Hotel Welcome Group Maurya Sheraton
Hotel Welcome Group Maurya Sheraton is a budget-friendly stay in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi — a no-frills base for seeing Purana Qila (Old Fort) and the rest of the area affordably.
The surrounding Chanakyapuri district is one of the most convenient parts of New Delhi to stay in, with restaurants, cafés and transport links close by.
Key facts
What’s included
Around Chanakyapuri
Where to stay in New Delhi: the areas worth your week
For a first visit built around Delhi’s monuments, stay in central Delhi or the south. Connaught Place puts you on the Rajiv Chowk metro interchange, walking distance from Agrasen ki Baoli and Jantar Mantar, with mid-range doubles at roughly ₹3,500–7,000; Paharganj, ten minutes on foot from New Delhi Railway Station, is the cheap end at ₹700–2,000 and is loud, cramped and genuinely convenient for early trains to Agra. Karol Bagh (₹2,500–5,000) is a step up in comfort for a small step out, on the Blue Line and full of shopping on Ajmal Khan Road. Old Delhi around Chandni Chowk has very few hotels but several restored haveli guesthouses near Jama Masjid, usually ₹3,000–8,000, and puts Red Fort and Kinari Bazaar at the end of your lane. Chanakyapuri, the Diplomatic Enclave, is where the ₹14,000–30,000 rooms sit, quiet, green and five minutes from the National Museum end of Lutyens Delhi.
South Delhi is the sensible base if archaeology is the point, because the Qutub Minar, Mehrauli Archaeological Park, Tughlaqabad and Hauz Khas complex are all down here. Hauz Khas (₹3,000–6,000) sits beside Firoz Shah Tughlaq’s madrasa and the 1295 reservoir; Saket (₹4,000–8,000) is two metro stops from Qutub Minar station; Greater Kailash and Defence Colony run ₹3,500–7,000 in serviced apartments and B&Bs; Lajpat Nagar (₹1,800–3,500) and Nehru Place (₹3,000–6,000) are cheaper and both on the Violet Line. On the airport side, Aerocity is ₹8,000–18,000 and five minutes from Terminal 3, while Mahipalpur across NH-48 does the same location for ₹1,200–2,800 with far less comfort; Vasant Kunj and Dwarka fall between at ₹2,500–9,000. Rohini, Mayur Vihar, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad are commuter bases best left to people with business there, and Gurugram (₹6,000–14,000) makes sense only if your week is in Cyber City. Agra, Jaipur, Mathura and Vrindavan and Neemrana are overnight extensions, not Delhi bases.
Best time to visit New Delhi, month by month, and what it does to room rates
February and October are the two best months, and rates reflect it. October brings the end of the monsoon and daytime highs around 32°C, with Dussehra Ramlilas and the Delhi Half Marathon filling central hotels; November drops to a comfortable 25°C but brings the post-Diwali smog, with AQI regularly above 300 and GRAP restrictions in force, plus the India International Trade Fair at Pragati Maidan from 14 to 27 November, which pushes Connaught Place and Nehru Place rates up 30–50 per cent. December is 7–20°C with dense fog from mid-month that delays flights at IGI and trains out of New Delhi Railway Station, and the last week of December is the single most expensive stretch of the year. January is the coldest, with nights near 5°C, and the Republic Day parade on Kartavya Path on 26 January closes roads across Lutyens Delhi and tightens security for a week either side.
February is the month to aim for: 10–25°C, clear light on the sandstone at Humayun’s Tomb, and the Surajkund Mela at Faridabad running 1–16 February. March is still pleasant until Holi, after which temperatures climb fast, and by May and June Delhi sits at 42–46°C, which makes Tughlaqabad Fort or Mehrauli genuinely unsafe after about 10am. That heat is also when five-star rooms in Chanakyapuri and Aerocity fall to their lowest, often 40 per cent below December. The monsoon runs from late June to mid-September, with July alone bringing around 200 mm of rain, waterlogging on the Ring Road and the cheapest rates of the year outside the wedding lull; 15 August closes the Red Fort to visitors for Independence Day preparations and the day itself.
Getting around New Delhi: metro, autos, taxis and whether you need a car
You do not need a car in Delhi. The Delhi Metro runs around 390 km across a dozen lines with fares of ₹10–60, and it reaches almost every site on an archaeology itinerary: Chandni Chowk and Lal Qila for the Red Fort, Rajiv Chowk for Connaught Place, Jor Bagh for Lodhi Gardens and Safdarjung’s Tomb, Hauz Khas for the madrasa complex, and Qutub Minar station a short auto ride from the Qutub. Trains run roughly 06:00 to 23:00 and a Tourist Card costs ₹200 for one day or ₹500 for three, plus a ₹50 refundable deposit. Autorickshaws start at about ₹30 for the first 1.5 km and are the right tool for the last two kilometres from a metro exit; insist on the meter or use an app. Ola and Uber work everywhere and a Connaught Place to Qutub Minar run, about 15 km, is usually ₹300–450 off-peak.
From the airport, the Airport Express (Orange Line) covers the 22.7 km from IGI Terminal 3 to New Delhi Railway Station in about 20 minutes for ₹60, stopping at Delhi Aerocity and Dhaula Kuan. A prepaid taxi from T3 to Connaught Place runs ₹500–700 and takes 35–50 minutes depending on traffic on NH-48 and Dhaula Kuan. Where a car earns its keep is the Mehrauli belt and the day trips: a car with driver on the standard 8-hour, 80-km basis costs roughly ₹2,500–3,500 in Delhi, which makes sense for a Qutub Minar, Mehrauli Archaeological Park, Sultan Ghari and Tughlaqabad loop that no metro line strings together. For Agra, the Gatimaan Express from Hazrat Nizamuddin does Agra Cantt in 100 minutes; for Jaipur, the Ajmer Shatabdi from New Delhi takes about four and a half hours, and both beat driving the Yamuna Expressway or NH-48.
