India

Built by Emperor Shah Jahan between 1632 and 1653 as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, the Taj Mahal is the world's most perfect architectural expression of love and grief — a white marble monument that changes colour through the day from pink at dawn to brilliant white at noon to golden at dusk. Private access in the 30 minutes before official opening, when the monument belongs entirely to you and the light is at its softest, is one of the most profound experiences in travel.

The capital of Rajasthan and the first planned city in India, built in 1727 and painted terracotta-pink in 1876 to welcome the Prince of Wales, Jaipur's old city is a UNESCO World Heritage site of palaces, bazaars, and temples arranged on a precise geometric grid. The Amber Fort — a hilltop citadel of marble and sandstone reflected in a lake below — is among the finest Rajput fortresses in the world.

A network of lagoons, lakes, rivers, and canals stretching 900 kilometres along the Kerala coast, the backwaters are explored by houseboat — converted traditional rice barges fitted with beds, kitchens, and open-air decks — in a landscape of coconut palms, toddy shops, and villages connected entirely by water. The overnight houseboat journey between Alleppey and Kumarakom is one of India's most distinctive and relaxing travel experiences.

The oldest continuously inhabited city on earth and Hinduism's holiest city, Varanasi has been a place of pilgrimage and learning for over 3,000 years. The ghats along the Ganges, where daily rituals of bathing, prayer, cremation, and offering have continued without interruption since ancient times, offer a confrontation with India's deepest spiritual reality that is impossible to forget.

India's most celebrated tiger reserve, set around the ruins of a 10th-century fort in Rajasthan, Ranthambore is famous for its tigers' extraordinary boldness — they are regularly photographed in broad daylight near the fort walls, in the lakes, and on open hillsides in ways unusual for wild Bengal tigers anywhere. A tiger sighting here, with the ancient fort looming behind the animal, is one of India's defining wildlife experiences.

The ruined capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, which was the wealthiest city in the world in the 16th century before its destruction in 1565, Hampi's extraordinary landscape of giant boulders, temple gopurams, and royal pavilions stretches across 41 square kilometres in central Karnataka. The Virupaksha Temple has been in continuous worship for over 1,000 years, and the setting — temples rising from a boulder-strewn landscape on the banks of the Tungabhadra River — is among the most dramatic in India.