India Highlight

Famous Tourist Attractions in India

Explore the 100 best tourist attractions in India that every traveler must visit. This list covers a wide range of attractions including hill stations, temples, monuments, and much more — so there's something for every kind of traveler.

  • Bajreshwari Devi Temple
    Temple in Kangra
    With a white and ornate exterior, the Bajreshwari Devi Temple resembles a fort with its tall architecture and strong walls creating a perimeter. As a Hindu religious site, many followers flock to this temple for prayers and enlightenment. Located in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, discover the secrets behind the Bajreshwari Devi Temple with a look at its history and mythology. Fascinating Mythology According to Hindu legend, this temple is part of the 51 Shakti Pithas. After the Godde...
  • Banaras Hindu University
    University in Varanasi
    Walk through the southern gate of Banaras Hindu University on a winter morning, and the first thing that strikes you isn't the scale — though the scale is considerable, some 1,300 acres of it — but the quiet. After the relentless press of Varanasi's old city, where motorbikes and pilgrims and cows negotiate every square metre of broken pavement, BHU feels like a different country. Wide avenues lined with neem and gulmohar trees. Cyclists in long shadows. Students hunched over books on stone b...
  • Banjar Valley
    Valley in Kullu
    Most valleys in Himachal Pradesh announce themselves. Kullu has its rafting brochures and Manali its honeymoon crowds. Banjar Valley, by contrast, simply exists — a long, unhurried corridor of deodar forests and slate-roofed villages along the Tirthan and Jiwa Nal rivers, south of Kullu town. The air here carries the sharp resin scent of cedar and, in autumn, the faint sweetness of apples drying on rooftops. What makes Banjar unusual isn't spectacle but restraint. The valley doesn't compete f...
  • Beas Kund
    Lake in Manali
    At roughly 3,700 metres, where the grass gives up and the rock takes over, a small glacial pool sits ringed by the Pir Panjal peaks. This is Beas Kund — the source of the Beas River, one of the five great rivers of Punjab, and according to Hindu belief, the spot where the sage Vyas once bathed. It isn't pretty in the postcard sense. There are no pine-fringed shores, no reflections of snowy summits arranged for your camera. What you get instead is something stranger and more honest: a shallow...
  • Beatles Ashram
    Ashram in Rishikesh
    Forty-eight songs. Six weeks. One quiet ashram perched above the Ganges. When John, Paul, George, and Ringo traded the chaos of Beatlemania for the forested stillness of Rishikesh in 1968, they didn't just find inner peace — they wrote nearly an entire double album that would reshape rock and roll. The Beatles Ashram, formally known as Chaurasi Kutia, sits on 18 acres of jungle-draped hillside where Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once guided the world's most famous band through Transcendental Meditati...
  • Betaab Valley
    Valley in Pahalgam
    The valley got its name from a 1983 Sunny Deol movie, and somehow that single fact tells you everything about India's relationship with landscape. A glacial valley carved by the Aru and Lidder rivers, shaped by ice over millennia, and the name that survived came from a Bollywood romance. But walk through it, and the absurdity dissolves quickly. The Lidder River tears across the valley floor with such force you'll have to shout at its banks, and the surrounding Pir Panjal peaks hold their snow...
  • Bhagsunag Temple
    Temple in Mcleod Ganj
    A narrow stone path climbs from the main road of Mcleod Ganj, slick with water that seems to come from everywhere — dripping off moss-covered walls, trickling across flagstones, pooling in shallow basins where devotees pause to wash their hands. This is how Bhagsunag Temple announces itself: not with a towering spire or gilded dome, but with water. The entire complex is built around natural springs that cascade down the hillside, feeding sacred pools that have drawn Hindu pilgrims and Garhwal...
  • Bhimtal Lake
    Lake in Nainital
    About twenty kilometers southeast of Nainital, a larger and considerably quieter lake spreads across a valley floor that most tourists drive straight past. Bhimtal Lake covers roughly 47 hectares — the biggest lake in the Kumaon region — yet it draws a fraction of the crowds that swarm its famous neighbor. This is precisely its appeal. The water sits at about 1,370 meters, cool enough to blunt a North Indian summer but low enough to remain accessible year-round. At its center, a small island...
