Luxury Darjeeling Tours

Himalayan tea estates and the UNESCO-listed toy train, arranged by a private guide.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway toy train station platform and narrow-gauge tracks

Overview

Darjeeling At A Glance

Darjeeling climbs into the Himalayan foothills, well over 2,000 meters up. Tea estates cover its slopes. Growers have shipped these leaves worldwide since the mid-1800s. A small train, the toy train, still climbs the same track. It has run this route since 1881. UNESCO named the railway a World Heritage Site in 1999. A private guide arranges a tea estate visit and a ride on the line itself.

Where To Stay: Glenburn Tea Estate, Mayfair Darjeeling
Continue To: Kalimpong, Kolkata, Sundarbans

What To See

What To See In Darjeeling

Darjeeling's real highlights are what a private guide builds each day around.

Nature / Wildlife

Tiger Hill

A viewpoint above Darjeeling, visited before dawn for a wide Himalayan sunrise over Kanchenjunga and, on a clear day, Everest.

Fort / Palace / Heritage

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway

The narrow-gauge 'toy train' opened in 1881 between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling, the first railway on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Nature / Wildlife

Happy Valley Tea Estate

One of Darjeeling's oldest working tea gardens, founded in the 1850s, a short walk from the town centre with a factory open to visitors.

Nature / Wildlife

Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park

A high-altitude zoo in Darjeeling specialising in Himalayan species, including one of the few successful captive breeding programmes for the red panda and snow leopard.

Culture / Heritage Experience · 2 hours

Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Ride

A steam or diesel leg of the UNESCO-listed toy train, usually Darjeeling to Ghum, the highest railway station in India, and back.

The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway toy train moving through lush green countryside, West Bengal

Adventure · 3 hours

Tiger Hill Sunrise Excursion

A pre-dawn shared-jeep drive to Tiger Hill for sunrise over Kanchenjunga, with stops at Ghum monastery and Batasia Loop on the way back.

Visitors photographing the view at the Tiger Hill sunrise viewpoint near Darjeeling

How To Travel

Journeys Through Darjeeling

Every journey comes with a private guide and driver for each day on the road. Full details live on each journey's own page.

Silhouette of Himalayan mountain ranges at sunset

10 Nights

West Bengal in Depth

Darjeeling · Kalimpong · Kolkata · Sundarbans

Colorful prayer flags over the water at Tsongo Lake near Gangtok, Sikkim

9 Nights

Sikkim, Darjeeling & Kalimpong Signature

Gangtok · Pelling · Ravangla · Darjeeling · Kalimpong

A scenic mountain-top view over Darjeeling's hills and valleys

8 Nights

Sikkim & Darjeeling Honeymoon

Gangtok · Pelling · Ravangla · Darjeeling

A gilded Buddha statue amid flowers at Gonjang Monastery on the North Sikkim Highway near Gangtok

7 Nights

Sikkim & Darjeeling Grand Circuit

Gangtok · Pelling · Ravangla · Darjeeling

Victoria Memorial standing grandly against a cloudy Kolkata sky

7 Nights

First-Timer's West Bengal

Darjeeling · Kalimpong · Kolkata

A foggy hillside tea garden in Darjeeling, West Bengal, mountains wrapped in mist

6 Nights

West Bengal Honeymoon

Darjeeling · Kalimpong · Kolkata

Snow-covered Himalayan peak under daytime sky

5 Nights

Darjeeling & Kalimpong Hills

Darjeeling · Kalimpong

A tea plantation covering rolling hills and mountains

4 Nights

Tea & the Toy Train

Darjeeling

Where To Stay

Where To Stay In Darjeeling

Stays are chosen for the setting and the service, then matched to the pace of your route.

resort · luxury

Glenburn Tea Estate

★★★★★

Glenburn is a working tea garden founded in 1859, on a ridge above the Rungeet river with Kanchenjunga filling the horizon on a clear morning. Guests stay in two colonial-era planters' bungalows, the Burra Bungalow and the Water Lily Bungalow, furnished with the family's own antiques rather than as a conventional hotel. All meals are included and taken together, largely from the estate's own garden and dairy. The point of a stay is the garden itself: a walk through the tea rows with the manager, a visit to the factory where the leaf is still processed by hand in stages, and a tasting of the estate's own first and second flush teas. There is also a riverside camp lower down at the Rungeet for a change of scene. It is a genuine working-estate stay, not a resort built to look like one, and it runs on a full-board, few-rooms basis.

Evening exterior view of MAYFAIR Hill Resort Darjeeling, a former royal residence, lit up with its pitched red roofs and colonnaded entrance porch

hotel · premium

Mayfair Darjeeling

★★★★★

Mayfair occupies a former summer residence of the Sikkimese royal family, on the Jawahar Road ridge a short walk from the Mall. It is built up in tiers of turreted, slate-roofed cottages set into terraced gardens, with wood-panelled interiors and open fireplaces. There is an indoor pool and spa, and the grounds themselves, planted with rhododendron and magnolia, are worth the walk around on their own. Its position, close to the Mall, the zoo and the ropeway, makes it a practical base for Darjeeling's sights without losing the character a purely modern hotel would lack.

years crafting private India journeys

30,000+

travellers guided end to end

4.5

from 15 reviews on Trustpilot