Americas
One country that behaves like five — skyline, canyon, coast, desert, capital
The place
No other trip we sell covers this much ground in one visa. In a fortnight you stand under the towers of Manhattan, walk the museum mile of Washington, watch the Colorado River from the rim of the Grand Canyon, and finish with fog rolling under the Golden Gate Bridge. The distances are enormous — this is a country you fly across, not drive across, on a two-week holiday — and our itineraries are built around that fact rather than in denial of it.
The paperwork is the long pole. The B1/B2 visitor visa needs an in-person interview, and appointment waits at the Indian consulates run into months, so the sensible order is: interview first, book travel second. Once the visa is in the passport it is usually valid ten years, which changes the economics — the second and third USA trips cost you nothing in paperwork.
May to September is the season that works everywhere at once: New York and Washington are warm, San Francisco is at its clearest, and the canyon country is open. July and August bring real heat to Las Vegas and the desert — touring there is done early morning and after sunset, exactly as it is in the Gulf.
Best months
The months in gold are when USA is at its best — weather, crowds and price together.
Gold = best months to travelDroplets = how wet the month isHigh / low °C
Holiday Packages
New12N / 13D · Flights includedNew York 4N · Washington DC 2N · Las Vegas 3N · San Francisco 3N
The first-timer's America in one sweep: four nights in New York, the free museums of Washington, the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas, and the Golden Gate to finish. Internal flights, city tours and a Gujarati tour manager on every departure.
*Indicative — final price confirmed on live availability.
New13N / 14D · Flights includedNew York 4N · Washington DC 2N · Las Vegas 3N · Los Angeles 2N · San Francisco 2N
The full American sweep, done privately: five-star hotels in five cities, a private guide and car in each, first-class rail to Washington, a Grand Canyon helicopter, Broadway from the orchestra stalls and a Hollywood studio day. Built for families who want the country without the coach.
*Indicative — final price confirmed on live availability.
Worth your days
New York rewards two speeds. Walk it — Fifth Avenue, Central Park, the High Line — and then take the ferry past the Statue of Liberty to see the skyline assemble itself from the harbour. An observation deck is worth one evening; Top of the Rock looks AT the Empire State Building, which is why photographers prefer it.
A kilometre and a half deep, over four hundred kilometres long, and no photograph prepares you for the first look over the edge. From Las Vegas the West Rim with its glass Skywalk is the practical day trip; the South Rim is further but is the classic view. Go at dawn or towards sunset — midday light flattens the whole thing.
The prettiest big city in the country: cable cars hauling themselves up impossible streets, sea lions barking at Fisherman's Wharf, and the red bridge appearing and disappearing in the fog. Rent bicycles and ride across the bridge to Sausalito, then come back by ferry — it is the single best half-day here.
A city built as a stage set, and best treated as one. The Bellagio fountains, the Eiffel-tower replica and the Fremont Street light canopy cost nothing to watch; the shows — Cirque du Soleil above all — are what deserve your money. It is also the base camp for the canyon country, which is the respectable excuse for coming.
Every Smithsonian museum on the National Mall — Air and Space, Natural History, American History — is free, which no other capital city offers. Add the Lincoln Memorial at dusk and a drive past the White House and the Capitol. Two nights is right; museum lovers should quietly steal a third.
Woodbury Common outside New York and the premium outlets outside Las Vegas sell the brands Indian malls import at roughly half the Indian sticker price. Go on a weekday morning, take an empty duffel bag, and keep the receipts — customs duty-free allowance applies on the way home.
Indicative
Spending money on the ground, per person per day — food, local transport and entry tickets outside your package.
Shoestring
₹6,500
a day, per person
Street food, public transport, one paid sight
Comfort
₹15,000
a day, per person
Sit-down meals, taxis, a tour or two
Luxury
₹40,000
a day, per person
Fine dining, private car, premium experiences
Visa
Practicalities
A folded dollar slice of cheese pizza and a morning bagel with cream cheese are the two city rituals, both vegetarian by default and both eaten standing up. The slice shops never close; the good bagel shops sell out by noon.
Pancakes with maple syrup, hash browns, eggs any of seven ways, bottomless filter coffee. The roadside diner is the honest end of American cooking and the portions are genuinely double what you expect — one order between two people is not stinginess, it is arithmetic.
Bean burritos, cheese quesadillas, guacamole, corn chips: the Mexican-American counter is the most reliable vegetarian meal between the coasts, and the flavours — beans, rice, chilli, lime — sit closer to an Indian palate than anything else on the road.
Easier than almost anywhere else we send you. New York, Washington, the Bay Area and even Las Vegas have Gujarati and Jain restaurants run by the diaspora — Jersey City's India Square and Sunnyvale deserve a detour in their own right. On canyon and highway days there is nothing, so we carry packed thepla-and-sabzi meals arranged the previous evening.
The line on the bill that surprises every first-time visitor. In sit-down restaurants 18-20% is the working wage of your server, not a compliment; counters and taxis expect less but still expect something. Budget for it as a real cost — we do, in every meal estimate we give you.
Set a meal preference — vegetarian, Jain or halal — when you book and we brief every hotel and restaurant on your itinerary.
Between cities you fly — New York to Las Vegas is five hours in the air and four days by road — with one exception: the Amtrak Acela from New York to Washington, which beats flying door to door. Inside New York the subway is the fastest thing on the island and runs all night; buy the OMNY tap fare with any contactless card. Uber and Lyft work everywhere and are the sensible default in Las Vegas, Washington and San Francisco. Do not hire a car for the cities — parking in Manhattan costs more per day than your hotel breakfast — but a one-day hire is a fine way to do the canyon country if you hold an international driving permit and remember which side of the road you are on.
Travel Guide
Month-by-month weather, money, plugs, food, shopping and the small things nobody tells you.
