21 Days Across Northern India

How you arrive in India sets the tone for everything that follows. Get the logistics right and your first 48 hours build confidence. Get them wrong and you're fighting jet lag, confusion, and decision fatigue simultaneously.

The Flight Decision

Getting from Brisbane to Northern India is a commitment. There are no direct flights, so you're looking at 18-24 hours of travel time depending on your stopover. I flew Qantas to Singapore, then Air Asia to Delhi. Total cost: $680 AUD return.

The stopover strategy is smart. Instead of sleeping in a Singapore airport lounge for 6 hours, I spent the night in a hotel, grabbed proper food, showered, and arrived in Delhi actually functional. It adds 6-8 hours to your total journey time but massively improves your physical and mental state for landing in one of the most intense cities on earth. Singapore has excellent budget hotels near the airport. A night's rest there costs $40-60 AUD and it's money well spent.

Other routing options from Australia: Melbourne and Sydney have more frequent connections through Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, or Bangkok. Perth travellers can route through KL on AirAsia for sometimes under $500 return if you book 3-4 months ahead. The cheapest flights I saw were Brisbane-KL-Delhi on AirAsia for about $550, but the layover was 9 hours in KL which is brutal without an overnight stop.

Book flights at least 6-8 weeks in advance for the best prices. November flights are slightly cheaper than December and January because most Australians travel over Christmas. Set up price alerts on Skyscanner or Google Flights and wait for a dip. I booked mine 10 weeks ahead and felt the price was fair for peak season.

Timing your arrival matters. I landed in Delhi at 11 PM, which is not ideal. You're exhausted, everything's chaotic, and you're immediately exposed to India at its most confusing. If you can adjust your flights, arrive in the morning. Daylight Delhi is still overwhelming but at least you can see what's happening around you.

Delhi Arrival and First Night

The moment you exit the Delhi airport, chaos arrives. Touts, taxi drivers, people offering help, all competing for your attention. Don't panic. This is normal and manageable if you know what to expect.

Book your first night's accommodation in advance. Not because it's impossible to find something on arrival, but because you're jet-lagged and decision-making capacity is zero. I booked a budget guesthouse in Paharganj (Old Delhi area) for $18 AUD. Nothing fancy but clean, quiet, and close enough to collapse into.

Skip the airport taxi mafia. They'll charge 800-1,200 INR ($12-18 USD) for a journey that normally costs 400 INR. Use Uber or Ola (India's ride-share equivalent) if you have a local SIM already, or use the pre-paid taxi service inside the airport (fixed rate, fair prices). The pre-paid booth is inside the terminal before you exit. Queue up, pay the fixed fare, get a receipt, and hand it to the assigned driver outside. Simple, safe, no bargaining required.

The airport bus also runs to several areas of Delhi for 100 INR ($1.50). It's the cheapest option and surprisingly comfortable, but arriving at 11 PM it wasn't running frequently enough to be useful.

The Visa Situation

You need a tourist visa for India. The process is online now through the Indian e-Visa portal, which is infinitely better than the old paper system.

Cost: $140 AUD for a 30-day tourist visa with standard processing. Processing time: 5-7 business days. Apply at least 3 weeks before departure. Don't cut it close: I've heard too many stories of last-minute panic from travellers who assumed it would be instant.

You'll need a valid passport with 6+ months validity, a recent passport-sized photo, flight booking confirmation, accommodation booking for at least the first night, and proof of financial means (bank statement showing you have funds). The whole thing takes 15 minutes online.

Vaccinations and Insurance

Get vaccinated before you go. I got typhoid booster, Hepatitis A booster, Japanese encephalitis (recommended for certain areas), and had my standard vaccinations updated (tetanus, measles). Talk to your doctor about what makes sense for your itinerary and health history, but don't skip vaccines thinking you're invincible. This isn't about being cautious. It's about being intelligent.

Insurance is non-negotiable. I used World Nomads for $55 AUD and it covered everything: travel delays, lost luggage, medical emergencies, evacuation. If something goes wrong in India, medical costs can spiral quickly even though general costs are low. A hospital visit for my food poisoning would have cost $200+ without insurance. With it, I paid nothing.

Getting Around Between Cities

This is the beautiful part of India. The transport system is incredible and absurdly cheap.

Trains are the main way to move between cities. Book them in advance using the Indian Railways website (indianrailways.gov.in) or Cleartrip (easier interface, slight markup). Sleeper class (3AC) is the sweet spot: clean enough, you get a dedicated bunk with sheets and a pillow, and it's only $15-30 AUD per journey depending on distance.

Don't be intimidated by the train system. Yes, it's chaotic at the stations. Yes, trains sometimes run late. But they're reliable enough, you meet other travellers constantly, and you genuinely get to see rural India from the windows. I took 7 train journeys and loved every one. The overnight sleeper from Udaipur to Varanasi (13 hours) was honestly one of the highlights of the whole trip. You fall asleep watching farmland blur past and wake up in a completely different world.

Budget flights work too. SpiceJet and IndiGo often have $20-40 AUD flights between major cities if you book in advance. Faster, but you miss the journey. Buses exist for shorter routes (Jodhpur to Bikaner was 4 hours by bus, cheaper than flying, more frequent than trains).

Accommodation City by City

Here's exactly what I stayed in and what it cost:

I found accommodation through Booking.com, Hostelworld, and asking locals when I arrived. Most guesthouses in India don't appear online. Your host will know about other places nearby.

The heritage palace stays deserve special mention. They cost barely more than standard hotels ($22-28 vs $15-18) and the experience is incomparably better. You're sleeping in buildings that are 200-400 years old, with carved stone walls and courtyards. The hosts in these places treat you like family. If you see one available on your route, book it.

Phone and Connectivity

Get a SIM card at the Delhi airport before you do anything else. Airtel and Vodafone both have booths inside the international arrivals area. I went with Airtel: 500 INR ($7.50 AUD) for 3 weeks of data plus calls. You need your passport and a passport photo for the registration. The SIM activates within a few hours.

Coverage is reliable in all eight cities on this route. Between cities on trains, signal drops to patchy or nothing. In the Thar Desert, signal disappears completely (which is part of the appeal). Download offline Google Maps for every city before you leave your hotel each morning. Maps.me is another good offline option. Having maps available without data saved me from getting lost in Varanasi's labyrinthine lanes at least three times.

Uber and Ola both require an Indian phone number to register, so the SIM card unlocks these apps for transport in Delhi, Jaipur, and other major cities. WiFi exists in most guesthouses but ranges from usable to completely fiction. Don't rely on it for anything time-sensitive.

Last updated: March 2026. All costs from November 2017. The Wild Logs Team.