India Travel Plan 🗺️ West Coast
Choosing the best dates and flights for a long-haul trip to the tropics involves more than making a quick selection shortly before you leave.
When it comes to finding the best travel opportunities, whether the Seychelles, India or the Caribbean, it pays to start making yours plans well in advance. We started preparing our India travel plan around 4 months before departure.
Highlights
- Our Complete India Itinerary
- Our 3-Week Budget
- Useful Accessories for the Tropics
- The World’s Top 100 Airlines
- All Hotel Options in Mumbai
- Checkout our Related Articles
- Things We Carry on the Plane
Choosing your Airline
The major cost of most trips to the tropics is the airfare. A good way to get the cheapest fares – on the best airlines – is to start searching several months before your trip. Flexibility also helps.
To start with, we had several promising itineraries:
♦ The Caribbean, taking a relocation cruise back to Europe.
♦ The Seychelles (from Rome returning to Paris).
♦ South Africa (via Dublin).
♦ South India (via Istanbul and Edinburgh).
We researched each of these primary destinations in search of the best flights on offer. By best, we don’t necessarily mean the cheapest.
There are some good deals with Air Seychelles, but you’ll get what you pay for. Check out the The World’s Top 100 Airlines and you’ll find Air Seychelles doesn’t even make the list. For long-haul, we’re looking for an airline at least in the top 20, and ideally in the top 5.
This was how we stumbled upon what looked like a great deal – travelling to India with Turkish Airlines (who at the time were ranked ahead of Emirates – they’ve since dropped a little lower in the rankings).
Our India Itinerary
After trying multiple dates and city combinations on the Turkish Airlines website, we assembled a rich itinerary for a visit to India, as follows:
♦ Rome – Istanbul
♦ Istanbul – Mumbai
♦ Mumbai – Edinburgh
Our flight itinerary would span 31 days, primarily in India, but including 3 short city stays in Rome, Istanbul and Edinburgh. Not bad for just €457 per ticket… and flying with one of the top airlines in the world. We booked the flight 4 months before the departure date.
Once the flight was booked there was no going back – the trip became a reality. The flight schedule provided the framework for the rest of the trip: Everything else had to be planned and coordinated accordingly.
Always be Planning…
Recreational travel can mean so much more than just the actual time spent travelling. Before the trip there is the anticipation, the preparation and the expectation. After the trip there is reaction, reflection, compilation and analysis. Over the years, we’ve probably spent as much time planning and recording our adventures as the time spent experiencing our trips.
Although sometimes frustrating, we enjoy these other aspects of our travels. The planning stage is really educational, so we don’t regret the trips we’ve planned which never (…as yet) came to fruition.
Flights, then More Flights
Our itinerary with Turkish Airlines meant we would be flying into and out of Mumbai Airport. We would therefore have 22 days in India starting and ending in Mumbai. On previous trips to India, we have visited the Rajastan area, and Chennai (Madras) down the east coast to Trivandrum.
On this trip we wanted to discover the west coast, between Mumbai and southern Kerala.
This is quite a distance to cover in just 22 days (3,400 km there and back again). We therefore decided to take a couple of internal flights to reduce the amount of time required to travel overland – which can be considerable in India.
We booked a domestic flight from Mumbai to Trivandrum, scheduled to depart around 6 hours after our arrival in Mumbai. This had several advantages: Firstly, we wouldn’t have to experience Mumbai twice (on our way in and on our way out)… And, in retrospect, experiencing Mumbai just the once is more than enough.
This also would mean we would get directly to our southern-most destination. From there, it would be (…simply?) a question of travelling slowly back up the coast, through Kerala, Karnatica and Goa to Mumbai.
We booked the domestic flight online with Jet Airways – which was one of the more popular Indian domestic airlines (certainly more popular than Indian Airways, although later unfortunately Jet Airways went bankrupt).
Of course, we were taking a risk that our Turkish Airlines flight wouldn’t be delayed by more than 6 hours. It’s all a trade-off really: We booked early with Jet Airways to get the flight at a decent price – in our case, 4,043 rupees (€54) per person. Wait until you arrive and flights will either be fully booked or will cost twice as much.
Our West-coast India Travel Plan – 2,500 kms in 3 weeks
On arrival in Trivandrum, our plan was to take a taxi down to Kovalam. From there, we would slowly work our way back up north – using buses and trains – as far as Goa.
We would then take another pre-booked Jet Airways flight from Vasco Da Gama airport, Goa to Mumbai. This would be 2 days before our return flight from Mumbai to Edinburgh with Turkish Airlines.
Our schedule (over a 3-week period) worked out as follows (see maps):
♦ Mumbai – Kovalam
♦ Kovalam – Varkala
♦ Varkala – Kochi
♦ Kochi – Canacona
♦ Canacona – Agonda
♦ Agonda – Mumbai
Starting in Rome
Rome was the starting point for our flights with Turkish Airlines. For us, this is a bonus destination to begin our holiday. We planned to spend 2 nights in Rome. Time enough to enjoy some excellent restaurants, with a little extra sight-seeing thrown in.
We budgeted €300 for this section of our trip, including guesthouse, meals and transfers (€150 per day).
Rome to Istanbul
Since our Turkish Airlines flight stopped in Istanbul, we planned to spend 2 nights in Sultanahmet in the city center. Time for sight-seeing and shopping (since we’d need some warm leather coats when we returned to Europe via Edinburgh).
We budgeted €200 for this section of our trip, including guesthouse, meals and transfers (€100 per day).
