Things to Do in Delhi: Top Places, Fees & Timings 2026✦ Curated Experiences ✦

Akshardham is the most-visited modern temple in Delhi, and the one where a little planning makes the biggest difference. It is a huge complex of intricately carved stone, with exhibitions, a boat ride and an evening musical fountain show, and it deserves half a day. It is also the strictest site in the city on what you can bring, and it runs on cash, so turning up unprepared costs you time. Get those two things right and it is one of the most impressive stops in Delhi. Here is exactly how to plan it.

If you are travelling on to Agra, Humayun's Tomb is the best possible warm-up for the Taj Mahal, and if you are not, it is still one of the calmest, most rewarding stops in Delhi. This red sandstone and marble tomb, set in a formal Persian garden, was the first of its kind in India, and you can see the whole idea of the Taj taking shape here half a century early. It is quieter than the forts, easy to reach, and worth an unhurried hour and a half.

India Gate is where New Delhi comes to relax, and it is best understood not as a monument you tour but as a place you spend an evening. The great arch anchors Kartavya Path, the ceremonial avenue that runs to the President's residence, and after dark it is floodlit while families picnic on the lawns and ice-cream sellers work the crowd. It is free, always open, and a short drive from the New Delhi monuments, so it slots easily into the end of a sightseeing day.

The Lotus Temple is the calmest famous building in Delhi, and its appeal is exactly that. There are no idols, no priests, no sermons and no sales pitch, just a vast white marble hall shaped like a lotus where anyone of any religion can sit in silence. After a morning of forts and crowds it is a genuine reset. It is free, easy to reach by metro, and needs only an hour or so, but it closes on Mondays, which is the one thing to plan around.

The Qutub Minar is where Delhi's history starts, centuries before the Mughals and the Red Fort. This fluted red sandstone tower has been standing since the twelfth century, and the complex around it holds the first mosque built in the city and an iron pillar that has resisted rust for over 1,600 years. It photographs beautifully in the late afternoon, and it is an easy, rewarding stop on the New and South Delhi half of a Delhi day.

The Red Fort is where I start every Old Delhi morning with guests, because it explains the city. This is not just a fort but the walled capital Shah Jahan built when he moved the Mughal court from Agra to Delhi, and the place from which India's Prime Minister still addresses the nation each Independence Day. Give it two to three hours and Old Delhi's lanes and mosque make sense afterwards.