Jaisalmer is the last town before the border, and it looks it: golden sandstone, a fort with people still living in it, and the Thar beginning immediately outside. It is the longest drive in a Rajasthan itinerary and the one nobody regrets.
The desert nights are the point. The camps at Sam and Khuri are forty to forty-five kilometres out; the good ones are quiet, the bad ones have loudspeakers, and it is worth asking which kind you are being sent to before anything is booked.
November to February. It is a desert, so the days are warm and the nights in December and January are genuinely cold — bring something warm, which almost nobody does.
One of the very few forts in the world that is still lived in: around three thousand people have their homes inside the walls, so the lanes are shops, temples and houses rather than a museum. The sandstone turns the colour of honey in the late afternoon, which is when to walk up. Allow half a day, and go on foot — the gates are narrow and cars are not the way in.
An hour on a camel is enough for most people, and it is how you reach the dunes at Sam for sunset. What makes the evening is what comes after: dinner at the camp and a sky with no town within forty kilometres to spoil it.
Jaisalmer is part of our multi-day private tours of Rajasthan and North India. You travel in your own car with an English-speaking driver who knows the roads, the opening times and where to stop — no group, no fixed schedule.
Other destinations: Jaipur · Agra · Delhi · Jodhpur · Udaipur · Pushkar