This excludes our shopping for leather goods, of course 😉
Istanbul to Mumbai
Since we were not planning to visit Mumbai city until our trip back out, we booked a domestic flight connection from Mumbai to Kovalam (Trivandrum airport). This flight was leaving a few hours after our Turkish Airlines flight was due to arrive.
We were winging it a bit here, assuming that our Turkish Airlines flight wouldn’t be delayed by more than 6 hours.
Mumbai to Kovalam, Kerala
Once in Kovalam, we planned to spend 3 nights in an inexpensive but well-recommended guesthouse near the beach.
Our budget here, as with all our destinations in India apart from Mumbai, was €50 per day. Of this, we planned to limit our guesthouse costs to maximum €24 per night.
Kovalam to Varkala
Continuing the beach theme…
From Kovalam, we planned to move 55 km up the coast for a 4-night stay in Varkala (still in Kerala). We would be applying the same €50 per day budget here. After this we should be well-acclimatised and sufficiently relaxed.
We would probably travel up to Varkala using the local buses.
Varkala to Kochin
From Varkala, we would take either buses or a train to travel the 169 kms up to Kochi. In Fort Kochi, we expected more of a cultural experience, and could possibly try one of the backwater trips. For accommodation, we booked a guesthouse in Fort Kochi for 3 nights.
After that we had a gap in our schedule of 3 days. During this time, we planned to work our way northwards 733 kms up to Canacona in Goa. We already tried booking trains online, without success (most were fully booked 6 weeks before departure!). This was likely to be the ‘messy’ part of our trip: We’d just have to stay patient and be flexible with whatever options presented themselves.
A bit of adventure never hurt anyone, right?
Kochin to Canacona, Goa
Assuming all went well with our travel arrangements, we’d arrive in South Goa at the start of our third week in India. Here, we’d be staying on Palolem beach, Canacona for the first few days.
We chose South Goa because of its reputation as a peaceful laid-back area, unlike some of the beaches in North Goa. Again, the budget remained at €50 per day. We just hoped there would be reasonable access to ATM machines in these areas.
Canacona to Agonda
Our second and final location in Goa was Agonda, just 12 kms north of Canacona, and reputedly one of the best beaches in India. This being the case, we planned to stay 4 nights here in a quiet guesthouse.
This would be our last taste of the easy life, before the culture shock that would surely be waiting for us in Mumbai.
Agonda to Mumbai
Agonda is only 60 kms from Vasco Da Gama airport, where we had pre-booked a flight back up to Mumbai. Our reasoning was that by this time we would have had enough of the local transport on buses and trains.
We were also running out of time, and overland travel in India is subject to long delays or cancellations, as well as being uncomfortable and tedious. It’s 625 kms between Agonda and Mumbai (10 hours by car), with the best of the sightseeing already behind us.
We pre-booked a hotel in the Fort area of Mumbai, with a pickup from the airport. Our plan was to stay just 2 nights so we could visit the Fort area, and maybe do a little shopping before leaving.
Mumbai to Edinburgh
The last part of our trip would provide quite a contrast to everything that had gone before. With a change in temperature of around 25°, we’d be spending our last few days in Edinburgh, courtesy of Turkish Airlines.
We would be needing the leathers bought in Istanbul, plus every other item of warm clothing we carried with us.
We budgeted €450 for these last 3 days, including hotel, meals and transfers (€150 per day).
India Travel Plan – Our Budget
Our budget (over 31 days) was divided into 3 areas, based on two people sharing::
♦ International flights.
♦ Domestic flights and trains
♦ Daily cash allowance for everything else (including accommodation)
International Flights: We booked 2 flights from Malta (our home base) to Rome with Ryanair for €54. Our Turkish Airlines flights (Rome – Istanbul – Mumbai – Edinburgh) cost us €914. Our return flights from Edinburgh to Malta (again with Ryanair) cost €130.
Domestic Flights and Trains: Four weeks before departure we went to the Jet Airways website and booked 2 domestic one-way flights: Mumbai to Trivandrum (8,086 rupees for 2 seats – €112) and Goa to Mumbai (5,112 rupees for 2 seats – €74). We also had to count on 2 train journeys: Varkala to Kochin (approximately 1,750 rupees for 2 seats – €24) and Kochin to Goa (approximately 5,085 rupees for 2 seats – €71). Train fares depend on which class is booked: More on this later.
Daily Cash Allowance: Four to five weeks before departure we went online and booked some of the guesthouses in the places we had decided to visit. Our daily cash budget, including accommodation, was €150 per day in Rome (2 days), €100 per day in Istanbul (2 days), €50 per day in India (23 days), and €150 per day in Edinburgh (3 days).
We therefore calculated our combined cash requirement as €2,100 for 30 days (€1,050 per person).
The estimated budget for our entire trip came to a total of €3,479. The only other cost not accounted for was our holiday insurance (€109). Adding this in makes a grand total of €3,588 (€1,794 per person).
India Travel Plan: How it Played Out
This, then, was our plan. Quite an eclectic mix of destinations and cultures. Our itinerary was pretty well worked out, with some flexibility around halfway through. We traveled from February through to the middle of March, covering just over 20,000 kms.
So how did we actually get on?
Check out our related articles. We discovered plenty of useful and current information on the practicalities of travelling around India: Guesthouse recommendations, places to avoid, overland travel tips and some great places to eat.
It was a bumpy ride, but well worth the admission price.
If you enjoyed our India Travel Plan, check out our other Tropical Travel Plans. You may also like:
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