ll find the editor’s choice for the most memorable India experiences. From seeing Hindu festivals, tasting the Indian food, to visiting Rajasthan fort. What’s more, the book includes practical information and travel tips. You’ll find about when to go and transportation. Moreover, this user-friendly travel guide book India provides invaluable maps. So, you could venture off the beaten track.

Any type of travelers, from backpackers, adventurers, business travelers, to photographers.

DK Eyewitness Delhi, Agra and Jaipur

Are you traveling to India for the first time or relocating temporarily to the capital city Delhi? Gear up with some information about the Golden Triangle for your adventures. It includes Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, India’s most visited cities. These cities are famed for their iconic monuments and frenetic energy. Also, these regions have much to offer, including plenty of things to do in Jaipur .

For all those reasons, DK Eyewitness Delhi, Agra and Jaipur can be your best India travel guide books. Unlike most travel guide books, it’s lightweight. So, you can take it wherever you go on your trip. Also, the book is available on Kindle. The information from the book makes traveling across the three cities easy.  Whether you want to glimpse the pretty pink Hawa Mahal or get the perfect shot of the Taj Mahal, the book includes all. Not only you’ll discover reasons to love Delhi , Agra, and Jaipur, but the book also makes you know about the cities.

Like other DK Eyewitness travel guide books India, this book comes with trademark illustrations. Besides, the book provides the best places to eat, drink, and shop. Recommended accommodation is also provided. Meanwhile, the selection of itineraries allows you to make your own. What’s more, get expert advice on how to stay safe, get around, and get ready. Like all DK Eyewitness guide, the book has plenty of beautiful pictures and diagrams. Plus, it includes detailed maps and a pull-out map of Delhi.

Long-term travelers, business travelers, backpackers, and adventurers.

Travel Fearlessly in India: What Every Woman Should Know About Personal Safety

Women who are traveling to India should have the best India travel guide books. Travel Fearlessly in India written by J D Viharini is important for your first or fifth trip to the beautiful country. The author is an American woman who has made India her home. She has traveled across India since 1980, mostly alone. From the tropical south to the remote Himalayas, visit ancient temples, and attend great festivals.

With her 30 years of familiarity with India, she shares important things in travel guidelines to India. She includes the issues ladies may come across in the country. Here, you’ll find out about the mindset of Indian men and how to have safe interactions with them. She also talks about how to understand the Indian perspective on non-Indian women.

The book gives uncommon sights into how to travel and live safely in India. These include cultural factors relating to women’s safety. You’ll find comprehensive information like finding safe places to stay and how to travel safely; how to deal with potential problems and what you need to do if you have to go to the police are also provided. Her many years’ experiences make the book a great read for every female traveler before traveling to India.

Female travelers, solo travelers, and family.

Chennai & Tamil Nadu Focus Guide, 2nd Edition

Looking for specific India travel guide books to Chennai and Tamil Nadu area may be a bit difficult. That’s why the second edition of the Chennai & Tamil Nadu Focus Guide is very useful for your next trip. The book provides you with the insightful and up-to-date information you need. Are you planning to visit and explore many grand Hindu temples? Maybe you want to stop and savor the smell of jasmine garlands piled up before the carved granite gods? The book covers them all.

Also, you don’t want to miss enjoying nature in the blue Nilgiri Mountains. The book also includes information on the region’s unique history, culture, and cuisine for a richer experience along the way. Another section features practical tips on getting there and around.

Besides, you’ll get recommended and comprehensive listings of hotels, a list of restaurants and activities, including horse riding and festivals. This travel guide book India is only available in a printed edition but is slim enough to fit in your pocket. It helps you get the most out of Tamil Nadu without weighing you down. What’s more, the book provides detailed street maps for important towns and cities.

Photographers, long-term travelers, temporary residents, and backpackers.

Bradt Travel Guide: Ladakh, Jammu & the Kashmir Valley

Having the right travel guide books India is essential for the best adventures in Ladakh, Jammu, and Kashmir. Bradt Travel Guide Ladakh, Jammu & the Kashmir Valley can be your best option. Though Ladakh is becoming a more popular destination for its epic Himalayan beauty, some other areas are still off the beaten path, like Kashmir Valley & Jammu, plus Zanskar. There are so many wonders to be discovered and so many  things to do in Ladakh . So, this book is essential for travel guide book India for that specific region.

This fully updated edition helps you explore the whole area. These include Leh, Srinagar, Gulmarg, Zanskar, The Kashmir Valley, and Jammu amongst others. There are plenty of activities you can do. You may want to relax on a houseboat or take a shikara ride in Srinagar. How about exploring Buddhist culture in Ladakhi monasteries? Or, traveling in a jeep along nerve-wracking mountains roads become your choice? You can also enjoy the views from the roof of the world at the breathless Khardung La mountain pass. For adventurers, you don’t want to miss hiking to the Himalayan!

From the book, you’ll find information about these regions. Plus, trekking information, trekking maps, and new travel routes. Other highlights, like the Mughal Road, the Buddhist monks at Thiksey Monastery, and the Buddhas of Kargil are included. Also, we love the color photographs and maps. On top of that, there are Urdu and Ladakhi phrases. Get this one of the best India travel guide books in paperback or Kindle edition.

Adventurers, backpackers, climbers, hikers, and trekkers.

The Rough Guide to India

Make the most of your traveling with The Rough Guide to India ! Whether you’re visiting the world’s greatest building Taj Mahal or visiting the dramatic landscape of home to glaciers in Sikkim, it has it all. Also, the book provides very detailed and extensive information. It makes the book a perfect travel guide book India, especially if you’re preparing for the first trip to India and traveling on a budget.

The book may be a bit thick, but the e-book included is a brilliant bonus. Plus, it’s easy to use. These travel guidelines to India cover India’s cities and states north, south, and east. These include Uttar Pradesh, The Andaman Islands, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana, and more. From this book, you’ll find extensive listings of the best sights and top experiences.

Also, you can get practical advice about what to see and do. The essential pre-departure information is also provided. It includes getting around, food and drink, and accommodation. You’ll also get info about festivals, culture and etiquette, and more. The itinerary section helps you prepare your own routes, from popular tourist areas to off-the-beaten-track adventures. Besides, there’s a section that provides history, ethnic groups, religion, and wildlife. You’ll love the amazing full-color photography and practical full-color maps.

Backpackers, adventurers, and temporary travelers living in India.

Fodor’s Essential India

Get Fodor’s Essential India as your travel guide books India. It helps you plan the perfect adventure in India to be a trip of a lifetime. This guidebook is written by local writers and expert travel advisors who know the destinations better than anyone else. It’s perfect for travelers who want to travel in India but feel intimidated by the vastness of India. The travel guidelines to India are available in Kindle for a guidebook on the go. Meanwhile, the paperback is small enough to fit in your handbag and backpack.

The book starts with Experience India. This section provides the ultimate experiences you should try in India . Is it taking a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges or entering through the world’s largest door at Fatehpur Sikri? Maybe you want to wander the sprawling City Palace in Udaipur and party the night away at Goa? Meanwhile, you can have an overview of what to expect and where to go in the Travel Smart India section. It helps you with what you need to know before visit India. Also, it includes getting here and around and sample itineraries. Plus, you’ll get an explanation about history, culture, and travel tips.

This guidebook provides up-to-date coverage. From the capital city Delhi, home to Mother House Kolkata, to a financial center Mumbai . It also covers the largest Indian states Rajasthan and the coastlines of Kerala and Goa. It also includes information for side trips from Delhi. Each major city features planning, where to stay, what to do, etc. What’s more, the book provides lots of maps and illustrations to help maximize your time.

Adventurers, backpackers, photographers, and family.

Lonely Planet India

If you’re traveling to India quite often, Lonely Planet India is worth owning. It contains a lot of information about many corners of the country. Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Darjeeling, Chennai, are among them. Plus, it provides full-color maps and images. So, the book is perfect for a quick skimming before you do detailed planning and begin your journey in India. Do you want to listen to monks chanting in the shadow of the mighty Himalaya in Ladakh? Or, visiting top attractions in Agra , like the Taj Mahal? It has you covered!

The book may a little be thick, but it provides 4-easy use sections. So, you’ll find the most relevant and up-to-date advice and recommendations easily. It contains three main chapters: Plan Your Trip, On the Road, Understand, and Survival Guide. The Plan Your Trip is your planning tool kit to create the perfect trip. It provides useful information. From what you need to know, suggested itineraries, how to travel with children, to regions at a glance.

The book covers plenty of places in the country. You’ll find Agra, Goa, Bangalore, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad, Kerala, in the On the Road section. Plus, you’ll find expert reviews, insider tips, and easy-to-use maps. Get recommended accommodation, restaurants, and shops with honest reviews. Also, there’s a special section about tips for women and solo travelers, plus scams. What’s more, you’ll find information about transportation and cultural insights. It helps you get a more rewarding travel experience.

Family travelers, business travelers, adventurers, and backpackers.

DK Eyewitness India

DK Eyewitness India can be your right choice for India travel guide books. It’s filled with information. Either you choose the printed edition or e-book, you can take this guidebook wherever you go. The design will make the most of your travels to discover and experience India. Also, the book has several main sections, including Discover India. This section is divided into some parts: Welcome, Reasons to Love India, and Exploring/getting to know India. Itineraries/India your way, and the Indian year and a Brief History.

The introduction gives an overview of India as a country. Its history, food, culture, nature, architectures are amongst others. Meanwhile, the section Experience India features cities, states, and unions. Also, this travel guide book India includes highlights of what you could experience. It’s whether you prefer to drink tea in Darjeeling or visit the unmissable Taj Mahal. Perhaps you want to escape to the beautiful Andaman Islands or hike the heights of the Himalayas?

You’ll also find 22 sightseeing areas, which contains some information. These include addresses, phone numbers, websites, and opening times. Stuck for inspiration for your schedules while in India? Worry not! There are recommended easy-to-follow itineraries. So, you could set up your plan, whether you’re staying for just a few days or few weeks. Also, there is info about the best places to eat, sleep, and transport information. Even before you’re arriving in India, you can imagine yourself there through its colorful maps and amazing pictures. What’s more, you’ll get expert advice on how to get ready and stay safe.

Backpackers, adventurers, and temporary business travelers.

Author:  John P

As a blogger, I have had the pleasure of exploring some of the most exclusive destinations, indulging in the finest cuisine, accommodations, and experiences that the world has to offer. From the chic streets Paris to the scenic beauty of the Amalfi Coast, readers luxury. my, tips on the most exclusive hotels restaurants, and activities, giving you a glimpse into the world of high-end travel. But luxury travel is not just about extravagance - it's also about immersing yourself in the local culture and experiencing the true essence of a destination. With a passion for art, history, and architecture, I seek out the hidden gems and off-the-beaten-path experiences that make each destination truly unique. So whether you're planning a romantic getaway, a family vacation, or a solo adventure, my blog is your guide to the ultimate European luxury travel experience. Join me on my journey as we explore the best that Europe has to offer, one luxurious destination at a time.

