‘I’m bored’ are two words you won’t hear on family tours in India. Partly because there won’t be time in-between Kathakali dance workshops and Bollywood tours in Mumbai and partly because their mouths will be so full of homemade vada pavs that it will simply be impossible to. For budding sportsmen, a morning spent batting and fielding with local cricket legends in Jaipur will be sure to inspire. While in Ranthambore and Dera Amer young Attenborough enthusiasts can go wild – quite literally – on tiger safaris and elephant walks through the sweeping Saluwar Forest. Thanks to our knowledgeable travel experts and ‘Guinea Kids’, who have the extremely arduous task of trying out several new trips and tours for our benefit, we have travel with children and family tours in India down. Don’t believe us? Just read on…
Dabbawala Tours
We’re big advocates of stealth learning when travelling with youngsters in tow and dabbawala tours are perhaps its most impressive example. Making Uber Eats and Deliveroo look like child’s play, Mumbai’s dabbawalas are a 125-year-old, 5,000-strong lunchbox network that deliver homecooked meals – mostly from the customers’ own houses – to their workplace. A day in the life of a dabbawalla (meaning ‘one who carries box’ in Hindi) is sure to captivate even the youngest of minds. Help load lunchboxes at Grant Road Railway Station and hop aboard the train to Churchgate Station, where you’ll be thrown into the co-ordinated chaos of sorting and distributing. Don’t be fooled though, this is one of the world’s slickest daily operations – even Richard Branson has tried to get in on the action.
Toe Tapping Tours
To know India is to know its passion for dance . Follow the lead of your budding ballerinas and future Diversity members as you attempt the basics of Kathakali dance in Cochin. Closely associated with storytelling, it’s a dramatic dance communicated through impressive gestures, intricate footwork, vocal performances and close to 1,000 mudras (symbolic gestures). Don’t worry, you’ll only be mastering ten in this two-hour session. If you’d really rather leave it to the professionals, head to Bollywood for a tour of its sets and studios. Visit a recording studio and, if you’re lucky, sneak onto a set to watch a scene in action.
Train Tours
Tell the children you’re going on an actual toy train that resembles something out of a Disney film and they’ll probably try and race you to it. Linking Darjeeling to Ghoom, the highest railway station in India, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is one of the few hill railways still operating in India. And it’s not hard to see why. With hands and eyes pressed against windows, you’ll zigzag uphill through thick pine groves and sprawling tea estates and over the spiral Batasia Loop, which always gets a gleeful cheer from fellow travellers. Alight at Ghoom to admire the ribboned mountain ridge and majestic Khangchendzonga before heading inside its small railway museum. If you’re not a family of train enthusiasts beforehand, you will be by the end.
Sleeping in Style
Travelling with children can be full on, we get that. While toddlers can’t keep still, teens struggle to do anything but. So, carving out some time for well-needed R&R isn’t just a recommendation, it’s a requirement. After all, family tours in India don’t just have to be about seeing and doing. Spend a few days on a houseboat in Kerala, acquainting yourself with bewitching backwater life. Wake up in beautifully constructed cabins made of bamboo splinters and coir roping, meet locals in nearby villages and sign up the youngsters to rounds of cricket while you sip on glasses of freshly-tapped toddy, all before falling asleep atop Vembanad’s hazy lake to the rhythmic cries of cicadas.
Wildlife Safaris
We couldn’t write about family tours in India and not mention safaris, could we? Home to the Bengal tiger and inspiration for Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Indian safaris promise to be one for the books – and school show and tells. Drive through silent forests in search of lolling leopards and tigers in Ranthambore and get up close and personal with Bandhavgarh’s lizards, snakes and birds on walking safaris. In Kanha National Park, little ones will even have the opportunity to become junior rangers; learning how to identify species, master the basics of field equipment and become little naturalists in just three days. It is at night though when you’ll realise how much family tours in India make sense, huddled round bonfires swapping stories on your days in India’s wild west.
