Hi worldwidedreamer and a very warm welcome to Flyertalk. I hope you find this site as useful as I have over the past several years.

I am also planning a trip to India 'unplanned' (so to speak) - but for August, although i am likely to postpone that as it is monsoon season at that time in the north and very very wet!

A good starting point is to go to a travel agent and ask for some brochures on India. They will give you a whole range of 5, 10 and 14 day tours.

You will see that the tours all cover the 'essentials' of India, and if you don't want to formally join a tour then you can plan your own based on the destinations in the tour.

For 'classical' India, most tours start in Delhi - then work their way to Agra, take in the Taj Mahal and then continue on from there to cover things such as Jaipur and various palaces etc etc.

I looked for accommodation on Expedia, a three star hotel is looking at around USD30-50 per night. The very best 5 stars are about USD180, but the three stars look fairly good.

To travel around you can take the train, there is an Indian railways website that can help you with fares and I believe bookings as well (you need to book well in advance otherwise you will miss out). Looks like the best idea is to book the highest airconditioned class available for your journey (don't be confused with booking First Class, as that is actually the fourth best class to travel!!)

I found this website to be really helpful:

http://travelindependent.info/

There will be lots of other posters that have far more experience than I do - so I will leave it over to them to provide their inside tips!

Regards

L/M/E FF