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Inside  Lonely Planet’s  India  Travel Guide:

Up-to-date information -  all businesses were rechecked before publication to ensure they are still open after 2020’s COVID-19 outbreak

Top experiences feature  - a visually inspiring collection of India’s best experiences and where to have them

What's new feature  taps into cultural trends and helps you find fresh ideas and cool new areas

Pull-out, passport-size 'Just Landed' card  with wi-fi, ATM and transport info - all you need for a smooth journey from airport to hotel

Planning tools for family travellers  - where to go, how to save money, plus fun stuff just for kids

Colour  maps and images throughout

Highlights   and itineraries  help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests

Insider tips  to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots

Essential info   at your fingertips  - hours of operation, websites, transit tips, prices

Honest reviews for all budgets  - eating, sleeping, sightseeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss

Cultural insights  give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, people, music, landscapes, wildlife, cuisine, politics

Over   200 maps

Covers  Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab, Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, Kolkata, West Bengal, Sikkim, Northeast States, Gujarat, Odisha, Mumbai, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu

eBook is available in ePub, MOBI and PDF.

ISBN: 9781788683876

Edition: 19th

Publication Date: April 2022

Writers: Joe Bindloss, Michael Benanav, Lindsay Brown, Stuart Butler, Mark Elliott, Paul Harding, Trent Holden, Anirban Mahapatra, Bradley Mayhew, Daniel McCrohan, Isabella Noble, John Noble, Kevin Raub, Sarina Singh, Iain Stewart

1256 pages, 1256pp color, 203 maps | Dimensions: 128mm × 197mm

Next edition due: November 2024

This guide is in the English language.

Which guidebook is right for me?

Country, city & regional guides.

• Top experience collections
• Regional itineraries recommended by experts (from a couple of days to multi-week)
• 3D illustrations and guided tours of key sights
• Extensive coverage of history and culture
• Detailed maps throughout - includes walking maps and a pull-out planning map

EXPERIENCE guides

(country, city & regional).

• Led by local experts that reveal their favorite experiences and hidden gems
• Personal itinerary building tools
• Seasonal planning calendars
• QR codes unlock additional online content

POCKET guides

(city & regional).

• Special features cover most popular sights
• Content organized by neighborhhod
• Recommended 1, 2, 3 and 4-day itineraries
• Guided walking tours

• Travel & Tourism
• Travel & Holiday Guides

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Lonely Planet India Paperback – Folded Map, 31 May 2022

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25 Best All-Time Travel Books to Exploring India

Being the 7th largest country by area and the 2nd most populous country in the world, India is vast and diverse. With a cultural history spanning more than 4,500 years, India is notable for its religious diversity, with Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Sikhism, and Jainism among the nation’s major religions.

All these numbers (and more on Wikipedia ), can be overwhelming and it can be really hard to find out where to start your trip from or what routes or mode of transport to take if you plan on traveling to India.

In this post, I have listed out the top 25 all-time travel books to help you explore India and discover it’s beauty, rituals, culture, history, scenic rail routes , and traditions. So, whether you plan to cover the whole of India or if you intend to travel from one city or state to the other, these popular travel books can be extremely useful for you. 

#1. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

Author: William Dalrymple

Rating: 4.2 out of 5

#2. The Age of Kali: Indian Travels and Encounters  

#3. Banaras City of Light

Author: Diana L. Eck

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

#4. One Life to Ride: A Motorcycle Journey to the High Himalayas

Author: Ajit Harisinghani

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

#5. Coromandel: A Personal History of South India

Author: Charles Allen

Rating: 3.6 out of 5

#6. Following Fish

Author: Samanth Subramanian

#7. Wanderings in India and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan

Author: John Lang

Rating: 4.3 out of 5

#8. Chai, Chai

Author: Bishwanath Ghosh

Rating: 3.7 out of 5

#9. The Land of Moonlit Snows: & Other Real Travel Stories from the Indian Himalaya

Author: Gaurav Punj

#10. Chandni Chowk: The Mughal City of Old Delhi

Author: Swapna Liddle

#11. India On My Platter

Author: Saransh Goila

Rating: 4 out of 5

#12. Around India in 80 Trains

Author: Monisha Rajesh

#13. Chasing The Monsoon: A Modern Pilgrimage Through India

Author: Alexander Frater

#14. The Nanda Devi Affair

Author: Bill Aitken

Rating: 3.7 out of 5 

#15. The Travelling Belly: Eating Through India’s By-Lanes

Author: Kalyan Karmakar 

Rating: 4.8 out of 5

#16. Butter Chicken In Ludhiana: Travels In Small Town India

Author: Pankaj Mishra

Rating: 3.9 out of 5

#17. If Its Monday It Must Be Madurai: A Conducted Tour of India

Author: Srinath Perur

#18. Holy Cow!: An Indian Adventure

Author: Sarah MacDonald

Rating: 3.4 out of 5

#19. Mother Earth, Sister Seed: Travels through India’s Farmlands

Author: Lathika George

Rating: 5 out of 5

#20. Worth Every Gasp: A Lone Woman’s Journey in the Himalayas…

Author: Anamika Mukherjee

#21. Hot Tea Across India

Author: Rishad Saam Mehta

Rating: 4.1 out of 5

#22. The Land of Flying Lamas & Other Real Travel Stories From the Indian Himalaya

#23. A South Indian Journey: The Smile of Murugan

Author: Michael Wood

#24. No Full Stops in India

Author: Mark Tully

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

#25. Truck De India: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Hindustan

Author: Rajat Ubhaykar

So, there goes my list of the 25 most popular and best-selling travel books to explore India. How many have you read from the above list or how many are you planning to order? Do let me know in the comments section below.

Lastly, if you loved the above compilation, I am sure you would also love this list of the 242 most popular books on Indian Railways . Do give it a look!

Related posts:

• 242 Interesting Books to Discover the Magnificent Indian Railways
• The 11 Must Have Travel Accessories for 2019

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Top 25 Best books about India

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My 25 picks for best books about India

THIS POST OFFERS 25 suggestions for best books about India. Some are by Indian authors, and some are by foreigners who have spent a lot of time in India. Both perspectives are useful and valid, and can help visitors struggling to understand this complex culture. However, some of the most popular books about India are not that great … if you ask me …

Shantaram and Eat, Pray, Love are two of the most popular books about India, but they are not among my favourites. In fact, I tried to read Shantaram when I was living in Delhi, but ended up literally throwing it across the room after I was about three-quarters of the way through. I thought it was poorly written and more about the fevered imagination of its writer than about India. In fact, it offers very little insight into India, if you ask me; and the longer I spend in India getting to know it, the more true this statement becomes.

Since that time, however, I’ve read lots and lots of book about India, by Indians and foreigners, and almost all of them are much, much better. If you actually want to know something about India — rather than a largely fictional story by a writer with a flair for melodrama — I suggest the following 25 books.

Books about India by Indian authors

Twilight in delhi by ahmed ali.

This book, a “cult classic,” was apparently very hard to get for many years. Ahmed Ali was a Muslim writer and professor from Delhi who was out of the country when partition was announced and Pakistan was created. He was not allowed back into India and had, instead, to settle in Pakistan. It is a prose poem dedicated to the twilight days of “old” Delhi, when the Muslim area of the city flourished. It not only captures a bygone era, it also relates some moving personal stories.

Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

This is one of the best books I have read recently. It has an ambitious scope and many small wonderful moments, and seemed Dickensian to me in its attempt to capture the spirit of the times in a big, broiling, magnificent city. This is Bombay (Mumbai): gangsters and hero cops, foot-path poets and down-to-earth movie stars. You will learn a lot more about what Bombay is really about in this book than in Shantaram .

My Experiments with Truth by M.K. Gandhi

For my money, this ranks with Memories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl Jung as a truly honest and interesting autobiography. The title says it all, and says so much about a man who just seems to be made of different stuff than you or me. It’s truly a fascinating read, as you get insight into the human being behind the myth.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

It is intimidating to even try and summarize or review this epic book. I grew up reading Charles Dickens, and the scope and magnitude of this book is reminiscent of his style. This sweeping tale follows the live of four characters and the terrible hardships they endure living through the 1970s emergency in India. It is not easy to read as it forces you to confront the stark realities of poverty, casteism, corruption, cruelty, greed, hunger, and sometimes just plain bad luck. It’s bleak, but at the same time shines a light on the resilience of the human spirit. I learned a lot about India society and culture, too … especially the most difficult aspects.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

In some ways, Midnight’s Children is the fictional version of Freedom at Midnight (see below). India was granted independence from British colonial rule at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947. This book is about the children born in India at the exact moment of independence, and specifically two of them — who are switched in the hospital and grow up with the wrong families. It won the Booker Prize, and then the Booker of Bookers. It’s a big story, sprawling, bawdy, maddening, magical. Midnight’s Children was made into a movie by Deepa Mehta.

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What the Body Remembers by Shauna Singh

The partition of India in 1947 led to the greatest mass movement of people in history as millions of Muslims left India to move to newly created Pakistan; and millions of Hindus and Sikhs left the part of Punjab that suddenly fell on the Pakistani side of the border. The violence that was unleashed was massive and devastating. This book is a novel about a Sikh woman who is a young bride at the time of partition — living on the wrong side of the border. The personal narrative makes the history very real. I also recommend Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh and Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa for the same reasons — brings the truly terrible history of partition to life. Cracking India was made into a film called Earth by Deepa Mehta, part of a series that includes Fire and Water .

India: A Million Mutinies Now by V.S. Naipul

What can I say? It’s the classic. Personally, I admire this book more than I like it. Massive, sweeping, iconic, and keenly observed, you will feel as if you have walked from one end of the country to the other by the time you have finished. It’s a portrait of India 40 years after independence, told through the stories of the many people (almost all men) that he meets and interviews along the way. V.S. Naipul received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. 

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

Had to start this book a second time before I really got into it. It creeps into you like rain forest dampness. Very evocative and very powerful. While the setting is Kerala, in tropical southern India, it could be anywhere rural and stifling. I thought of the American deep south more than once. Strikingly original writing — but not an easy read.

City Improbable edited by Khushwant Singh

Bombay/Mumbai and Calcutta/Kolkata seem to get all the press, but there are those of us who are quite taken with Delhi. It’s a fascinating, historical, multi-layered city that sometimes seems, well, improbable. This is an excellent collection of entertaining and informative essays, and there really isn’t anyone like Khushwant Singh. He’s one of the most popular writers in India, and for a reason. His novel Train to Pakistan, about the partition of India, is also one of the best books on the subject, and was made into a movie.

