Boutique hotels
in Jaipur

Jaipur's heritage hotels sit in four or five distinct pockets, and which pocket you choose shapes the day more than the room does. We hold 28 stays in the city. Here is how they divide.

Bani Park has the longest run of family garden houses. Dera Rawatsar, Jas Vilas, Dev Mahal and Umaid Bhawan stand within a few streets of one another: converted homes from the 1920s to the 1950s, lawns, 14 to 30 rooms, and in most cases the founding family still living on the premises. It is quiet, roughly 3 km from the walled city, and the easiest first choice.

Inside the walled city you wake in the pink city instead of driving into it. Padmaa occupies a 1735 haveli, now all suites; Jaipur Haveli is 400 metres from the jewellers' quarter; Samode Haveli is 225 years old and painted throughout. Rooms run smaller here and the streets stay loud well into the evening.

Civil Lines and Sansar Chandra Road hold the bigger houses. Narain Niwas is a 1928 garden palace the Kanota family still keeps. Diggi Palace dates to 1860. Alsisar Haveli is the Alsisar thakurs' town mansion, with a pool under the trees. Rajmahal Palace was Gayatri Devi's Jaipur home, built in 1729.

Amer Road, running north towards the fort, carries the smaller painted properties: Surya Haveli on Amber's main square, Brij Castle 1.5 km from Jal Mahal, Umaid Residency with a rooftop pool. Sensible if the fort is the reason you came, further out if you want shops and restaurants on foot.

Outside the city, Anopura and Dera Amer trade corridors for farmland, with private-pool villas and canvas tents across 60 and 180 acres. Both are 30 to 45 minutes from the centre. They suit a second visit to Jaipur better than a first.

Jaipur airport is about 13 km south of the centre. The railway station sits beside Bani Park, which is part of why so many of these houses grew up there. Delhi is roughly five hours by road, or four by train.