This year, my 20-year-old son is travelling to India for the first time. Is there a comprehensive website for information on what to do and what not to do? He will be flying into Delhi and then going to see the Taj Mahal at the start of his trip. Also, are there any books that recommend inexpensive places to stay, but which are still clean and conveniently located? C.E. Birkett, by email

Sunday Times travel expert Richard Green responds: Well as far as books go, if he bought all the ones aimed at independent travel in India, his luggage would be so heavy that his plane would probably never get off the ground. A lot of people have been going it alone to India for several decades now, and many publishers have been producing some terrific guidebooks, that are exactly right to start your son off on the right footing.

I’d say that it is worth carrying two different guidebooks, as each has a somewhat different emphasis, and it so often happens that you’ll find one has more info on one place and then your back up covers something else in better detail.

Footprint Handbook's India guide (£14.99) for example, is particularly thorough on the country's architecture and history, while the Rough Guide to India (£17.99) is very hot on highlighting good value places to stay and eat, with Lonely Planet's India (£18.99) is exceptional with detail on how to get from one place to another, and is also very good on budget accommodation - with over 30 recommendations in Delhi alone.

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If he plans to visit a part of the country, say the north, he can avoid carting round all 1,480 pages of Rough Guide’s "India", and take its more compact Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra cousin instead. Lonely Planet also produces a similarly focussed guide.

Websites that guide budget travellers around India tend to be incomprehensive and surprisingly bland. An exception is Lonely Planet’s ‘Thorn Tree Forum’.

Here travellers can post a question and it will be answered by other people that have just been there, or who are still there now even, so the information is often totally up to date and relevant. The forum is named after a famous thorn tree, which shaded a café popular with backpackers in Nairobi. It was festooned with pinned-up letters and messages, where travellers, in the days before the Internet and mobile phones, would put up notices as a way of exchanging information, meet up with friends.

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