Baumgartner’s Bombay by Anita Desai

This is a deceptively hardcore piece of writing from a masterful writer and storyteller. It’s about the last, pathos-filled days of a “man without family or home,” a lonely, aging foreigner in Bombay who has no where else to go. The final scenes, after he meets an unwashed hippie in a local cafe, are searingly hard to read. This book is to Shantaram what Masterpiece Theatre is to an Adam Sandler film.

All Roads Lead to Ganga by Ruskin Bond

This is a lovely piece of writing, an elegiac about Ruskin’s home in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand. It reads like a love letter to the countryside and especially the nature of Dehradun, Mussoorie, and the Char Dham pilgrimage routes to the source of the Ganga (Ganges) River which naturalist Ruskin has hiked many times. I read it for the first time on a long train ride to Dehradun and it was the perfect accompaniment. Since then, Ruskin has become one of my favourite writers, and I too have settled in the Lower Himalayas — in my case, my home is in Rishikesh .

The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag by Jim Corbett

Not as well known as The Man-Eaters of Kumaon , this book is nevertheless a good read. It made me feel like a boy scout at camp, reading by flashlight — it’s that kind of book. Corbett won’t win any awards for poetic writing, but he sure can tell a good story. The descriptions of the killings can be gruesome. I read it in bed with my tabby cat stretched out across my legs and there were a few times I found myself looking at her a little more intently than usual. All of Jim Corbett’s books are page turners, and were best sellers in their day, but that’s not the main reason to admire Corbett. He was one of the first conservationists in India — I went to his home in Nainital, Kumaon on a pilgrimage. Corbett Tiger Reserve is named after him.

Books about India by foreign authors

Kim by rudyard kipling.

This is my favourite book of all time. If you’ve never read it, throw out everything you think you know about Kipling, who was the most famous writer of his time. It’s a masterpiece. I read it with my jaw on the floor. I have never read a book that is so in the moment.

The book follows the story of teenage Kim, son of an Irish immigrant and ‘friend of all the world’, who travels the roads of India with his guru, an elderly Tibetan lama on a spiritual quest for a river of enlightenment. It is unique and uncanny in its ability to absolutely immerse you into the scene and the story. You can feel the oppressive heat of the plains and the crisp air of the mountains. You can imagine Kim’s excitement about rejoining his friend on the road after a stint locked-up at school. You can feel the old man’s pain as his quest seems to elude him, and the love he engenders in Kim, his disciple.

You tramp along with Kim down the streets of Lahore, on the Grand Trunk Road, through Himalayan passes. Every sound, every smell, every gesture, every accent is evoked. The dust swirls around you, the smell of cooking food entices you, the fresh air of the mountains revives you. Kipling knew the road in India, and he knew how to capture it in words. And Kipling is not just a master of description — he is a master story-teller. Like India herself, this story is bold, complex, subtle and ambiguous. And you will be carried away by the transcendent ending.

A Search in Secret India by Paul Brunton

A cult classic, it’s about the author’s sincere, strange, and ultimately inspiring search for spiritual truth in India. This is a fascinating book that starts slowly and becomes very compelling. Brunton was way ahead of his time — this book was published in 1935 and it’s about his search for a spiritual master in India. He admits to being skeptical; admits to getting duped by fakes; and almost dies in a Bombay hotel room. But something pushes him forward and after about a year of searching, traveling and living in very (and I mean very) rough conditions, he meets Sri Ramana Maharishi . That is when the book becomes transcendent, and impossible to put down. The last part of the book, about Sri Ramana Maharishi, is just about the best writing I have ever read by a spiritual seeker. It’s truly riveting. This is the book that introduced Sri Ramana Maharishi to the west (and he remains one of the greatest Indian saints of the 20th century).

Empire of the Soul by Paul William Roberts

This is the book I hope Shantaram readers graduate to read. It is about two lengthy trips journalist Roberts took to India, separated by many years; and about how he reconciles some of the extraordinary experiences he had there. Roberts is known for hard-boiled books about war-torn countries like Iraq, so when he writes about his spiritual awakening, it rings true.

Roberts was just another youthful seeker backpacking around the subcontinent in the 1970s. The difference is a) India really got under his skin and he had some amazing spiritual experiences and b) he can write, and he has his own unique style.

Out of India by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

You may know her name as the screenwriting partner behind many wonderful Merchant-Ivory films, including A Passage to India. She was a European who married an Indian architect and lived the rest of her life in Delhi. The introduction to these short stories — in which she presents herself as a foreigner living indolently in India — alone is worth the price of the book. It’s hands-down the best piece of writing I have ever read about what it is like to be a foreigner in India. Absolutely priceless. She nails the cultural divide, which I experience on a daily basis. She’s one of my favourite writers, anytime, anywhere.

India’s Unending Journey by Mark Tully

Tully was the BBC’s chief correspondent in India for many years.He’s a good writer and he knows India. India’s Unending Journey is by far the most personal of the many books he wrote on India. It’s about his own psychological and spiritual journey as he learns from India to be “certain about uncertainty.” And he says it’s the most valuable thing he has ever learned. I can relate. Compelling reading. Also like No Full Stops in India. Actually, anything by Mark Tully.

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster 

One of my favourite books and movies about India by a foreigner. Written in 1924, A Passage to India tells the story of an impressionable young British woman who comes out to India to potentially marry the city magistrate of fictional Chandrapore. In India, she comes face to face with the stark realities of colonialism, the mysteries of eastern spirituality, the differences between eastern and western world views and, most importantly, her own inner darkness. It’s a very thought-provoking book with lots of great characters, and the epic film directed by David Lean does it justice.

City of Djinns by William Dalrymple

I was torn, not sure which Dalrymple book to put on this list. They are all good, especially Nine Lives . He is a solid as a rock in terms of research, reporting and writing. But this is his first book about India and it’s about Delhi (Dilli), my home-away-from home in India — and in fact, his real home. He lives there now. He has an Indian soul. The book is both a personal narrative about living in India for a year and about the history of Delhi. (And if there’s one thing Delhi has, aside from crowds of people and traffic, it’s history.) It’s by turns informative and funny. I keep intending to find out if International Backside taxi stand really exists.

P.S. Dalrymple is the found of the Jaipur Literature Festival.

P.P.S. I finally got a chance to ask Dalrymple if International Backside taxi stand was real and yes, he confirmed that it was.

Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre

On the stroke of midnight, August 15, 1947, India became free. This is the classic book about the biggest event in modern Indian history: the freedom struggle, partition and birth of a nation. You cannot begin to know or understand modern India if you don’t have a grip on its struggle for independence and the larger-than-life players who made it happen, especially Gandhi, Nehru, Mountbatten and Jinnah. The film Gandhi , directed by Richard Attenborough, gives you a lot of the same information, but this book fills in all the holes.

Chasing the Monsoon by Alexander Frater

Like Dalrymple, Frater is a British journalist with a passion for India. The documentary based on this book, same title, stands as my all-time favourite documentary. Frater goes on a sometimes profound and sometimes whimsical journey to follow India’s monsoon to the wettest place on earth, Cherrapungi in the Indian state of Meghalaya.

Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald

A classic. Every time I think of the iron scene, I start chuckling as I picture Sarah’s face hidden by her hands so the very serious servants won’t realize she’s actually bursting with laughter over the missing iron. I laugh even more since I experienced living with servants in a Delhi household. The book is both hilarious and also moving as she traces her own relationship to India from reluctance and disdain to head-over-heels, unabashed love.

Slowly Down the Ganges by Eric Newby

Eric and his wife took a slow boat down the Ganges in the days before India’s modernization began. It’s a fascinating journey, written in precise detail that makes every agonizing minute they are dragging the big tin boat over rocks and sandbanks almost painful to read.

Calcutta edited by Geoffrey Moorhouse

The history of Calcutta, from its founding in 1690 by Job Charnok, an agent of the East India Company, is inextricably linked to the history of the British in India. Calcutta was the capital of the British Raj until it was moved to Delhi in 1911. The tales Moorhouse chose make for fascinating reading. They cover many eras, many subjects and include well-known authors as well as excerpts from the diaries of English women who came out to be with their husbands (or to find husbands).

An Indian Summer by James Cameron

This James Cameron was a newspaper man in India during the twilight of the British Raj. In 1972, he returned to India, newly married to an Indian woman. The book is about his return journey. It’s thoughtful, really well written and underneath his vigorous journalistic style lurks a palpable love of India. In the book, he wrote that he produced a television program with an English director with the goal of scrupulously avoiding “the picturesque… and out worn visual beauties … that had suffocated every film about India since the medium was invented.” But the plan fell through “as soon as the camera turned; it was difficult indeed to film anything in India without some element of the strange and beautiful intruding.”

I really like this book for many reasons, not the least of which is this sentence — about the rotting piles of papers piled high in the offices of Calcutta’s bureaucrats: “Their protruding edges stirred under the fans with a gentle bony crepitation.”

If you’re interested in reading more travel books, here are some other great lists:

• 50 Best travel books to feed your wanderlust

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Chasing Paul Theroux at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India

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Professional travel writer Mariellen Ward is the founder of award-winning Breathedreamgo. Mariellen has a BA in Journalism and has been travel writing and blogging since 2005. She has won many awards, including a National Tourism Award from Incredible India Tourism, and writes for some of the world’s leading publications including BBC Travel and NatGeo Traveller India.

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35 Must-Read Books Set In India That Will Make You Want To Visit

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If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know one of my favorite places to read about is India.  I love it.  Shantaram is one of my favorite books that I’ve been thinking about re-reading and made me finally sit down and write this list where you’ll find some of the best books set in India.

Whether you’re getting ready to visit India, looking for a reason to visit India , or just want to escape through a book, there is plenty here for you to choose from. 

You’ll find books about life in India, non-fiction books about India, fiction books about India, India travel books, Indian memoirs, and everything in between. 

The only thing you probably won’t find on this list is older books that would probably fall more into the category of a classic.

If you’re interested in  trying Audible,  you can get your first month free!  This is a great option if you want to listen to books more.  If you’re on more of a budget, try Scribd!   You can get your first two months free there.

The Road to East India

Devika A. Rosamund wrote this memoir when she traveled to India alone in 1976 when she was just 22.  She recorded and reflected on her experiences, emotions, and relationships formed along the way.

She started her six-week journey starts in Amsterdam where she takes a bus to Iran.  From there she takes local transportation through Afghanistan and Pakistan to get to India.

Piscine Molitor, Pi, is from Pondicherry and has always explored issues of spirituality and practicality from a young age.  

After being on a ship that wrecks in the Pacific Ocean, he survives for 227 days with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.  This seems to be one of those “classic” books set in India you just have to read eventually.

Cracking India

Narrated by a precocious child, Cracking India is about the Partition of India in 1947.   Lenny Sethi is kept out of school because she suffers from Polio and spends her days with her nanny Ayah, who happens to be beautiful and always draws a big group of admirers.  

