The Best Hotels Near Samode Palace, by the Record
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Candlelit mosaic dining rooms and a Maharaja Suite with its own pool tend to set a certain tone. This sprawling luxury hotel sits on a nine-acre estate outside Jaipur, which has seen a palace or two and can tell the difference. Two hundred rooms range from generously sized to genuinely theatrical, and a spa, wellness center, and curated excursions fill the hours between. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.
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Five suites named after gemstones, each decorated in the stone's own color, inside a heritage haveli sitting right in the middle of Jaipur's jewelry bazaar. The Johri is a boutique hotel that holds a Michelin Key and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, and it reads less like a hotel than a very well-connected friend's house. The restaurant downstairs serves inventive vegetarian Indian food and has developed a life of its own beyond the guests upstairs.
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Nine rooms sit just outside Jaipur, giving this small hotel the feel of a country estate that got very lost on its way from Tuscany. The collaboration between an Italian-Swiss hotelier and a Dutch designer produced something unexpected: Rajasthani architecture turned up to full saturation, every surface a Technicolor fantasy. A pool, spa, garden pavilion, and library keep things calm between the color. The restaurant runs Italian alongside Rajasthani, which is exactly as interesting as it sounds. It holds a Michelin Key.
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A Ford Thunderbird belonging to the Jaipur royal family sits out front, which tells you more about this hotel than any marketing copy could. The palace has hosted Queen Elizabeth II and is decorated like a Wes Anderson set, all bold color and meticulous symmetry. Suites come with velvet armchairs and carved beds; one has a private plunge pool. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.
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Eighteen acres of manicured gardens in the middle of Jaipur sounds like a fantasy, but the Taj group does tend to start with actual palaces. This hundred-room luxury hotel wears its Rajasthani architecture with a colonial-era accent, and the modern comforts feel genuinely at home inside the old bones. Dining, a spa, yoga, and camel-buggy rides for when the pool feels too ordinary. A Michelin Selected Hotel.
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Five rooms in a Civil Lines bungalow, made-to-order vegetarian meals served in the garden, and not a hotel lobby in sight. This intimate guesthouse came together through an unlikely collaboration: an Indian jeweler, a French architect, a Lebanese interior designer. Rajasthani craftsmanship fills the rooms without tipping into costume. The neighborhood is quiet and residential, the pace deliberately unhurried, and the whole thing feels like staying with someone who simply has very good taste.
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Once a guest house for Rajasthan's royalty, this sprawling palace hotel is now part of the Taj group and caters to roughly the same demographic with better Wi-Fi. The public spaces set a high bar with their antique grandeur, but the standard rooms feel like a renovation project; the suites, with garden views and butler service, are where the old-world aristocratic fantasy the whole place is selling actually shows up.