Suggests Swagatam for India

For independent travel in India, I highly recommend Swagatam Tours Pvt. Ltd. (www.swagatam.com), which is based in New Delhi and has offices in Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore.

I had signed up for two package tours for February-March 2010, one in southern India with Adventures Abroad and the other in Raja­sthan and Gujarat with Explore. To fill in the gap between them, a fellow ITN reader suggested I contact Swagatam to arrange visits to Varanasi and Khajuraho.

Several months before departure, both tours were canceled because not enough people had signed up, so I sent my southern India itinerary to Swagatam and they duplicated it almost exactly. I also sent them my ideas for a Raja­sthan itinerary and that, too, was arranged to my full satisfaction.

I was met at each airport by a local representative, transferred to my hotel, advised when the local guide would meet me and told when the same rep would take me to the airport and get me checked in for my next flight. It all worked without a hitch.

I had personable drivers who were prompt, spoke adequate English and knew the best places to stop for lunch. In southern India and later in Rajasthan and Gujarat, transport was in comfortable, small Toyota SUVs with plenty of legroom and cargo capacity. In Varanasi, Khajuraho and Delhi, transport was in sedans.

The local guides ranged from good to outstanding. The hotels were excellent and included quite a few heritage properties — old forts, palaces and other historic buildings. When I was dissatisfied with one mountain lodge, my driver and I had the flexibility to simply move on to our next destination and spend the extra night there. I paid the difference, of course.

A Swagatam rep phoned several times from Delhi to check on how things were going. When I had a concern about a car and driver assigned to me, they were replaced within hours. When a flight from Ahmedabad to Delhi was canceled at the last minute, the company’s local provider got me rebooked and their agent met me at my new arrival time.

My best estimates are that the Adventures Abroad tour would have averaged roughly $20 a day less than I paid, and the Explore tour would have averaged roughly $50 a day more than I paid (excluding international airfare).

My 19 days/18 nights in southern India cost about $3,650, and my 17 days/16 nights in Rajasthan and Gujarat cost about $3,760 (because I had several hotel upgrades). For the two nights in Varanasi and two nights in Khajuraho I paid $872, covering taxes, transfers, guides and four domestic flights. I paid in full in advance (after alerting my credit card company).

Full breakfasts always were included. For the freedom of choice, I chose to pay for my own lunches and dinners.

I used frequent-flyer miles to fly business class on Air France, which was excellent.

STAN BACH

Washington, DC