A day in Calcutta
Summary
Whilst it does have some interesting spots of architecture from the times when Calcutta was the capital of the British Raj, there isn’t much else worth really seeing in Calcutta, unless that is that you want to experience a big Indian city, and then again you can experience that in various places across India. My suggestion is to deprioritise Calcutta for many of the other wonderful experiences across India
highlights
#1 The former grandeur architecture of the British Raj Palaces
#2 Whilst Calcutta is a booming city with huge wealth emerging, it was also interesting to see just how still under-developed large parts of it were
#4 Wandering through some of the old neighbourhoods with their wide tree-lined streets
#4 Seeing some of the many contrasts in India - in this case how the bustle of the city meets the still very much rural side at times
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Big Asian City Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone