Heritage Stays & Top Room Grades

The room ladder, in full

Standard, Deluxe, Superior, Executive, Premier, Suite. That is every grade we book, on every one of our 31 tours. There is no five-star tier above it, no butler, no private jet, and no overwater villa. No Oberoi, no Taj palace. If one of those is the point of the trip, stop reading here — a specialist in that end of the market will serve you better, and we would rather say it now than after you have paid a deposit.

What we do have is the other thing people mean by the word: old buildings with a family still attached to them.

Seven heritage properties in twenty-one days

North India: landscapes and culture is the trip this page exists for. Twenty-one days, from EUR 2,300 — about EUR 110 a night — and seven of the hotels on it are heritage properties.

Ahmedabad: The House of MG, a merchant's house from the 1920s. Deogarh: Deogarh Mahal, a Rajput palace run by the family that built it. Jodhpur: Ranbanka, a palace hotel. Bikaner: Maharaja Ganga Mahal, at Royal Deluxe grade. Nawalgarh in the Shekhawati: Vivana Heritage, a painted haveli. Jaipur: Alsisar Haveli. Haridwar: Haveli Hari Ganga, on the Ganges.

Jaipur is the honest wrinkle. Alsisar Haveli is booked at Standard on this trip — the lowest grade we sell, in the best-known building on the list. The heritage is in the courtyard, not in the room. Ask us to move you up if that matters.

And every line of that published list ends with "or similar". It is what we intend to book, not what we guarantee. Around Diwali and in the busy winter weeks, the substitution is real.

The other rooms worth asking for by name

Shahpura House in Jaipur, at Suite grade, sits on two trips: India's facets and Maldives (15 days, EUR 3,140) and Royal Rajasthan and Varanasi (14 days, EUR 1,520). Same family house, same suite, EUR 1,620 apart. You are paying for the route, not the room.

The diversity of South India (25 days, EUR 2,860) gives you the Heritage Bungalow at The Dutch Bungalow in Kochi, Heritage Madurai in Madurai, and a Premier room at The Residency Tower in Chennai — the only Premier in any of our published lists.

Golden Triangle: colours of India (7 days, EUR 1,515) finishes with a lake-facing suite at Amet Haveli in Udaipur. It runs on the Holi date in March and no other week of the year.

Bhutan is where the brand names are

The magic of the gigantic Himalayas (8 days, EUR 2,010) is the only tour we sell carrying international upscale names: Le Meridien in Paro at Classic grade, Dusit D2 Yarkay in Thimphu, and a Suite at Dhensa Boutique Resort in Punakha. Per day it costs roughly EUR 250 against the North India trip's EUR 110, because Bhutan charges a daily fee on top of everything.

Our most expensive Bhutan trip, The kingdom of the thunder dragon (8 days, EUR 2,500), is plainer than that — Deluxe and Standard rooms, and one night of the Bumdra trek spent in a camp. For some people that tent is the best night of the trip. For others it is the reason not to book it. Work out which you are first.

Nineteen of our tours publish no hotels at all

Twelve of the 31 list their hotels in advance. The other nineteen do not: you choose a room grade, and the properties are confirmed when we build the trip. That is normal for tailor-made work, and it is also the easiest place for a booking to disappoint you.

So ask for the night-by-night hotel list in writing before you pay anything. We will send it. If a name on it is not what you pictured, that is the moment to change it — not on arrival.

What the money actually buys

Every trip is private. Your own guide, your own driver, no group, no scheduled departure to fit around except the Holi week. You choose the month, the pace and the route, and you can move a night from one town to another before you book. Hotels, breakfast, a German-speaking guide, 24-hour contact throughout and a bottle of water on arrival are included. International flights are not; domestic flights written into an itinerary are.

Elsewhere, that privacy is most of what a premium buys. Here it is the floor. Spending more with us moves you up the room ladder and into older buildings — it does not buy exclusivity, because you already have it.

The one trip that mixes both ends

Royal Rajasthan and Varanasi puts you in a Suite at Shahpura House and then on an overnight train to Varanasi in a 2AC sleeper carriage. Four berths, a curtain, air conditioning, no privacy. It is a good night's travel and it is not a hotel. Read the itinerary before you assume the whole trip runs at suite level.

When to go

October to March for India and the Rajasthan heritage circuit — those palaces are hard work in April and May. Our month-by-month India guide has the detail, and the Bhutan guide covers the spring and autumn windows the Himalayan trips are built around.