West India · City
Seven islands, Art Deco seafront and India's loudest appetite
Best: Nov–Feb
Mumbai was seven islands and a fishing people, the Kolis, before the Portuguese handed the harbour to Charles II in 1661 as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry and the East India Company leased it for ten pounds a year. Reclamation joined the islands, the American Civil War made the cotton merchants rich, and the money went into the extravagant Victorian Gothic that still lines the Oval Maidan: the High Court, the University's Rajabai Tower and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, the most theatrical railway station ever built. Facing them across the maidan is a second UNESCO layer, the largest collection of Art Deco buildings outside Miami, raised in the 1930s along Marine Drive.
A day here is a set of contrasts you cover by local train and ferry: dawn at Banganga Tank, a stepped water tank from 1127 with laundry drying and temple bells ringing; the Gateway of India by nine, then the boat to Elephanta and its eight-metre Trimurti carved into basalt in the sixth century; dabbawalas moving lunch tins at Churchgate around noon; Bohri Mohalla for kebabs; Chowpatty for bhelpuri as the Queen's Necklace comes on. Mumbai does not ask you to like it. It asks you to keep up.
Best Nov–Feb
November to February; the monsoon from June to September is dramatic but floods the streets.
Give Mumbai 3 days and it repays the time; with fewer you are choosing between Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus and the Victorian Gothic ensemble and Elephanta Caves and the sixth-century Trimurti. We build the hours around the weather — early starts when it is hot, long afternoons when it is not.
On the ground
The days we would actually plan for you, in the order that suits the light.
At the table
Street foodMaharashtra
A spiced potato ball in gram-flour batter, fried and pushed into a soft pav with dry garlic chutney and a fried green chilli on the side. Ashok Vaidya sold the first one outside Dadar station in 1966. Mumbai still eats it standing up, between trains, and it costs less than a bus ticket.
Getting there
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport is 25 km from Colaba; CSMT, Mumbai Central and Lokmanya Tilak serve long-distance trains; Pune is 150 km on the expressway.
Airport pickups, station transfers and the driver for the days here are all part of what we arrange — including the hour you should leave, which is usually earlier than you think.
Next door
Places that join Mumbai without a long drive — the way a real week is built.
Hill stationMaharashtra
Sahyadri edge of chikki, monsoon cloud and rock-cut caves
Hill stationMaharashtra
Asia's only car-free hill station, reached by toy train
CityMaharashtra
Peshwa forts, monsoon Ganpati and the country's best misal
CityMaharashtra
Godavari ghats, Kumbh crowds and India's wine valley
BeachGoa
Beach shacks, flea markets and Indo-Portuguese village lanes
2 journeys
7 days · 6 nightsEasy · Best Oct–Feb
Seven days from Mumbai's waterfront to Ajanta's brushwork and the Konkan
Route: Mumbai → Ajanta & Ellora Caves → Nashik → Lonavala & Khandala +1 more
21 days · 20 nightsModerate · Best Nov–Feb
Three weeks down the whole length of India, Delhi to Chennai
Route: Delhi → Agra → Jaipur → Udaipur +6 more
From the journal
· Culture · 5 min
A year of Indian festivals arranged by month, with where each one is at its most vivid, how far ahead to book, and what actually happens on the ground, from Thrissur Pooram's elephants to Hornbill in Nagaland and Dev Deepawali on the Ganga.
· Food · 6 min
A working eater's route through ten Indian cities, from Chandni Chowk at dawn to Indore's Sarafa Bazaar at midnight. One anchor dish per city, the lanes and stalls that make it, what it costs, and how to eat street food without losing a day.
· Tips · 6 min
Everything we tell first-time travellers before they land: how many places to attempt, what a SIM card and a day of cash actually cost, how to eat street food safely, what to wear into a temple, and the four scams worth recognising.
Before you ask
Photograph of Mumbai: A.Savin · FAL
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