Hi Everyone!
I just wanted to come on here and give my thoughts of visiting India as an Indian American after not visiting in 10 years.
I enjoyed India in two ways as a foreign tourist (Agra) and as a somewhat local (with family in karnataka)
I primarily stayed in Bengaluru with my family and did a few trips to Coorg, Mysore, and Agra.
First Did a roadtrip from Bangalore to coorg and mysore and I just want to get started by saying if you haven’t heard of coorg UR MISSING OUT, will forever be my favorite place on earth, lush tropical evergreen forests with huge biodiversity. It’s my second time going to coorg (and mysore) and it’s still as amazing as I remember. Mysore was cool too
It was also my first time visiting North India. Seeing the Taj Mahal has been on my bucket list since forever and seeing it in person was surreal.
Left the hotel at 5:45 am and our guide took us to the eastern gate and dropped us 1 km away from it. When I got to the gate there was already a 500 queue 😭, was originally planning to be at the gate 5:30 am but unfortunately could not find my eticket on my phone so took like an hr to find it. Nevertheless still was able to get some solo shots with the Taj and saw the beautiful sunrise. Also it most likely not gonna beat the line so don’t be saddened when you get there and there are already a bunch of people ahead of you.
Now just differences I saw between the north and south: Visiting North India vs South India is like two different countries, The south is very laid back in comparison and felt a lot more homey (makes sense tho since my family is from the south). And the north was very busy and overwhelming.
I think if you wanna visit India please do proper research and figure out which state would best align to what you want to see in India. I honestly think that each state in India is like hoping countries in Europe. Also please don’t generalize India since it’s more diverse than Europe, what you see on the internet is not what India is like all over.
I honestly think that every state in South India is a must visit (not biased) For north India I cannot tell you since I’ve only been to one city and it’s not my place to talk about if I barely know how visiting the rest is. People have also told me Agra is known to be a lot dirtier in general compared to most Indian cities so like my experience there would not match other cities in North India.
I do plan on going to more cities in the north including, Delhi, Jaipur, Chandigarh, varanasi, udaipur and more.
Also as you can see I’m really bad with words so I could’ve probably explained all of this in a more coherently descriptive way but I forgot what I was gonna type halfway through 😍.