During her time spent with this odd group of characters, she learns about religious differences, religious intolerance, and the blossoming genocidal strife on the eve of Partition.  

Soon she begins to learn and spot the differences between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs while engaging in political arguments around her.  

While she has enjoyed a privileged life in Lahore, her world is turned upside down when Ayah is kidnapped.   Soon she’s experiencing a world of religious, ethnic, and racial violence.

Rashid’s opium room on Shuklaji Street in Old Bombay is full of this and potent air as a beautiful young woman leans across to hold a long-stemmed pipe over a flame.   Men around her mutter in their own gloom and drift with their own tides.  

Narcopolis captures the rich, chaotic, hallucinatory dream that is Bombay in the 1970’s when there are whispers of Pathar Maar, the Stone Killer, collecting nameless, invisible, poor victims.  

It’s said here that you should only introduce your worst enemy to opium.   The streets are full of stray dogs in packs, hustling street vendors, hookers calling from cages, and pimps watching on from their doorways. 

The Elephanta Suite

This is the tale of three Westerners transformed by their travels in India, woven together by the master of the travel narrative, Paul Theroux.  

This book captures the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity marking today’s India with the travelers venturing far off the beaten path to discover woe, truth, and peace.  

A middle-aged couple on vacation quickly goes from idyll to chaos, a Boston lawyer ends up in the slums of Mumbai, and a young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore.  

Along the way, we meet a cast of Indian characters reflective of the country’s wonderful ironies: an executive that wishes he were a spiritual beggar, a young striver with a personality rewired by acquiring an American accent, and a miracle-working guru. 

Slowly Down the Ganges

Eric Newby, a self-confessed river lover, sets out on a 1200-mile journey down the Ganges from Hardware to the Bay of Bengal on his 44th birthday with his wife Wanda.  

Things start off rough, with them running aground 63 times in the first six days, but soon things start to look up on India’s Holiest River and it begins to live up to its reputation.  

They travel in a variety of unsuitable boats, by bus, and by bullock cart as they become acquainted with the colorful history and shifting moods of the river. 

I love reading books about traveling long distances in unusual ways and this is one book about India I am very excited to read.

Maximum City

Suketu Meehta gives us and insider’s view of the stunning Bombay metropolis.   We get to see the city from new and interesting angles, like the criminal underworld of rivaling Muslim and Hindu gangs, the life of a bar dancers raised in poverty and abuse, and the inner sanctum of Bollywood.   We hear the stories of countless villagers who seek out better lives and end up on the sidewalks instead. 

The Palace of Illusions

This is a reimagining of the famous Indian epic, the Mahabharat, told from the perspective of an amazing woman, taking us to a place of half history, half myth.  

Panchaali, the narrator, is the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers from the Mahabharat.   The story follows the princess Panchaali, beginning with her birth in fire and following her life with five husbands that were cheated out of their father’s kingdom.  

She stays by their side through the years of civil war and exile.   We, however, never lose sight of her strategic duels with her mother-in-law, her friendship with Krishna, or her secret attraction to the mysterious man who is her husbands’ most dangerous enemy. 

In Nine Lives wee get to explore the way traditional religions are viewed in modern India, showing ways of life we may never have otherwise known.  

We follow a middle-class woman from Calcutta living as a Tantric in a skull-filled cremation ground, a prison warden that is worshipped as an incarnate deity for two months of every year, a Jain nun that watches her closest friend ritually starve herself to death as she tests her powers of detachment, an illiterate gatherer that keeps a centuries-old 200,000-word epic alive in his head, a temple prostitute that reluctantly joined the trade, yet forces her daughters to join a trade she regards as a sacred calling, and more through this spellbinding story.

The Age of Kali: Indian Travels & Encounters

After living in India for ten years, William Dalrymple, we are treated to The Age of Kali as he senses the region is slipping into the most fearsome of all epochs in ancient Hindu cosmology: the Age of Kali, a time of strife, corruption, darkness, and disintegration. 

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

Nirad Chaudhuri tells the story of his childhood in the Bengali countryside, youth in Calcutta, and life in modern India through his own self-discovery and fiercely independent viewpoint.  It’s a story of deep conviction, charm, and intimacy.

Ticket to India

Maya and Zara are going to visit their grandmothers childhood home in search of a chest of family treasures left behind when her family fled for Pakistan during the Great Partition.  On their way to Aminpur in Northern India, they become separated and Maya is alone.

She is determined to find the chest and continues her journey with the help of an orphan named Jai.  This is a fun YA book set in India if you want something a little lighter.

A Search in Secret India

This is Paul Brunton’s story of traveling around India living with, some convincing and some not so much, yogis, mystics, and gurus.  Once he meets Sri Ramana Maharishi, he finally finds the peace and tranquility that comes with self-knowledge.

Lin escapes prison in Australia and flees to India on a fake passport and begins to get to know the underworld of Bombay with his new guide and friend Prabaker. 

They meet beggars, gangsters, prostitutes, holy men, soldiers, actors, and exiles from other countries.  Lin spends his time looking for love, running a clinic in one of the city’s poorest slums, and apprenticing with the Bombay mafia.

Two people that help unlock these mysteries are Khader Khan and Karla.  A mafia godfather, criminal, philosopher, mentor, and an elusive, dangerous, beautiful woman driven by her passions and secrets.  This is personally one of my favorite books ever.  It’s really long but SO WORTH IT.

City of Djinns

William Dalrymple explores the seven “dead” cities of Dehli as well as the eight – today’s Dehli.  He peels back the layers of Dehli’s centuries past revealing a unique cast of characters including a eunuch and descendants of great moguls.

At the heart of his explorations is the legend of the djinns, fire formed spirits that ensure the city’s phoenix-like regeneration no matter how many times it is destroyed.

Karma Gone Bad

Jenny Feldon is an Upper West Side housewife who finds herself being relocated to Hyderabad, India with her husband.  Instead of the glamorous yoga-filled life she imagined, she’s faced with buffalo-induced traffic jams.  She struggles with depression, bitterness, and anger as her sense of self and marriage begin to unravel.

The White Tiger

Balram Halwai: Servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer.  Over the course of seven nights we are told the story of how Balram became who he is. 

He was born in the dark heart of India but gets a break when he’s hired as the driver of the richest man in the village, his two Pomeranians, and his very unlucky son.

While his peers flip through Murder Weekly, barter for girls, drink liquor, and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Society, he sees his employers bribe for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor, and play their own role in the coop.

While all this is happening, Blaram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label Bottles.  And he finds a way out of the coop that no one else inside it sees.

Sideways on a Scooter

Miranda Kennedy left her reporting job in New York City to travel India with no employment prospects.  She longed to immerse herself in turmoil and excitement of a rapidly developing country. 

Soon she learns life in Dehli is less westernized than she expected.  It’s next to impossible to rent an apartment as a single woman and she has to perch sideways on scooters.

Spending five years in the city, she experiences friendships, love affairs, and losses opening up the world of Indian politics and culture along with her own opinions of food, clothes, marriage, and family.

We get to meet several Indian women whose lives she is drawn into along the way.  While she sees India as the land of call-centers and fast food chains, she soon learns it’s an ancient place where women’s lives have scarcely changed for centuries.

This one has been on my TBR forever and if you’re looking for a book about expat life in India, this is a good choice.

Mountain Shadow

This is the sequel to Shantaram (but works as a standalone novel) following Lin on a new adventure through more shadowy worlds and cultures. 

At the beginning of the story, Lin has happiness and love, but soon he gets a call from a friend in need and he has to go help, even if it jeopardizes his love and happiness.

When he arrives, he enters a room of eight men that all play a significant role in the sotry: one becomes a friend, another an enemy.  One will try to kill him and one will be killed by another. 

We met some of the characters in Shantaram but are introduced to new ones as well, like Navida Der, a half-Irish, half-Indian detective and Edras, a philosopher with fundamental beliefs.

Sarah McDonald visited India in her twenties and left with memories of heat, pollution, and poverty.  When an airport beggar read her palm and said she would one day return to India – and for love, of all things – she said Never! and gave him, and the country, the finger.

Well, eleven years later she finds herself being relocated to the most polluted city on Earth, New Dehli, when her husband is posted there for work.  For her, it seems like the ultimate sacrifice for love and almost kills her, literally, with a double case of pneumonia soon after their arrival. 

After that harrowing experience, she begins her journey of discovery through India in search of the meaning of life and death.

The Girl and the Tiger

Isha loves animals but struggles in school.  She is sent to the Indian countryside to live with her grandparents where she discovers a Bengal tiger taking refuge in a sacred grove.

She knows the shrinking forests mean shrinking tiger habitats and when local villagers discover the tiger, she finds herself in a life or death cultural controversy. 

Her encounters with tribal people, elephants, and her search for the wild jungle are the sources of her revelations about the human relationship with the natural world.

This is by Paul Rosalie who wrote Mother of God , one of my favorite books.  I can’t wait to read this one, too!

Man-Eaters of Kumaon

If you don’t like big-game hunting/hunting/animal violence, skip right on to the next book.

Jim Corbett is a world-renowned big-game hunter.  He killed his first leopard before ehe turned nine and this is a collection of ten stories of him pursuing and shooting tigers in the Indian Himalayas in the early years of the century.

Along with the tales of hunting, we learn about the exotic flora, fauna, and village life in this treacherous region of India.

No Beast So Fierce

In Nepal in 1900 the single deadliest animal in recorded history began stalking humans in the lush foothills of the Himalayas .  A young local hunter was dispatched to stop the now legendary man-eater before it added to it’s 436-life death toll. 

At the turn of the century and British rule of India tightened, bounties were put on tigers heads. A tigress was shot in the mouth by a poacher but survived and began her reign of terror.  Instead of her normal prey, she moved to something easier: humans. 

Over the next seven years, she terrified locals and became bolder with every kill.  Finally, desperate for help, colonial authorities called on Jim Corbett for help.

Henna for the Broken Hearted

Sharell Cook is 30, living in Melbourne with her childhood-sweetheart husband with a high-powered job and plenty of extra cash.  But soon it all falls apart and she finds herself traveling to India to do volunteer work. 

While reinventing herself sounded easy, it’s not, especially in the chaos that is India.  Just as she’s wondering if things will ever work out, she meets a man and her transformation begins.

May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India

Elisabeth Bumiller spent three and a half years as a reporter for The Washington Post in India.  This is the fascinating and tragic stories of the women she met while she was there including wealthy sophisticates in New Dehli, villagers in the northern plains, movie starts in Bombay, intellectuals in Calcutta, and health workers in the south.

Travelers’ Tales India: True Stories

India is one of the most difficult places to travel and finds a lot of people saying they’ll never return, while just as many are drawn back time and time again.  It is the best show on Earth.

It dissolves ideas of what it means to be alive and it’s people give new meaning to compassion, perseverance, ingenuity, and friendship.  Experience the monsoon where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet, track the endangered One-Horned Rhinoceros through the jungles of Assam, encounter the anguish of the caste system, and much more.

