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Delhi: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, moved the Mughal capital here in 1648 and built a new walled city — a red fort, an enormous mosque, and one wide street with a water channel down the middle that reflected the moon, which is where its name comes from: Chandni Chowk, moonlight square. The channel is gone, the street is not, and it is still the most crowded in India.

Delhi

A short history of Delhi

Over the ages several cities rose on the land of Delhi, one beside another. At the end of the 12th century Qutb ud-Din Aibak, who later founded the Delhi Sultanate, began building the Qutb Minar. Between 1639 and 1648 the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built Shahjahanabad and the Red Fort. In 1857 the city was the focus of the rebellion against the British. In 1911 the British announced that the capital would move from Calcutta, and in 1931 New Delhi, designed by Edwin Lutyens, was inaugurated.

The ten best sights in Delhi

  1. Red Fort
    1
    Red Fort

    The Mughal seat of power, and the prime minister speaks here

  2. Jama Masjid
    2
    Jama Masjid

    The largest mosque in India, finished 1656

  3. Qutub Minar
    3
    Qutub Minar

    Seventy-three metres of brick, begun in 1192

  4. Humayun’s Tomb
    4
    Humayun’s Tomb

    The first Mughal garden tomb — the Taj came from this

  5. Purana Qila
    5
    Purana Qila

    The sixth city of Delhi, on a mound from 1000 BC

  6. Safdarjung Tomb
    6
    Safdarjung Tomb

    The last Mughal garden tomb, and almost empty

  7. Lotus Temple
    7
    Lotus Temple

    Twenty-seven marble petals, open to every faith

  8. Akshardham
    8
    Akshardham

    Built in 2005 by seven thousand craftsmen

  9. Bangla Sahib
    9
    Bangla Sahib

    A Sikh temple feeding ten thousand people a day, free

  10. India Gate
    10
    India Gate

    Ninety thousand names of the Indian war dead

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Tours in Delhi →

A guide in your headphones: open the walk on our site, walk from stop to stop, and at each one your phone tells its story. No guide, no group, and free. This is the first walk in Delhi:

Old Delhi

Free walking tours in Delhi

Old Delhi

Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, moved the Mughal capital here in 1648 and built a new walled city — a red fort, an enormous mosque, and one wide street with a water channel down the middle that reflected the moon, which is where its name comes from: Chandni Chowk, moonlight square. The channel is gone, the street is not, and it is still the most crowded in India.

  1. Red Fort · Two and a half kilometres of red sandstone wall, finished in 1648. The British stripped the interior after 1857 and the Peacock Throne was carried off to Persia in 1739 — what is left is the shell and the garden plan.
  2. Jama Masjid · Five thousand workers, six years, and a courtyard that holds twenty-five thousand people. Climb the southern minaret — a hundred and twenty-one narrow steps — for the only view that shows the old city as a plan.
  3. Chandni Chowk · Laid out by Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahanara in 1650, with a canal down the centre and trees along it. It is now a lane of wholesale alleys so narrow that goods move on handcarts and heads.
  4. Paranthe Wali Gali · One alley where the same families have fried stuffed bread since the 1870s, in ghee, in iron pans, sitting on the floor. There were once a dozen shops; four are left.
  5. Raj Ghat · A black marble platform on the spot where Gandhi was cremated in January 1948. A flame burns at one end and shoes come off at the gate.
  6. Gurudwara Bangla Sahib · A Sikh temple whose kitchen cooks for ten thousand people a day, free, for anyone who walks in — volunteers roll the bread and wash the plates. You may join the kitchen as easily as the queue.

The Mughal tombs

The Taj Mahal was not invented from nothing — it came from here. In 1570 the widow of the emperor Humayun built the first tomb standing at the centre of a four-square paradise garden, and the idea travelled from there to Agra. There are hundreds of such tombs around Delhi, most of them empty of people, and some of them inside parks where people do yoga in the morning.

  1. Humayun’s Tomb · Commissioned by his widow Bega Begum, who went to Mecca and came back with a Persian architect. It is the first Mughal garden tomb — a domed building in a four-square water garden — and the Taj Mahal is its grandchild.
  2. Sunder Nursery · A nursery the British planted in 1913 beside the tomb, restored in 2018 into a ninety-acre garden with fifteen Mughal monuments standing in it and a lake dug by hand.
  3. Lodhi Garden · Ninety acres with five fifteenth-century tombs scattered through it. Two villages stood here until 1936, when the British moved them out to make the park. Delhi walks, runs and does yoga among the graves.
  4. Safdarjung Tomb · The last Mughal garden tomb, built in 1754 with stone robbed from an earlier tomb because the empire could no longer afford new marble. It is almost always empty.
  5. Qutub Minar · Seventy-three metres, begun in 1192 to mark the first Muslim conquest of Delhi, and built in four stages by four rulers — you can see each one change its mind about the stone. Beside it stands an iron pillar from the fourth century that has never rusted.
  6. Mehrauli Archaeological Park · Eighty hectares of forest holding a thousand years of ruins, continuously occupied longer than anywhere else in Delhi. Nobody guards it, nobody charges, and you will mostly be alone.

