Her India: The Women-Only Journey

Delhi through its women: a historian leads the morning through Humayun's Tomb and the stories of the MughalMughalRelating to the Muslim dynasty of Central Asian descent that ruled most of the subcontinent from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.Read in the glossary queens who commissioned half the skyline; lunch is in the home kitchen of a legendary Old Delhi matriarch; the afternoon visits a women's cooperative reviving Persian embroidery in the old city's lanes.

To Jaipur, and into the hands of its craftswomen: a block-printing session led by Sanganer's first woman master printer, bangle-making in the bazaar with the lac-workers' guild, and the evening on a haveliHaveliA traditional townhouse or mansion built around one or more internal courtyards.Read in the glossary rooftop as the city's lights come up.

A gentler tempo: morning yoga in the palace garden, a personal-shopping circuit of Jaipur's women-led boutiques — block-print studios, jewellery ateliers, the city's best tailor for a 24-hour custom order — and a long lunch that becomes the day's main event, as long lunches should.

Fly to Udaipur and cross the water to the Lake Palace — white marble, lotus courtyards, the lake holding the light like a promise. The afternoon is deliberately unscheduled: swim, spa, or sit with a book where a Bond film was shot. Sunset cruise with champagne as the palaces go gold.

Morning in the City Palace's zenanaZenanaThe women's quarters of a household or palace, screened from the view of men outside the family.Read in the glossary courts with a woman conservator — miniature paintings, mirrored chambers, the practical genius of purdahPurdahThe practice of screening women from the sight of men outside the family, by veiling or by seclusion within the household.Read in the glossary architecture — then up to the Monsoon Palace for the full lake panorama as the light goes. The tailor's delivery arrives; tonight's dinner has a dress code: your new Jaipur outfit.

Fly south into Kerala's green and board a private houseboat on Vembanad Lake — cabins, a women's crew on request, and an afternoon of paddies, kingfishers and toddyToddyThe fermented sap of a palm tree, drunk fresh as a mild, sour, cloudy beer.Read in the glossary-shop lunches sliding past at four knots. Moor for sunset where the lake opens like a sea.

A day inside Kerala's mother tradition: consultations with a woman ayurvedicAyurvedaA traditional Indian system of medicine that treats health as a balance between three bodily humours, or doshas.Read in the glossary physician, treatments matched to each guest, unhurried pool-and-lake time between them, and an evening cookery session with the resort's chefs — the recipes go home, the relaxation stays. Farewell dinner on the jetty, lanterns on the water.

A last slow breakfast over the water, contact details exchanged with intent (these groups reunite — usually in India), and flights home from Cochin. The group photo arrives framed; the WhatsApp group, historically, outlives the frame.