India: From Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond

Shashi Tharoor shows how the challenges facing the world’s largest and most diverse democracy will affect America in the 21st century.  This is perfect if you’re looking for a book on the history of India.

No Full Stops in India

We get to see a series of stories from India’s Westernized elite who are cut off from local traditions, exploring Calcutta, the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad (the biggest religious festival in the world), and the televising of a Hindu epic.  Throughout, Mark Tully analyze major issues while sharing the realities of Indian life.

Chasing the Monsoon

This is the tale of Alexander Frater following the Indian summer monsoon.  On May 20th the monsoon begins coming in from the east and the west, meeting in central India within seven or eight days of July 10th. 

Frater follows the monsoon, sometimes in it, sometimes before it, and sometimes after it, to see the impact of the phenomenon.

All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India

At seven years old, Rachel Manija Brown’s parents, post-60s hippies, moved them from California to an ashram in a cobra-ridden, drought-stricken spot in India. 

We meet a wonderful cast of characters including the colorful ashram leader, the grunting and howling librarian, a holy madman, and a delusional Russian claiming to be Meher Baba reincarnated.

Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East

In the late 60s, hundreds of thousands of Westerners descended upon India searching for the magic and mystery missing in the lives. 

Gita Mehta, an Indian writer, was placed ideally to observe the European and American “pilgrims” interacting with their hosts.

Here, we get to see her sharp observations of what happens when traditions of an ancient, long-lived society are turned into commodities and sold to those who don’t understand them.

The Spiritual Tourist: A Personal Odyssey Through the Outer Reaches of Belief

The spiritual tourist can be found on a pilgrimage to see the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas, blissed out in Germany with a beautiful Indian girl thought to be “the Divine Mother”, witnessing miracles in the ashram of Sai Baba, and searching for the Messiah in the London back streets.

No matter what, they’re all looking for inner illumination and awakening.  The holy, the lost, the wise, and the foolish are brought together on the highways and backroads of spiritual tourism.

In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India

Even though it is slated to become the third largest economy within a generation, it remains a mystery to many Americans.  In this book, Edward Luce, a journalist that covered India for years, makes sense of India and it’s rise to global power.

In the book, he sheds light on many of India’s contradictions like it’s booming tech sector, which only employs one million of it’s 1.1 billion people.

Only 35 million people have formal enough jobs to pay taxes while three-quarters of the population live in extreme depravation in it’s 600,000 villages.  This is informed by scholarship and history, but equalized with humor and rich in anecdotes.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

This is actually a fiction foodie travel book, spicing things up here. Hassan was born above his grandfather’s modest restaurant in Mumbai and is where he first experienced life through whiffs of spicy fish curry, trips to local markets, and gourmet outings with his mother.

Soon tragedy pushes them out of India and they console themselves by eating their way around the world eventually ending up in a small village in the French Alps.

The boisterous family takes the village by storm when they open an inexpensive Indian restaurant and bring the spice of India to the sleepy village.

Their restaurant is right across from Madame Mallory’s esteemed French relais and only after she wages culinary war with the family does she finally agree to mentor Hassan, leading him to Paris to open his own restaurant.

FoodSutra: A Memoir of the Foods of India

This is a foodies experience with the exploration of food in India told with quirky facts and stories. The author describes regional cuisines and their main dishes that he connects with his travels, experiences, and memories over many decades. Over 400 dishes are covered including ingredients, methods of cooking, and even facts and anecdotes about each.

Other book posts you may like:

• Mexico books
• Italy books
• Spain books
• India books
• Lake Powell books
• Mount Everest books
• North Korea books
• Amazon Rainforest books
• Thru-hiking books
• Spooky books
• Chernobyl books

Have you read any of these books?  What is your favorite book set in India?

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14 thoughts on “ 35 Must-Read Books Set In India That Will Make You Want To Visit ”

Interesting! I would like to add ‘The Hungry Tide’ by Amitav Ghosh, any of Ruskin Bond’s books, ‘The Toss of a Lemon’ by Padma Viswanathan and definitely ‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth.

Thank you! I’ll have to check those out for sure!

I think I would like to read Nine Lives! It seems like it has just the right amount of grit for me.

Yes! That one sounds really interesting!

I like your collection of Indian books even though I haven’t read most. I am intrigued to pick up one and start reading.

Thank you! There’s a lot of great ones to choose from!

Being an Indian, I can say you have listed some great books. Love it so much.

Thank you! It’s one of my favorite places to read about so far. Someday I’ll visit!

Thank you for this interesting list. Happy to see a few books about tigers !

I’m excited to read some of the tiger ones soon!

Love these suggestions! I’ve been looking for new books to read and I also love a book with a good travel theme 😁 thanks for this list!

Thank you! I hope you enjoy them 😃

Amazing post with best information.

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Top 10 Best Indian Travel Guide Books To Read in India

Best indian travel guide books.

Are you a travel lover? Do you love to read travel stories? Amazing! Through our years of travel experiences, we have come up with this content to explain to you in detail about top travel storybooks in India. So, the best Indian travel guide books are as follows:

List of Top 10 Best Travel Guide Books For India – 

• Enjoying India to the Fullest
• Rough Guide To India
• India (Lonely Planet Travel Guides)
• India Bites You Somehow
• Frommer’s India
• Wanderlust and Lipstick
• DK Eyewitness Travel Guide
• India – Culture Smart
• Fodor’s Essential India

1. Enjoying India to the Fullest – Indian Travel Guide Book

 Author – Shalu Sharma 

This is one of the best books about travel in India . This book is essential if you plan to visit India. Many people travel to India without knowing what to do or what to eat. This book will help you to plan your trip to India. Enjoying India book will provide information to help travelers navigate India’s vast landscape and get the most out of India. 

2. Rough Guide To India

Author – Rough Guides

Rough Guide To India is among the best Indian travel guide books  and is the most comprehensive guide to India. These Rough Guide Books are actually comparable to the Lonely Planet guides.  Rough Guide To India books is bravely open about the places they cover. This book covers India’s history, language, and culture as well as its politics and culture. It also includes information about bribes and drug use and Bollywood movies. It is the best and most comprehensive guide to India.

3. India (Lonely Planet Travel Guides)

Author – Michael Benanav, Anirban Mahapatra, Bradley Mayhew, Mark Elliott, Paul Harding, Lindsay Brown

Lonely Planet Travel Guides is among the best Indian travelogue books  and is essential if you’re planning to visit India for the first time. It includes traveler maps, a guide to places to stay and eat, and great information about India.

4. Holy Cow – India Travel Book

Author – Sarah Macdonald

Holy Cow is among the best travel guide books for India . This book describes a rollercoaster ride through a land full of contradictions and chaos with a woman who is on a mission for her soul, her love life, and her sanity. Sarah MacDonald, an ABC journalist, spent two years on the Indian sub-continent before preparing this book.

5. India Bites You Somehow – True Life Tales

Author – Kai Mayerfeld

This book features stories about westerners who have lived in India. This book contains 40 real-life stories from people who traveled to India from 19 different countries. Although it is not intended to be a guidebook, this book offers a glimpse into Indian spiritual life. 

India Bites You Somehow – True Life Tales is among the best books on Indian travel . This book will help you connect to India if you haven’t yet set foot in India. This collection of stories from travelers around the globe will open your eyes to India.

6. Frommer’s India – Travelling Books India

Author – Pippa De Bruyn

Frommer’s India is among the best Indian travel guide books . It is a guidebook that will help you plan your trip from the beginning. This book is handy if you’re looking for tips on traveling in India. Frommer’s India book covers everything you need to know about India: where to stay, what food to eat, driving there, how to avoid being scammed, and how to make the most of your time.

7. Wanderlust and Lipstick: A Guide for Women Travelling to India

Author – Beth Whitman

Wanderlust and Lipstick: A Guide For Women Travelling To India book was written with women in mind. This book focuses on India’s culture and offers travel tips, such as how safe to be, what to wear, how you can deal with poverty, how personal belongings are safe, and a list of Hindi words. Wanderlust and Lipstick: A Guide For Women Travelling To India is among the best Indian travel guide books . This book also includes advice from women who have traveled abroad.

8. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Best Indian Travel Book

Author – Anna Streiffert

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide will take you to India, where you can join thousands of people visiting India to see the Taj Mahal lit up in the morning light, or enjoy Goa’s golden shores. This book is among the best travel guide books for India .

India’s vast landscapes are as varied as they are inspiring. Modern skyscrapers meet centuries-old mosques in cities while tigers glide through lush jungles that separate the Himalayan heights from the beaches of the Keralan coast.

The updated guide to India transports you there like no other guide. It features expert-led advice and insights, photos on almost every page, and hand-drawn illustrations that place you in the iconic buildings and neighborhoods of the country.

9. India – Culture Smart: The Essential Guide To Customs & Culture

Author – Becky Stephen

India’s 1.2 billion inhabitants are as diverse and vibrant as Old Delhi’s spice markets. Every region, caste, and community has its own culture. Each one reflects unique history shaped by religion, creativity, conquest, and war. The Indians, a people steeped in old traditions and extremely fatalistic, are passionate about their culture and are world leaders in science and technology. If you show interest in their country, it will be repaid with warmth and friendship.

 India – Culture Smart: The Essential Guide To Customs & Culture will teach you the fundamental values and behavior norms of India, help you navigate cultural differences, build relationships and provide invaluable insight into this fascinating, vast land. All this makes this book among the best Indian travel guide books .

10. Fodor’s Essential India – Best Travel Guide Books

Author – Fodor’s Travel Guides

If you are looking for an India travel book pdf , you can search for Fodor’s Essential India . Fodor’s Essential India was written by locals and is the ideal guidebook for anyone looking for tips on how to get the best out of their trip to Delhi, Mumbai, and other cities. This India travel guide includes detailed maps and brief descriptions that will make it easy to plan your trip.

India is a country full of exciting and intriguing contrasts. There are beautiful palaces juxtaposed with simple temples. Modern high-tech industry mixes well with traditional customs and rituals. This vast country is rich in attractions and activities. Fodor’s Essential India provides a comprehensive guide to the best sights and things to do.

There are many travel books by Indian authors for you to read. Indian travel writers such as Janhavi Acharekar, Anees Jung, Rosy Thomas, and Romola Butalia have written many amazing travel books. Make sure to read them all. Take care!

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Books that Inspire to Travel & Visit India

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one,” (George R.R. Martin). Today is the World Book Day ; the day of celebrating the joy of reading. Books distribute the world knowledge, teach ideals, inspire creativity, spark innovation, illumine the mind, and lead to revolution. Books give rise to our desire for travel as well. If you are seeking motivation and blessing for traveling, some of the travel books on India can play the Muse for you. Indian Eagle handpicked the five best titles from a huge selection of travel books whose protagonist is India. The titles are….

