Delhi is an amazing and massive city. Traveling to Delhi can be quite confusing and hard to move in if you’re not familiar with it. With its people, their culture, food, crowded cities and lack of personal space, the only way to enjoy this great city is to embrace its exceptional and unique culture, and people.
When traveling to Delhi, the best and most convenient way to travel is through air as all the major cities are connected by air route thus making traveling faster. For example, if you’re in Nagpur, the best thing is to book flights from Nagpur to Delhi as your flight will land in Delhi.
Once you’ve booked your flight, the next thing is to prepare for your trip. Whether you’re a solo traveler looking to explore, or you’re going with your partner on a vacation, or in groups on a tour, there are a few things to bear in mind when traveling to Delhi for the first time. Here are a few tips to prepare you ahead of time for your trip:
Drink Bottled Water in Delhi.
When you arrive in Delhi, in order to ensure you don’t fall sick, irrespective of where you stay or lodge, it’s best to drink only bottled water; except you’re in a residents home and you’re sure they have their own reverse osmosis filter system (water purifier). If not, avoid drinking tap water or taking ice made from tap water as it may be contaminated due to low supply of water in Delhi.
Buying bottled water can cost you some buck but it’s best to be on the safer side; or you can take along with you a self-filtering water bottle and, only use it when necessary for example, with the hotels tap water but not from the main water source in order to avoid feeling sick. Also, don’t leave your drinks unattended
Get Used to People Staring.
A foreigner in another country will certainly get a lot of stares out of curiosity; just don’t get freaked out or offended by it; get used to it. For them, seeing a modernized person from another country with a different culture is a shock, which is why they stare out of curiosity; not an act of rudeness. Also, what you wear might also attract attention to you so try to dress down in non exposed clothes no matter the weather.
Don’t Feel Weird if People Want to Take Selfie
People would definitely want to take pictures with a foreigner; it’s nothing creepy or strange; except you have no idea about it (but now you know). Whether you’re a man or a woman traveler/tourist, the locals would ask to take pictures with you either alone or in groups. You may be wondering why the locals always want to take pictures with the foreigners, it’s because they don’t often see light skinned people and back in the day, it was a thing of royalty and who wouldn’t want to take pictures with royalty? So when one of the locals ask to take a selfie with you, you should feel like royalty and certainly take as much pictures as they want.
Learn a Little Bit of Hindi
Language barrier isn’t really an in Delhi as most of the locals can communicate in English; but it can be really helpful knowing some important words from the language as it’ll attract a form of respect and closeness to you when the locals see that you understand Hindi. Learning the basics like greetings/pleasantries eg “how are you?”, “thank you”, “hello”, etc is a good start. And when you want to bargain, you’d really want to learn words like “no”, “how much?”, “reduce the price”, “I don’t want”, etc to show them that you know what you want and you’re not new there (even though you are).