  • Bhrigu Lake
    Lake in Manali
    At 14,100 feet, the air bites your lungs with each breath — and you couldn't care less. Not when that impossible sheet of turquoise water lies before you, cradled by snow-dusted peaks that seem close enough to touch. This is Bhrigu Lake, a glacial jewel tucked into the mountains of Himachal Pradesh's Kullu district, and one of the most rewarding treks you'll find anywhere near Manali. Named after the revered Hindu sage Rishi Bhrigu, this sacred alpine lake carries thousands of years of...
  • Bhuli Bhatiyari Ka Mahal
    Historic Building in West Delhi
    Most of Delhi's monuments come with plaques, ticket counters, and the heavy hand of official history. Bhuli Bhatiyari Ka Mahal has none of it. A crumbling 14th-century hunting lodge in the scrubby Ridge Forest of west Delhi, it charges no admission, posts no guard, offers no explanatory signage at its entrance. The name translates roughly to "the palace of the forgotten innkeeper" — a title so perfectly enigmatic that even historians can't fully agree on where it came from. What's left is a r...
  • Bijli Mahadev Temple
    Temple in Kullu
    Perched on a mountaintop about 7,500 feet above sea level, the Bijli Mahadev Temple is a humble structure with a remarkable history. As an ancient landmark, Hindus regularly pilgrimage to this site between Parvati and Kullu Valleys. Learn more about this "God of Lightning" temple on your next visit to Himachal Pradesh. Hearing the Legend This temple was built and dedicated to Lord Shiva who stopped a demon from flooding the Kullu Valley with water from the Beas River long ago. A...
  • Birla Mandir
    Temple in Central Delhi
    The clang of brass bells fills the air, mingling with the low hum of chanting voices and the sweet drift of incense smoke. Before you even step through the gates, Birla Mandir has already begun pulling you in. Officially known as Laxminarayan Temple, this radiant red sandstone and marble masterpiece has stood at the heart of Delhi since 1939—when Mahatma Gandhi himself inaugurated it with one revolutionary condition: every person, regardless of caste or creed, must be free to walk through its...
  • Birla Temple
    Temple in Jaipur
    A temple carved entirely from luminous white marble glows like a pearl against the dusty rose landscape of Rajasthan's most famous city. As the last light of day fades behind Moti Dungri Hill, the Birla Temple in Jaipur transforms into something almost otherworldly — bathed in golden floodlights, its three domes shimmering against the ink-dark sky. It's the kind of sight that stops you mid-step and makes you reach for your camera before you even realize your hand has moved. Dedicated to...
  • Bolgatty Palace
    Palace in Kochi
    The ferry pulls away from Ernakulam's bustling jetty, and within minutes, the honking auto rickshaws and crowded sidewalks fade behind you. Ahead, a green sliver of land rises from the glassy backwaters — Bolgatty Island, home to one of the oldest surviving Dutch palaces outside the Netherlands. Built in 1744 by traders chasing fortunes in the spice trade, Bolgatty Palace has quietly watched empires rise and crumble from its perch on the Vembanad Lake. Today, operated by the Kerala Tourism De...
  • Brindavan Gardens
    Garden in Mysore
    Most gardens ask you to admire flowers. Brindavan Gardens asks you to admire engineering. Built below the Krishnaraja Sagar Dam in 1932, this terraced expanse stretches across 150 acres on the outskirts of Mysore, and its primary spectacle isn't botanical — it's hydraulic. Every evening, as the sky over the Cauvery River basin dims, a musical fountain erupts in synchronized jets of colored water, and several thousand people fall silent at once. That hush — lasting just a second or two before...
  • Chail
    Hill Station in Shimla
    At 7,000 feet, the air hits differently. Cooler, thinner, saturated with the resinous sweetness of deodar pines — each breath feels like a quiet reset. This is Chail, a hill station tucked into the forested folds of Himachal Pradesh, born from a maharaja's wounded pride and still humming with that defiant, regal energy more than a century later. Roughly 45 kilometers from Shimla yet a world away from its tourist crowds, Chail sprawls across three hills — Rajgarh, Sadh Tiba, and Pandewa...
  • Chamera Lake
    Lake in Dalhousie
    Chamera Lake didn't exist before 1994. That fact stops people mid-sentence. What reads as a natural feature of the Chamba Valley — a wide reservoir of deep blue-green water pressed between deodar-covered hills — is actually a byproduct of the Chamera Dam, thrown across the River Ravi to generate hydroelectric power. The dam created the reservoir, and the reservoir, almost as an afterthought, created one of the few genuine reasons to linger near Dalhousie instead of treating it as a waypoint t...
  • Chamunda Devi Temple
    Temple in Kangra
    Located about 15 miles southeast of McLeod Ganj is the popular Chamunda Devi Temple. With the Dhauladar Mountain Range nearby, this Hindu Temple is both picturesque and spiritually significant for believers. If you're planning a trip to Northern India, the Chamunda Devi Temple is a true highlight. Exploring the Folklore The Chamunda Devi Temple is a sacred place because of the mythological battle that occurred in this region. Here, a goddes...
  • Chandi Devi Temple
    Temple in Haridwar
    The wind carries the faint clang of brass bells and the sweet perfume of marigold garlands long before you catch your first glimpse of the temple. Perched high on Neel Parvat hill, overlooking the eastern bank of the Ganges, the Chandi Devi Temple commands one of the most sacred vantage points in all of Haridwar. Dedicated to Goddess Chandi — a fierce, battle-ready form of Goddess Durga — this ancient shrine pulls in thousands of devotees and wonder-struck travelers each year. But its p...
  • Chandni Chowk
    Market in Central Delhi
    Dating back to the mid-1600s, Chandni Chowk is one of the oldest and busiest markets in India. Stretching from the iconic Red Fort to the Fatehpuri Masjid, this legendary street in Old Delhi pulses with energy from dawn until well after dark. Originally designed by Princess Jahanara Begum, daughter of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, the market was envisioned as a grand commercial hub befitting a powerful empire. Today, Chandni Chowk remains true to that original purpose. Thousands of shoppers, tra...
  • Chapora Fort
    Fort in North Goa
    Chapora Fort has no grand halls. No ornate carvings. No museum. What it has is a crumbling laterite perimeter wall, a few stubborn stretches of bastion, and a view that earns every one of the steep minutes it takes to reach. From the wind-scoured plateau, the Chapora River bends silver toward the Arabian Sea on one side while Vagator Beach sprawls rust-red and pale below on the other. Most people know this place — whether they realize it or not — from the final scene of Dil Chahta Hai ,...
  • Chashme Shahi Garden
    Garden in Srinagar
    The water arrives before you notice anything else. Cold, startlingly clear, and fed by an underground spring that has never stopped flowing since long before the Mughals decided to build a garden around it, the water at Chashme Shahi defines everything about this place. It doesn't trickle. It announces itself — rushing through carved stone channels, pooling in terraced basins, and carrying with it the faint mineral taste of the Zabarwan Range above. While Srinagar's more famous gardens draw t...
  • Chhatarpur Temple
    Temple in South Delhi
    Residing on more than 60 acres in South Delhi, the Chhatarpur Temple is a huge complex dedicated to Hinduism. With its intricately latticed architecture, this landmark is known as a pilgrimage site for many followers. Learn more about the Chhatarpur Temple as you explore the grounds on your next vacation. Architecture and Layout The Chhatarpur Temple was built in 1974 with a focus on various temples collected together to celebrate many different deities. Indeed, 20 temples are d...
  • Chini Ka Rauza
    Monument in Agra
    Located on the east side of the Yamuna River, Chini ka Rauza is a tomb built in the 1600s. Requiring more than a decade of construction, this historical site is a highlight for visitors as they explore greater Agra, India. Learn why this structure is called "China Tomb" right now. Discovering Allama Afzal Khan Mullah's Legacy This tomb was built for Afzal Khan, the Prime Minister to the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in the 1600s. He was more than a political advisor, however. Khan w...
  • Chota Bazar
    Market in East Delhi
    The scent hits you first — a heady collision of ground turmeric, sizzling oil, and ripe mangoes warming in the sun. Then comes the sound: a rising chorus of vendors calling out prices, metal scales clanking, and the rhythmic thwack of a knife splitting open a fresh pomegranate. Welcome to Chota Bazar, East Delhi's gloriously chaotic marketplace, where "chota" means small but nothing about this place is. For decades, this labyrinth of narrow lanes has been the daily heartbeat for thousan...
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100 Famous Tourist Attractions in India | Things to Do & See