There is a conversation that happens regularly among travellers who know India well. Someone mentions Gujarat, and someone else — often a person who has visited India several times and thought they had seen its highlights — says: 'I haven't been. Should I go?'
The answer, invariably, is: you should have gone first.
Gujarat is one of the great undiscovered luxury destinations of India — a state of extraordinary diversity that remains almost entirely off the international tourism radar. This is changing, and the travellers who arrive before it changes fully will have the rarest experience: a magnificent destination that is still genuinely theirs to discover.
"Gujarat is where India surprises even those who think they know India."
The Rann of Kutch — A Landscape Unlike Any Other
The Great Rann of Kutch is one of the world's largest salt deserts — a vast, flat, white expanse that stretches for 30,000 square kilometres along the border with Pakistan. For most of the year, it is a cracked salt flat of extraordinary barrenness and beauty. After the monsoon, it floods to become a shallow seasonal wetland. And in winter, when the water recedes, it becomes — at the full moon — a mirror that reflects the sky so perfectly that the horizon disappears entirely.
The Rann Utsav festival (November to February) brings cultural performances, craft markets, and camel rides to the desert's edge. The experience of watching sunrise or full moon light play across this white silence is one of the most singular in India.
ATL Expert Tip: We arrange private desert camps at the Rann during the Utsav season — away from the main festival area, in silence, with a private guide and chef. This is the Rann that most visitors never experience.
Gir National Park — The Last Asiatic Lions
The Gir Forest in southern Gujarat is the only place on earth outside Africa where you can see wild lions. The Asiatic lion — smaller than its African cousin, with a distinctive belly fold — once ranged from Greece to India. Today, approximately 700 animals survive in the Gir Forest, making this one of conservation's most remarkable success stories.
A dawn safari into Gir with an expert tracker, in a private jeep, tracking a lion pride through the thorny scrub forest, is an experience of absolute rarity. We arrange private permit bookings and the best-positioned lodges near the park entrance.
Ahmedabad — India's First UNESCO World Heritage City
Ahmedabad's historic walled city was designated India's first UNESCO World Heritage City in 2017 — recognition of its extraordinary architectural layering of Hindu, Jain, Islamic, and colonial influences across 600 years of history.
The pol houses — traditional urban neighbourhoods with elaborately carved wooden facades — are among the finest examples of vernacular Indian architecture anywhere. The city also holds the Calico Museum of Textiles (one of the world's great textile museums), the Gandhi Ashram on the Sabarmati river, and remarkable examples of Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn's modernist buildings.
Bhuj and the Kutch Craft Tradition
The Kutch region around Bhuj is home to one of India's richest craft traditions — embroidery, bandhani (tie-dye), block printing, weaving, and pottery practised by communities whose traditions stretch back centuries and whose work hangs in museums around the world.
We arrange private visits to artisan villages — Hodka, Nirona, Bhirendiara — where master craftspeople share their techniques, their history, and their extraordinary work. These are not tourist demonstrations. They are encounters with living cultural heritage.
Recommended Gujarat Itinerary — 10 Days
- Days 1–2: Ahmedabad — UNESCO heritage walk, Calico Museum, Gandhi Ashram, stepwell visits
- Days 3–4: Bhuj & Kutch — artisan village visits, Kutch Museum, local cuisine
- Days 5–6: Rann of Kutch — white desert, full moon if timing permits, desert camp
- Days 7–8: Gir National Park — two dawn safaris, Asiatic lion tracking
- Days 9–10: Somnath & Dwarka — ancient coastal temples of extraordinary significance
Contact Affluent Travel & Leisure to design your Gujarat journey. This is one of our most personally rewarding tours to create — a destination we believe every serious India traveller should discover.