Travelers’ Tales India

Around India in 80 Trains 

As the title suggests, the book is a tale of adventure travel in trains crisscrossing India by Monisha Rajesh, a British journalist at The Week UK. While reading an article on India’s flourishing domestic aviation, she reminisces her childhood days in India and feels nostalgic. Further inspired by Jules Verne’s “Around the World in 80 Days”, Monisha embarks upon a journey of adventure and discovery across 40,000 km by trains in India . While traveling in local trains, express trains, superfast trains, toy trains and luxury trains, she comes across a wide range of characters; some are funny while some are weird. She experiences many odd and offbeat things from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Infused with overtones of wit and humor, “Around India in 80 Trains” is a patchwork of her kaleidoscopic train journeys.

READ MORE Best Mountain Train Journeys in India

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi

An interface between a travelogue and a novel, the book by William Dalrymple is a historical as well as mythological journey from the 1984 riots to the times of Mahabharata. As the name suggests, the book is all about Delhi to its deepest core. The lively depiction of the author and his wife’s interactions with the people of Delhi – taxi drivers, street sweepers, gardeners, traffic police, the Sikh landlady, custom officials, hawkers, and others from various walks of life breathes life into the story of the book. The author has dug up some interesting facts from Delhi’s mystic being and mysterious past that many are unaware of. The book “City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi” is like the Time Machine which takes you on a ride from the present to the past through centuries of Delhi’s evolution .

Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off  

The first person narrative of travels from Kanpur to Chennai by Biswanath Ghosh , an Indian journalist and writer, this travel book is a beautiful blend of his experiences, feelings, observations, encounters and insights during the journey. The way he has expressed and penned his stories turns railway stations and platforms into eventful destinations. The book is a collage of the moments including the joy of drinking tea on a platform that he lived during the journey. Trains, stations and platforms are the buildings blocks of the book “Chai, Chai: Travels in Places Where You Stop But Never Get Off”, steeped in with and humor. This travelogue puts you on a ride to those areas of India which commercial tourism has outshined.

All Roads Lead to Ganga 

In keeping with the essence of the beginning quote, we at Indian Eagle would like to say, “A traveler lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never travels lives only one .”

We wish you, Happy Reading! Happy Traveling!

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Best India Travel Guide Books: Planning a trip to India

So you’re planning your first trip to India!

It’s a daunting task.

India is a big country, and there is such diversity with so many things to do and so many places to visit!

With so much free information available online, where to even start planning your trip to India?!

Is it worth it to get a guidebook for India travel?

Planning a trip itinerary for India that’s several weeks long, or maybe even several months long, can turn into what feels like planning about 10 vacations! Not only do you need to make sure you know how to get an Indian tourist visa , but with each new city, there’s that much more to research!

For some people it might seem a bit lame to use a guidebook as a bible for travel to any destination. But when you’re short on time or you just don’t want to plan 10 vacations, it can be very helpful in making sure you visit the must-see places of any given region or city. (It just might be the cure for FOMO. ;))

And you can use a guidebook as just that — a guide. It can give you a very good start to planning your trip when you just have no idea where to start… or you’re looking to sort through the abundance of free travel guides online!

When you are short on time, flying can be a cost-effective way to travel long distances around India because of the budget airlines that are available in India.

Now, here’s what’s on this page of travel guidebooks to take a look at for planning your trip to India!

• Get this guidebook with PDF  so you can do some really specific India planning like where to stay and where to eat so you don’t get sick
• Get this guidebook so you can make a general plan based of your India itinerary of places to visit and what food to eat based on pretty pictures

So, which travel guidebooks might you use for planning a trip to India?

One of the best india guidebooks for planning each day’s itinerary, finding the best places to stay, and eating at the best restaurants.

Let’s start with the ultimate guidebook for travel to India .

So, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Lonely Planet travel guidebooks.

How is the Lonely Planet travel guide for India?

Well, once you get used to it, India is a country that can be easy to travel around because of the ease of being able to catch buses without advanced booking and the ease of being able to show up in a city without a guesthouse or hotel booking. (That said, sometimes advanced booking can be helpful!)

What makes that travel in India even easier?!

Lonely Planet India!

These are the top reasons to get Lonely Planet India:

• Getting sick is a common occurrence among foreigners. The restaurant recommendations in the book can minimize your chance of getting food poisoning! And in case you do get sick, here’s how to treat traveler’s diarrhea naturally .
• Getting ripped off is also a common occurrence among foreigners. The book will give a price range for guesthouses, activities, and rickshaw rides in a given city. This will make you feel more confident knowing that you’re not paying way too much!
• Sometimes it’s easier to just show up in a city and look for accommodation. The book can give you the best places to stay so you are not aimlessly wandering around. In the case that you want to pre-book your hotel, it can give you recommendations!
• And of course the book has a list of the best places to visit in any given city! It will give you ideas on nearby famous destinations. It also lists the best way to get to your next destination, as well as the best way to get around any city.

You can read some of the reviews here for using Lonely Planet India when traveling.

For easy planning when you’re on the road in India, here are some guidebooks to take a look at:

• Lonely Planet: India (best of the whole country)
• Lonely Planet: Rajasthan, Delhi, and Agra (includes best of the famous Golden Triangle)
• Lonely Planet: South India and Kerala
• Lonely Planet: Goa and Mumbai

These include the option of a pdf travel guide or e-book too, so be sure to have a look!

India is a big country, which means there’s a ton to cover. The Lonely Planet India book is over 1,000 pages which means it’s pretty bulky. Having the travel guide in pdf form on your phone can cut back on the weight of your backpack! It can also be helpful in finding a nearby place to eat when you’re out and about on an excursion.

Now, if you do still have a few weeks or months before your trip to India…

One of the best India guidebooks for figuring out the pretty places you want to visit

One of the negatives about Lonely Planet India is that aside from the city maps and information tables of buses and trains, it’s pretty much all text.

This text is incredibly helpful when trying to figure out where to stay and places to eat, in particular when you’re not planning too far ahead.

But if you’re wanting to figure out what the name of that temple you saw on Pinterest  😉 is called, Lonely Planet India won’t be able to really help you with that.

So it can be best used in conjunction with another resource.

Or once again, in order to have the best of India all in one place so you don’t have to sift through so much information, there’s an India guidebook for that! 😉

For planning your trip to India using pictures, take a look at:

• DK Eyewitness Travel: India
• DK Eyewitness Travel: Delhi, Jaipur, Agra

DK Eyewitness India isn’t necessarily the best for travel tips when it comes to things like specific ways of how to get around. But at the back of the book, there is a big list of recommendations for where to stay and places to eat, arranged mostly by state. Still, for practical travel tips when you’re on the road, Lonely Planet India is pretty good.

But DK Eyewitness India will give you the pictures, along with the descriptions of what makes each place significant. So instead of just listing a foreign name of a place that you are sure to forget, it gives you that image that your memory will likely better retain.

Or if you won’t be doing too much pre-planning of places to visit before your trip to India, you may like all the colorful images to help you decide where you want to go once you arrive in any given city. The street-by-street city maps also include pictures. This makes it so that when you look at the map, you will see what the market or palace looks like at a specific location.

Using DK Eyewitness India as your guidebook when traveling in India might turn you into a foodie! There are food sections that list the local dishes and specialties of a region. These come with pretty pictures of the food, and you just might end up wanting to try all the food when in India! 😉 So if you’re looking forward to trying the diversity of food options available in India, you might like this book too.

The tagline for DK Eyewitness is “the guides that show you what others only tell you”… and this is what the guidebook does through its abundance of colorful pictures!

Now, is it really necessary to take 2 guidebooks with you to India?!

That does sound like overkill.

Plus, that’ll add weight to your backpack and take up more space than you probably want it to.

In which case, you might want to lean towards  Lonely Planet India . It really can be used as a bible for your trip to India. And showing up in a city and knowing where to stay and safe places to eat (so you don’t get sick!) can be superbly helpful.

Be sure to have a look at what might be able to speed up your recovery if you do get sick with traveler’s diarrhea.

Well, what if you want your India guidebooks to have the pictures of the best places to visit and  a bunch of useful travel tips when traveling around India?!

If you can commit to doing at least a little bit of planning ahead of time, DK Eyewitness India really can help you see India in pictures in a simple way.

Lonely Planet India can be even more helpful on the road when you’re in India, so consider using DK Eyewitness India for trip planning when you’re still at home. Then leave DK Eyewitness behind instead of taking it with you to India so you don’t have to lug around that extra weight.

And, if you’re not planning on taking it to India with you, you may even see if the guidebook is available at your local library.

One of the problems with borrowing travel books at libraries is that the only version that the library has might be one from 10 years ago. But with DK Eyewitness India, if your primary purpose is to look at the pictures, it generally shouldn’t really be a problem even if the book is a little outdated.

With Lonely Planet India on the other hand, if you’re using it mainly for hotel recommendations and restaurant recommendations, it’s probably best to get a book that’s been updated in the past couple of years. Here are the most recent versions.

What if you just really don’t want to make room in your backpack for a guidebook?! 😉

And then of course, if you don’t want to carry any extra weight in the form of an India guidebook, you always have the trusty Lonely Planet India PDF !

But do make sure you make room for that international first aid kit for India !

HAPPY INDIA TRIP PLANNING!

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10 best indian travel books to read in 2024.

Do you enjoy travelling? Do you enjoy reading travelogues? Amazing! We created this post to provide you with a detailed explanation of the best travel books available in India. Find the best Indian travel guides by reading this post.

Best Indian Travel Guidebooks to Read Before You Travel to India

Essential india travel guide by mohan kapoor.

Essential India Travel Guide

• Every kind of traveller, including a business traveller and a partygoer.

The Essential Safety and Security Guide to Visiting India

The Essential Safety & Security Guide to Visiting India

• Backpackers, adventurers, female travellers, and solo travellers.

Culture Smart India

India - Culture Smart

• Business travellers, newly shifted residents, and travellers on short-term projects.

Lonely Planet South India & Kerala

South India & Kerala Regional Guide by Lonely Planet

• Family travellers, Solo travellers, and backpackers.

Insight Guides India

• Every type of traveller and photographer.

DK Eyewitness Delhi, Agra & Jaipur

DK Eyewitness Delhi, Agra and Jaipur

• Backpackers, adventurers, & Solo travellers.

Travel Fearlessly in India

Travel Fearlessly In India

• Female group travellers and female solo travellers.

Bradt Travel Guides: Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh & Zanskar

Bradt Travel Guides - Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Zanskar

• Adventurers, hikers, trekkers, and backpackers.

Fodor’s Essential India

Fodor’s Essential India

• Family, photographers, adventurers, and backpackers.

Lonely Planet India

• Family, female solo, and business travellers.

FAQs: Best Indian Travel Guidebooks to Read

Q1. how many days are enough for the india tour, q2. which is the safest place in india to visit in 2024, q3. what are the advantages of using travel guidebooks, related products.

