Where to stay in Jaipur: the best areas and hotels

The old walled city is the Jaipur of the postcards: straight bazaar streets washed in pink, jewellers and block-printers working behind open shopfronts, and the City Palace, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal clustered at its heart. It is thrilling, loud and best taken in bursts, which is why most visitors sleep just outside the walls rather than inside them.

Mirza Ismail Road, universally shortened to MI Road, runs along the southern edge and is the practical place to base yourself. Hotels here range from business-like four-stars to small boutique houses with gardens, and the Hawa Mahal is a five- to ten-minute drive from most of them. Skip it if you came to India for peace and quiet; choose it if you want to be in the bazaars before the tour coaches arrive.

South and west of the old city the streets widen, the trees get taller and the gates get grander. This is where Jaipur’s royal family and its ministers built their residences, and several of them now take paying guests. Rambagh Palace, once the home of the Maharaja of Jaipur, is the most famous; Jai Mahal Palace spreads across 18 acres of Mughal gardens; Rajmahal Palace is smaller and more playful.

What you are paying for is space and theatre: marble corridors, frescoed ceilings, pools set in gardens and a sense that the city has been politely asked to wait outside. MI Road is around five minutes away by car and the Hawa Mahal a little further, so sightseeing is easy. If the palaces are beyond the budget, Narain Niwas Palace gives you the frescoes and the garden pool for less.

West of the old city, the streets around the railway station and the residential quarter of Bani Park are where Jaipur keeps its best-value beds. This is heritage-house territory: old family mansions with domes, painted walls and rooftop restaurants, run with a good deal more personality than their price suggests. Shahpura House, still home to a noble family, is the standard-bearer.

It is also the sensible choice if you are arriving or leaving by train, with several hotels about a kilometre from the platforms and MI Road close by. The big-name option is the ITC Rajputana, a red-brick haveli-style five-star with a pool. The area is not pretty in the way the palaces are, but it is calm at night and you will eat well.

North of the city the road climbs past Jal Mahal, the palace that appears to float in its lake, and on to Amer, where the honey-coloured Amber Fort sprawls across a hillside. The Aravalli hills close in on both sides, and tucked among them is a string of big resort hotels built in the image of Rajput palaces, with domes, courtyards and pools the size of small lakes.

This is the place for couples and anyone who wants a holiday as well as a sightseeing trip: spa mornings, sunset drinks facing the hills and the fort a short drive away before the heat builds. The trade-off is distance. The Pink City is a drive, not a stroll, so you will be relying on taxis or a hotel car each time you go in.

Tonk Road runs south from the centre to the airport, and it is where modern Jaipur does its business: malls such as the World Trade Park, the exhibition centre and a line of large international hotels. Nothing here is pink or old. What you get instead is reliability, big rooms, good pools (one of them on a rooftop) and the airport only a couple of kilometres from several front doors.

It suits a first or last night, a conference, or travellers who like their India with strong air conditioning and a familiar name over the door. Sightseers should know that the old city is a taxi ride north, and the forts at Amer further still.

Some of the most memorable places to stay near Jaipur are not in Jaipur at all. Ten kilometres from the centre, the Oberoi Rajvilas sets luxury tents and villas in 32 acres of gardens lit by flaming torches. Further out, Alila Fort Bishangarh crowns a granite hill 45 km from town, and Ramgarh Lodge, a former hunting lodge of the Maharaja, is about an hour’s drive into the hills.

Come for a night or two of deep quiet, village walks and star-filled skies, ideally at the end of a hectic Rajasthan itinerary. Do not come if you plan to be in and out of the bazaars every day; the drive will wear thin.