New Delhi

In 1911 the British announced the capital was moving from Calcutta to Delhi, and built an entirely new city south of the old one: broad avenues, roundabouts, and a viceroy’s palace with three hundred and forty rooms. It was built to show the empire was here forever, and finished in 1931 — sixteen years before they left.

  1. India Gate · Ninety thousand names of Indian soldiers who died in the First World War and in Afghanistan are cut into it. Lutyens designed it; it is the end of a two-kilometre ceremonial axis.
  2. Rashtrapati Bhavan · Three hundred and forty rooms and two hundred thousand square metres — larger than Versailles. Lutyens and Baker argued for years about the gradient of the approach, and the result is that from the gate the palace sinks out of sight as you walk towards it.
  3. Connaught Place · A white colonnaded double circle finished in 1933, modelled on the Royal Crescent in Bath. The inner circle was for the British, the outer for everyone else.
  4. Agrasen ki Baoli · A hundred and eight steps leading down into a dry stepwell, sixty metres long, hidden between office towers. Nobody knows who built it; the stone is fourteenth century and the legend is two thousand years older.
  5. Jantar Mantar · Thirteen astronomical instruments built of masonry in 1724, each the size of a building. A maharaja built five of these observatories because he did not trust brass instruments to be accurate enough.
  6. Khan Market · Built in 1951 for refugees from partition and now carrying the highest retail rents in India. Two lanes of bookshops and cafés, and the back lanes are where the city actually shops.
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Getting to Delhi and getting around

  • Indira Gandhi Airport · The Airport Express reaches the centre in 20 minutes
  • New Delhi Station · Trains to Agra, Jaipur and everywhere else
  • Rajiv Chowk Metro · Under Connaught Place, where two lines cross

Museums in Delhi

  • National Museum · Five thousand years, and the Buddha relics
  • Crafts Museum · Village houses rebuilt in a courtyard, with artisans working
  • Gandhi Smriti · The room he slept in, and the last steps he walked
  • National Gallery of Modern Art · A maharaja’s palace, and Indian art since 1850
  • National Rail Museum · Steam engines in a field, and a miniature train to ride

Parks and gardens in Delhi

  • Lodhi Garden · Fifteenth-century tombs, and Delhi doing yoga among them
  • Sunder Nursery · Ninety acres restored in 2018, with fifteen monuments
  • Mehrauli Archaeological Park · A thousand years of ruins in a forest, unguarded and free
  • Nehru Park · Free concerts on winter mornings

Things to do in Delhi with kids

  • National Zoological Park · White tigers, and the old fort wall as a backdrop
  • National Rail Museum · Ride a miniature steam train round the grounds
  • Garden of Five Senses · Sculpture, fountains and a bamboo court
  • Akshardham · A boat ride through ten thousand years of India

Cheap eats in Delhi

Eight counters where Delhi eats standing. A kebab shop opened in 1913 by a cook from the last Mughal court, an alley that has fried stuffed bread since the 1870s, and a Sikh kitchen that feeds ten thousand people a day for nothing. Thirty to three hundred rupees, and the busiest stall is the right one.

  • Karim’s · Mughal kitchen recipes, ₹300, beside the mosque
  • Paranthe Wali Gali · Stuffed bread fried in ghee since the 1870s, ₹80
  • Bangla Sahib langar · Free, every day, for anyone who walks in
  • Majnu ka Tilla · Tibetan momos and thukpa, in quiet lanes, ₹150
  • Dilli Haat · A food stall from every Indian state, in one yard
  • Chandni Chowk sweets · Jalebi fried in the street since 1884, ₹50
  • Khan Market lanes · The back lanes, not the front — that is where the food is
  • Chaat, Connaught Place · Street snacks at an outdoor counter, ₹100

Holy places in Delhi

  • Jama Masjid · A courtyard for twenty-five thousand, and a minaret to climb
  • Lotus Temple · Open to every faith, and silent inside
  • Bangla Sahib · Cover your head, and the kitchen is open to all
  • Akshardham · Built in 2005 by seven thousand craftsmen. No phones inside
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Frequently asked questions about Delhi

What is there to see in Delhi?

The top sights in Delhi are Red Fort, Jama Masjid and Qutub Minar. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Delhi?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Delhi without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Delhi?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Delhi, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: Old Delhi.

How do you get to Delhi and get around?

The main ways are Indira Gandhi Airport, New Delhi Station and Rajiv Chowk Metro. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Delhi, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Delhi that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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