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The best holidays to book for October 2024, from Morocco road trips to Somerset staycations

Autumn is on the horizon, which means further opportunities to get away – whether you fancy a break in southern europe, a beach escape in india or a jaunt across the uk, we’ve something to inspire you, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

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Most half-term holidays aren’t until the last week of October , leaving you most of the month to plan an autumn break without having to worry about massive price hikes.

Southern Europe is especially appealing at that time of year when temperatures will still be in the 20Cs and the Mediterranean should still be warm enough for swimming, sunbathing and watersports.

Head south to Morocco and flit from the coast to Marrakech , or bask in the autumn sunshine on Malta ’s little sister island of Gozo .

Wander through the exquisite villages in the Luberon region of Provence, or unwind on the long sandy beaches of Goa. Enjoy Georgian splendour in Norfolk , or go hiking in Somerset’s alluring beauty spots.

Wherever you decide to go on holiday in October, take some inspiration from these ideas.

You’ll be in one of Provence’s most heavenly regions when you stay at Villa Ménerbes. As its name implies, it’s in the Luberon village of Ménerbes (where Peter Mayle first pitched up) beside a 14th-century church. This lovely old stone house sleeps seven in four bedrooms, and there’s also a fifth dorm-style bedroom with four beds. Take in gorgeous views of the Luberon mountains from the outdoor pool and stone terrace. Booked through Oliver’s Travels , the villa costs £2,095 for seven nights from 12 October.

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Combine seaside and city in this two-centre five-night holiday offered by Fleewinter . Fly into Marrakech and head straight for the coast for three nights in laid-back Essaouira, where you can swim in the Atlantic between visits to the souks. Then you’ll be driven back to Marrakech for two days of getting pleasantly lost in the Medina. There’s also the option of taking a day trip in the Atlas Mountains. Prices start at £550pp and include B&B accommodation and private transfers. Flights are extra but can be arranged.

Enjoy the peace of the Somerset countryside, yet have the coast within a 10-minute drive when you stay at Huish Barn. Wedged between Exmoor National Park and the Quantock Hills, this four-bedroom barn conversion makes a relaxing base for a gathering of eight family or friends. The large enclosed garden has plenty of space for outdoor drinks or dining, and there’s even a pub within a 15-minute walk. Available through Big Domain , it costs £729 for a seven-night rental from 12 October.

If you’re in need of total relaxation, head to Goa and its fabulous sandy beaches. At Taj Fort Aguada Resort & Spa, you can watch the sun go down on the Arabian Sea from this smart beachfront resort built within the walls of a 16th-century fort. When you’re not on the beach, you’re swimming in the outdoor pool or using the spa at the sister hotel of Taj Holiday Village. Save £120pp on a holiday with Goa Experience , which has a seven-night break in October from £2,005pp, including flights, transfers and breakfast.

It’s easy to pretend it’s still summer on the Maltese island of Gozo, where temperatures are in the mid-20Cs and this sleepy island becomes even sleepier. Stay at the Hotel Ta’ Cenc & Spa with Away Holidays and pamper yourself in the spa, two outdoor pools and nearby rocky beach. Bring your hiking boots and follow trails along this beautiful stretch of coast. A seven-night holiday costs from £833pp, departing 12 October, and includes flights and breakfast.

The Georgian town of Holt is one of Norfolk’s most attractive, and Pebble Cottage in Grove Lane makes a convenient base – not least to save you the hassle of trying to find a parking place in town. This two-bedroom cottage in traditional flint and brick is stylishly decorated and comes with a wood-burning stove in case the nights get cool. There’s a delightful enclosed garden – handy if you’ve got dogs, up to two of which are welcome at £20 each. You’re a short drive from the coast as well as Sheringham Park and Felbrigg Hall. Seven nights’ self-catering with Kett Country Cottages costs £779 from 4 October.

Mary Novakovich is editor at large at  101holidays.co.uk

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Top snow destinations in India: When you should start booking your winter vacation

The CNBC-TV18 Travel Desk has hand-picked some of the most scenic locations in India that you must visit at least once in your lifetime with family and friends.

India, known for its diverse landscapes, is home to some of the most breathtaking snow destinations, attracting travellers from across the globe. From the majestic Leh, Ladakh and Manali in the north to the serene Tawang and Lachung in the northeast, there's a plethora of places in the country where you can experience the magic of snowfall. If you are an adventure enthusiast looking to ski down the slopes or in hunt for a simple holiday just to enjoy the serene beauty of snow-covered landscapes, India offers something or the order to everyone. Without wasting any more time, here's our guide to the top snow destinations in India, along with Thomas Cook and SOTCs recommendation for when you to start booking your winter vacation.

No 1. Chopta | When to travel: December - January | Best time to book: September - October | Popular as the ‘mini Switzerland’ of Uttarakhand, this place is a slice of paradise in the Garhwal Himalayas. Chopta is surrounded by bugyals or velvety meadows and is often considered an all-year holiday destination, especially due to its pleasant weather and snow-clad fairyland in winter. Also, it is located at the epicentre of the Panch Kedar, home to the five most sacred temples of Lord Shiva in the state. While the Tungnath temple is located just above it, on the left you can see the Kedarnath and Madmaheshwar shrines, while on the right are Rudranath and Kalpeshwar.(Image: Shutterstock)

No. 2. Leh, Ladakh | When to travel: December post 20th  - January | Best time to book: October - November| Located in the northernmost region of India, this place is a high-altitude desert famous for its breathtaking landscapes and unique cultural heritage. A trip to Leh, Ladakh offers thrilling adventures to spiritual retreats. If you love trekking, mountain biking and river rafting, this is the place to be. (image: Shutterstock)

No 3. Manali |  When to travel: December - January | Best time to Book: October  - November | Considered one of the most famous honeymoon destinations in India, Manali in Himachal Pradesh is popular for its snowcapped mountains, mesmerising views and lush forests. This magical hill station at the northern end of Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh also offers majestic views of the Pir Panjal and the Dhauladhar ranges, mostly covered in a thick blanket of snow. (image: Reuters))

No 4. Tawang |  When to travel: December | Best time to Book: September - October | Located at a height of nearly about 10,000 ft above sea level, Tawang is a less populated mountainous tract on the northwest extremity of Arunachal Pradesh. It is also home to the 400-year-old Tawang Monastery, which is one of the oldest and largest monasteries in the country. The snowfall in this region usually begins in November and lasts until May. However, if you wish to travel to Tawang, it is advisable to contact local travel agencies to get a better understanding of the weather conditions beforehand. (image: Shutterstock)

No 5. Gulmarg |  When to travel: December - January | Best time to Book: October - November | Gulmarg means the 'meadow of flowers'. Located around 60 km away from Srinagar, it usually takes an hour and a half by car to reach here. Having the scenic beauty of the Himalayan mountains in its backdrop, this place attracts a large number of tourists every year. A famous attraction here is the Gulmarg Gondola, one of the highest cable cars in the world. It is blessed with lush greenery, colourful flowers and crystal-clear lakes. (Image: Reuters)

No. 6. Auli |  When to travel: December - January | Best time to Book: October - November | The picture-perfect town of Auli in Uttarakhand is a premier ski resort destination and was originally developed as a paramilitary base. The skiing slopes here are very popular among the tourists and professionals alike. Also, during the winter season, a lot of snow adventure events are organised here. Apart from that, Auli also offers panoramic views of the highest peaks, including Nanda Devi -- the second-highest peak in the country. Other famous locations here include the Valley of Flowers National Park, Hemkund Sahib Gurdwara as well as trekking destinations like Gorson Bugyal, Pangarchulla Summit and others. (image: Shutterstock)

No 7. Mussoorie |  When to travel: November - January | Best time to Book: September - November | Mussoorie, fondly called the 'Queen of the Hills', is yet another popular hill station in India. This captivating paradise is a must-visit place for the newly married. Spreads across at a height of around 2,000 mts above sea level. This place offers scenic views of the Himalayas peaks in Western Garhwal. While this place offers the much-required respite from the scorching summer heat, it also witnesses massive footfalls during the winter seasons as people come to witness the snowfall. (image: Reuters)

No 8. Lachung, Sikkim |  When to travel:  November to February | Best time to Book: September | Based at an altitude of about 9600 ft above sea level, this popular mountain village in Sikkim is known for its natural beauty. Here you get to see panoramic views and snow-covered landscapes, besides multiple adventurous activities. This place is surrounded by lush green valleys as well as sparkling waterfalls. Often, people call this place the nature lover's paradise. The weather in Lachung remains quite pleasant between March and May as it's the ideal time for sightseeing. However, if you are a snowfall lover, then do come here during the winter season. (Image: PTI)

Chai Lord takes us into the culture of India’s national drink  

For 12 years, Intrepid leader, Saurabh Joshi, also known as Chai Lord (on Instagram at least), has guided travellers around India to show them what makes his home country so magical. Drinking chai together is a big part of these adventures.   

Saurabh got his first taste of India’s chai scene as a child in the northwestern city of Jaipur. 

‘My father was a cricket coach and I used to go with him to sessions. Whenever he would return, he would stop at chai shops to catch up with other cricket coaches,’ he recalls. ‘That was my introduction to having chai outside of my home.’ 

Saurabh goes onto add that this ritual has stayed with him. ‘I [still] drink one chai every day outside of my house or office, just because I want to live in that environment,’ Saurabh says. ‘I don’t even need company… you just go and see the theatre for five minutes.’

Chances are you’ve sipped on a chai (latte) before, but for Saurabh and many locals in India, chai is more than a hot drink – it’s a big part of family and social life. 

Saurabh doesn’t drink, so as an adult, meeting up for chai is kind of like having a beer with friends. ‘It’s just like going to a pub,’ he says. He shares there’s something ritualistic about sipping on the hot drink, and it’s a great way to enjoy people-watching solo, too.  

Chances are you’ve sipped on a chai (latte) before, but for Saurabh and many locals in India , chai is more than a hot drink – it’s a big part of family and social life. 

He explains that chai is the great uniting force – it brings people from different walks of life together. The comfort and simplicity of the drink makes it a memorable everyday experience. ‘There’s no frills around it, no pretense,’ he says. ‘It’s a drink for half a dollar.’ 

There are many kinds of chai made from ingredients from all over India. In the northeast, assam chai is a stronger blend. In the West Bengal region, Darjeeling – a black tea – is common. Tulsi chai is known for its health benefits, brewed with holy basil. These are just a few varieties; depending on where you go, there will be a chai unique to the place and the people. 

Masala chai is made by adding spices, such as green cardamom and fresh ginger to black tea while it’s brewing. It brings together elements from every corner of India. ‘The spices come from down south; the tea is coming from the Northeast; the milk is coming from Gujarat and Punjab,’ Saurabh says. ‘It’s probably the most Indian thing you could have.’

