Taj Mahal Travel Guide - Everything You Need to Know

I’m sure the Taj Mahal is on everybody’s bucket list when they visit India - it was most definitely on mine! It was one of the busiest places we visited in India, and I can totally see why. The immense beauty of it all is even more evident when you see it in person. Did you know that the Taj Mahal is built entirely out of white marble and was built in the 1600s by order of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife? These days, the Taj Mahal is one of the most popular architectural pieces in the world bringing in soooo many visitors every single day. Visiting the Taj Mahal for the first time can feel overwhelming as there’s so much going on, so I’ve put together a comprehensive guide on everything you need to know before you visit, so you can have a stress-free time when travelling!

I hope you find everything you need here for visiting the Taj Mahal!

Planning your Agra trip:

The Taj Mahal is located in Agra which is a four hour drive from New Delhi and a five hour drive from Jaipur. A high speed highway connects New Delhi > Agra > Jaipur and so visitors often visit the Taj Mahal as a day trip from New Delhi or Jaipur, or in between New Delhi and Jaipur as part of the ‘Golden Triangle’ route. If you have time for it, I highly recommend doing an overnight stay in Agra so that you can visit the Taj Mahal first thing in the morning and also have time to explore Agra’s other attractions.

Where to stay in Agra:

Anywhere nearby is fine as you can easily catch a tuk tuk for only a few dollars a ride or around $10-15AUD a day. When catching a tuk tuk, you can ask your driver to wait for you at the entrance whilst you tour the Taj Mahal so that when you are finished, you can have the same driver take you back to your hotel or onwards to your point of interest. If you are planning to ask your driver to wait, I’d recommend allocating around 2-3 hours for a generous visit.

We stayed in an AirBnB about 10 minutes from the Taj Mahal.

What time to visit the Taj Mahal:

The Taj Mahal opens 1 hour before sunrise and closes 45 minutes before sunset & I believe it is closed to the public on Fridays. I think it’s expected that no matter how early you visit Taj Mahal, it is going to be busy. We visited at sunrise and it was filled with people who came even earlier (during darkness!). However, the complex is really large so there are plenty of places to wander around without being shoulder-to-shoulder with others.

What to bring:

Security is strict at Taj Mahal and everybody’s bags are flipped open and individual items examined. So if you want to quickly pass through security, bring as less as possible. In particular, there is quite an extensive list of things that are not allowed within the complex - this includes books, food, toys, flowers, drones and tripods so be sure to leave these behind.

Dress code:

Knees and chests should be covered to enter the Taj Mahal. There are some areas in the grounds where you’ll have to remove your shoes, so I do also suggest shoes that are easy to take off.

Buying your ticket:

When you arrive at the Taj Mahal complex, first head to the ticket counter area to purchase your ticket (see ‘Taj Mahal Eastern Gate Ticketing’ on Google Maps for the location of the ticket office). There are two counters, one for cash sales and one for card sales. The entrance fee for tourists is around 12500 rupees for a complete ticket. This includes entrance to the outside grounds, entrance to the mausoleum and a bottle of water and shoe covers. Once you receive your ticket, you will have to go to a separate window to collect your water bottle and shoe covers. Once all of this is sorted, you can head to the Taj Mahal entrance for your security check before entering the complex.

Which entrance?

If you read online, you’ll notice that there are a few entrances for the Taj Mahal, however the main one that most people use and that I recommend using is the East Gate entrance.

 

Take note:

If you hire a tuk tuk (also known as auto rickshaw or just ‘auto’ in India) to drive you to the Taj Mahal, they cannot drive you all the way to the Eastern Gate as the road becomes a pedestrian only zone. So the tuk tuk driver will likely drop you off around 100 metres before the eastern gate (so they will drop you off 100 metres south of the Eastern Gate, on Dashehara Ghat Road). From here, you will walk on Dashehara Ghat Road in a northerly direction until you reach the ticketing office/gate. On this road, there will be lots of shops and locals approaching you. We were told by our tuk tuk driver to be aware of our belongings and ‘not to trust anything they say!’ - so just passing this on as well. We had no troubles walking on this road however there were definitely lots of people who approached us and tried to offer us help or show us their stores.

Some photo spots:

Photographer’s fave: THE archway view

If you want to visit this photography viewpoint, just head to one of the two red mosques that are situated on the left and right side of the Taj Mahal. Whilst it’s a gorgeous spot, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that most tourists don’t pass by here so it’s quite a peaceful spot and perfect frame as well.

This beautifully symmetrical spot is right in front of you as you walk towards the Taj Mahal. It is often busy here however when we visited there just so happened to be a large tour group trying to take some photos here and creating their own traffic control. As a result of being behind them, I ended up getting a pretty clear shot.

This beautiful spot is on the side of the Taj Mahal and funnily enough, not many tourists walk by here.

Alternative views of the Taj Mahal:

If you want to see the Taj Mahal from another angle, you can consider visiting Mehtab Bagh, which is a garden opposite the Taj Mahal. We had a brief visit to a spot right outside the garden on the evening of our arrival in Agra as unfortunately we arrived too late (due to our flight/visa/luggage issues, a story I’ll leave to tell another day) and the garden had closed. It looks something like this:

There were also a couple of other views I had seen of the Taj Mahal including a ride from a wooden boat and also from a chhatri (those dome-shaped pavilions you often see in India) nearby, however at the time of our visit (January 2020), we were unable to reach both points as there were policemen blocking the road and telling us to turn back. Apparently these two points are currently closed to tourists for the unforeseeable future.