For Saurabh, making chai is an important form of self-expression. His Instagram moniker, Chai Lord, is inspired by Osho, an Indian philosopher and spiritual leader renowned for his teachings on establishment, human psychology and spiritual experience.   

‘[Osho] says that the real form of God, he sees in creativity… For me, [when] I prepare my chai, it’s like I’m living my creativity.’

Saurabh says the markers of a good chai are strong body and perfectly proportioned elements. ‘You want an equal amount of milk and water, and a good balance of spices,’ he says. 

For me, [when] I prepare my chai, it’s like I’m living my creativity.

What’s more, patience is a virtue, and freshness is essential.  ‘It should be well brewed. We don’t make a quick chai – it should take time,’ Saurabh says. ‘It should be served fresh every time… You do not reheat chai or reuse the mixture of spices.’ 

There are also seasonal and regional considerations to get it just right. ‘Sometimes when it’s too hot, people try not to add too much ginger, because it heats your body,’ Saurabh explains. ‘It’s only green cardamom, which adds freshness and sweetness to the chai.’  

‘When you go to the hotter places next to the coastal areas, you don’t find too much spicy chai over there because of the humidity. They make it simple, just like a tea with very subtle spices, and in winter, we have cinnamon black pepper.’  

Through this work and chatting with locals, Saurabh has discovered new favourite chai spots – called chai walas – in different cities.  

Each spot is rich with its own personal history. ‘There’s one in Jaisalmer where an old man has been serving tea since the 1980s, so I go to him now when I’m in Jaisalmer, which is our westernmost town in India,’ Saurabh shares.  

‘In Jodhpur, there’s a tea shop called Chandu Ba – his grandfather was a refugee [during India’s] partition, so he came from Pakistan. They make Irani chai… which is very different but they’ve ‘Indianised’ it – they simmer the tea with spices and reduce them.’

Visitors always find something to appreciate in the ritual of drinking chai, circling back to Saurabh’s early memories of chai to connect with others. ‘Chai does actually help me a lot in terms of bonding – even if people don’t like tea, they just like the whole idea about it,’ he says. ‘That’s what chai does.’ 

You can have an in-depth experience of India’s national drink with a chai tasting on the Classic Rajasthan trip, but every adventure to India is a master class in the art of sipping tea.

Feeling inspired?

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Australian writer, journalist and critic based in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work has been published widely in media and literary publications.

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Northeast India 2 (Lonely Planet Northeast India) Paperback – October 27, 2009

• Print length 384 pages
• Language English
• Publisher GeoPlaneta
• Publication date October 27, 2009
• Dimensions 5.04 x 0.79 x 7.76 inches
• ISBN-10 174179319X
• ISBN-13 978-1741793192
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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ GeoPlaneta; 2nd edition (October 27, 2009)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 174179319X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1741793192
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.5 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.04 x 0.79 x 7.76 inches
• #82 in General India Travel Guides

About the authors

Mark elliott.

Mark Elliott is an English travel writer best known for travel books and articles on Azerbaijan, and for unusual map-based route guides for Asia. His first major work, Asia Overland, (co-authored with Wil Klass) was an ultra-budget manual for those wishing to cross the continent in the pre-Internet era. It garnered something of a cult following among overland travellers of the day as did the 2003 regional follow-up, Southeast Asia Graphic Guide. Elliott has contributed to around 50 Lonely Planet books covering destinations from Bosnia to Belgium, Iran to Taiwan.

Paul Harding

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Joe Bindloss

Joe Bindloss has been writing travel books for more than a decade, roaming across India, Nepal, Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe and Australasia. As well as writing guidebooks for Lonely Planet, Time Out and other publishers, Joe writes for numerous newspapers, magazines and websites, including the Guardian, the Independent, Wanderlust and Real Travel. Joe was born in Cyprus but grew up in rural East Anglia. He studied science and journalism in Brighton and London. Since then, Joe has lived all over the place, including in Chicago, Manila and Melbourne. He is currently based in Northeast London with his partner, press photographer Linda Nylind.

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Experts say travel insurance is crucial: Here's how it actually works

Whether illness or weather derails plans, policies can cover a range of issues.

Whether you're a frequent traveler or setting plans for an upcoming vacation, unexpected circumstances such as bad weather can cast a cloud over a trip, which is why experts suggest investing in travel insurance.

Recently, Hurricane Beryl marked an "early and violent start" to the typical storm season. NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad confirmed in a mid-season update earlier this month that Beryl was "the earliest category-5 Atlantic hurricane on record" -- and peak storm season is right around the corner.

With increased risk of disruptions during hurricane season through November and more people opting for shoulder season getaways after avoiding summer crowds , travelers should prepare for such worse-case scenarios to avoid losing money on hotels, activities and other bookings.

Everything you need to know about travel insurance

With an array of options in the market and various individual reasons to invest in a plan that protects your purchases, "Good Morning America" tapped top industry experts to provide insights to help ensure that even if your next getaway gets rained out, your bank account won't be drained as well.

"Things can go wrong in ways that you can't begin to imagine. And if you're unlucky and unfortunate enough to be in that position, you don't want to come back from your trip with a debt to pay off as well," Daniel Green, trip insurance expert and co-founder of Faye Travel Insurance, told "GMA."

Understand the basics before you buy bespoke coverage

Katy Nastro, spokesperson for Going.com, formerly known as Scott's Cheap Flights, told "GMA" that first and foremost, folks need to "understand all the ways in which you are already protected before dishing out for things you don't need."

"When it comes to flight insurance, under federal law, you are already protected to get a full refund or rebooked on a significantly delayed flight or cancellation, regardless of the reason," she said. "With new regulations that airlines must comply with by the end of October, seeing your refund back to your payment method will get a lot faster and more seamless."

Nastro said "many travel credit cards already have built-in trip insurance that can protect you when the unexpected happens," citing perks from the Chase Sapphire Reserve card that provide "reimbursements up to $10,000 per person for pre-paid, non-refundable travel expenses when an interruption happens."

You should always buy insurance for one simple reason -- when you start thinking -- 'I hope we have insurance,' it's one minute too late

"These cards often pay sooner than the airlines do for expenses due to misplaced bags," she added.

Nastro also suggested to check on coverage across state lines with any existing medical or car insurance policies, which could help cut down on costs.

"Specifically, when it comes to medical insurance, medical care around the world is generally a fraction of the cost compared to what it is in the U.S. So, while it could be good to have if you need stitches in Vietnam, it probably won't break the bank," she said.

Because travel insurance is subjective, Nastro said "it's worth considering when you exhaust your existing coverages to see where you might have some gaps."

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How does travel insurance work and what's actually covered?

"A great example is when you have a trip with multiple components that aren't purchased together, like a flight and cruise," Nastro told "GMA." "The cruise won't wait when your flight has been rebooked for the next day, so in this scenario, it might be worth looking at insurance on the cruise portion. You can typically add insurance after the fact, but reading the fine print is critical."

"Trip or travel insurance tends to be cheaper to buy, but is restricted to what is actually covered and often has red tape in terms of getting that reimbursement. For example, if you have an illness and need to cancel your trip, policies might require a doctor's note," she continued.

She added, "Travel insurance with 'cancel for any reason' policies tends to be more expensive to purchase, but more inclusive in terms of what is considered a 'covered' reason. The biggest caveat is that they offer a partial refund -- 50% to 75% of nonrefundable expenses."

When it comes to weather, she reiterated that reading the fine print is critical, because "the coverage typically offered is for extreme weather and scenarios where the operator cannot operate for 24 hours or more, so a typical summer thunderstorm won't make the cut."

Green added that, generally, if a customer buys travel insurance from an airline provider, since the carrier "doesn't know all the details of your trip" beyond the price and date of the flight, "if you're renting a car and traveling around -- or staying in a $4,000 hotel, you might only have $1,000 worth of insurance because at the checkout screen of American or United or Delta, they just didn't know about those costs."

"That's why I think it makes a lot more sense to buy insurance directly from either a website portal or an agent that can show you the main limits, so you know all the things you spent are covered as part of the policy," he said.

As Nastro pointed out, payment for claims can become a sticky situation, which is why Green helped craft an more seamless way to alleviate issues by providing the reassurance of immediate reimbursement: "If you have Apple Pay or Google Pay, you can access that money instantly after the claim is settled," he told "GMA."

What is shoulder season? Experts tips to save on airfare, hotels in opposite seasons

Green co-founded Faye just before the COVID-19 pandemic sent the travel industry into a tailspin, but said now, "the concern on the American mind more than anything is who's gonna pay for this? Especially in these days of inflation, if you're paying significant amounts of money for travel, and something goes wrong, you'd like to at least be made whole."

3 categories to consider for travel insurance coverage

Green explained that travel insurance can generally be broken into three categories: your investment in the trip, your belongings such as luggage and passports, and your health.

For anyone booking travel on their own, without a travel agent or adviser, Green highlighted the difference between buying travel insurance directly versus clicking "yes" on an app or checkout screen.

"You're not always being offered insurance that's in your best interest if you're just hoping that whatever your credit card comes with, or whatever your airline gives you at the end of the checkout is going to provide everything you need," he said.

He noted that one important tip for any type of travel coverage purchase is "the earlier you tell your insurance company that something has gone wrong, the more likely it is that they can help you while you're on your trip -- and helping sometimes means paying for expenses so that you don't have to be out of pocket and get reimbursement."

Weather-specific products for travel inconveniences

Products like Sensible Weather offer more specific elements to cover scenarios such as rain during a beach vacation or lack of snow for a ski trip, which may derail plans.

"The idea of travel inconvenience payments, it just takes the sting out of things," Green said. "In those scenarios, you just get a fixed, agreed amount of money -- sort of no questions asked -- You just have to prove that you actually experienced the loss in question, and then you get the full amount."

"You should always buy insurance for one simple reason -- because usually at the point when you start thinking to yourself, 'Wow, I hope we have insurance,' it's one minute too late," Green said. "Hurricane season is the perfect example of that. Once a hurricane is named, you generally can't make any claims related to the hurricane if you didn't already buy a policy."

"What we're learning about the current hurricane season is the weather is becoming unpredictable all the time," Green said. "We've heard about days where the weather was so hot in Phoenix that airplanes couldn't take off from the tarmac, hurricanes coming sooner than expected, or power failures causing an airport to not be able to operate -- and because those things are so unpredictable, playing the game of wait and see before buying your insurance rarely make sense versus justbuying it around the time you buy your trip and not having to worry about that aspect again."

How much plans cost and limitations

"There is no one size fits all when it comes to travel insurance," Green noted.

However, he said "there are rules of thumb" that industry experts often follow: "You should be willing to spend up to 10% of the cost of your trip on your insurance."

"The two biggest factors that usually affect the cost of your insurance is your age at the time of purchase, not at the time of travel, and the value of your trip," he said, adding that "every company is different."

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