Mumbai: what to see, where to stay and how to get around

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Mumbai was seven separate islands with a fishing population when the Portuguese handed them to England in 1661 as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry — a wedding present nobody in London wanted. The British leased them to the East India Company for ten pounds a year and then spent two centuries filling in the water between them. The whole of south Mumbai is reclaimed land, and the Victorian Gothic quarter built on it became a UNESCO ensemble in 2018. Two hours, flat, and start at eight: by eleven the heat and the traffic both arrive.

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A short history of Mumbai

Mumbai was built on seven islands, which the Portuguese received in 1534 from the Sultan of Gujarat. In 1661 the islands passed to England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, and in 1668 they were handed to the East India Company, which reclaimed the land between the islands to form a single landmass. In the 19th century the city grew into a port and a centre of the cotton industry. Bene Israel Jews and Jews from Baghdad, among them the Sassoon family, built synagogues and public institutions here. In 1995 its name was changed from Bombay to Mumbai. In November 2008 terrorists attacked hotels, a railway station and the Chabad House in the city, and 166 people were murdered.

The ten best sights in Mumbai

1
Gateway of India
1924, built for a king’s visit that happened 13 years earlier; free
2
Taj Mahal Palace
1903, and the story that it was built because its owner was refused entry elsewhere
3
Elephanta Caves
₹600 for foreigners plus the ferry; UNESCO 1987, closed Monday. Verified 10/2026
4
Marine Drive
Three kilometres of reclaimed seafront; the streetlights are the Queen’s Necklace
5
Girgaon Chowpatty
Not for swimming; for bhelpuri at sunset and the Ganesh immersion in September
6
Haji Ali Dargah
On an islet; the causeway floods at high tide and you wait
7
Dhobi Ghat
Open-air laundry since 1890; seen from the Mahalaxmi station bridge
8
Dharavi
A million people on 2.1 square kilometres, and a billion-dollar recycling economy
9
Bandra-Worli Sea Link
5.6 kilometres over the bay; the cables weigh as much as 500 elephants
10
Bandstand
The Bandra promenade; Bollywood houses face it and crowds wait outside

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The seven islands and the stone city

Gateway of India · Built to commemorate the 1911 visit of George V and Queen Mary — who saw only a cardboard model of it, because the real arch was not finished until 1924. In February 1948 the last British troops in India marched through it in the other direction and sailed away, which means the arch was used as an exit from the empire more famously than as an entrance.
Taj Mahal Palace · Jamsetji Tata opened it in 1903 and the story told in Mumbai is that he built it after being refused entry to a European-only hotel — historians dispute that, but the hotel was genuinely the first building in the city with electricity. It faces inland rather than out to sea, and the standard explanation, that the architect’s plans were reversed while he was away, is also probably not true.
Kala Ghoda · The name means black horse, after an equestrian statue of Edward VII that stood here until 1965 and was moved to the zoo; a new black horse, without a rider, was put up in 2017. The crescent around it holds the museum, two galleries, a synagogue and the Jehangir, and in February the whole quarter closes to traffic for a nine-day arts festival.
CSMVS museum · George Wittet designed it in Indo-Saracenic style — a deliberate colonial invention that grafted Mughal and Jain domes onto a European plan. The collection runs from Indus Valley seals to Mughal miniatures, and the building itself is part of the UNESCO Victorian Gothic and Art Deco ensemble listed in 2018. Seven hundred rupees for foreigners, verified 10/2026.
Oval Maidan · Stand in the middle and you have Victorian Gothic on one side — the High Court and the university — and a continuous row of nineteen-thirties Art Deco apartment blocks on the other, facing each other across a cricket ground. That juxtaposition is precisely what UNESCO listed: Mumbai has the second largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world after Miami.
CSMT · Victoria Terminus, finished in 1888 after ten years, and a UNESCO site since 2004 in its own right. Look at the stone carvings: a peacock, a monkey, and a cat chasing a mouse, all cut by students of the local art school, who were allowed to carve Indian subjects into a British building. Three and a half million people pass through it every day.

Up the west shore

The western seafront is where the city goes in the evening, and it is all reclaimed: Marine Drive was built on land pumped out of the sea in the nineteen-twenties, and the Art Deco buildings behind it went up as it was finished. This route runs from the sea wall to the hill above it and the laundry behind that — three things that look unrelated and are actually the same story about water and land. Two hours, and do it from four in the afternoon so it ends at sunset.

Marine Drive · Three kilometres of curved seafront laid out in the 1920s on reclaimed land. At night the line of streetlights along the curve is called the Queen’s Necklace, and the tetrapods piled along the sea wall — those concrete four-legged blocks — were put there in the 1960s because the monsoon waves were taking the road apart. They are now where half the city sits.
Girgaon Chowpatty · Nobody swims here and that is not squeamishness — the water is genuinely polluted. What happens instead is food: bhelpuri, puffed rice with tamarind and onion, was invented on this beach. And every September the Ganesh Chaturthi immersions end here, when clay idols up to ten metres tall are carried into the sea by crowds that run into the hundreds of thousands.
Babulnath Temple · A Shiva temple on the hill above Chowpatty, reached by a long stair or a lift, and it is one of the oldest in the city — the lingam here is said to have been found by a cowherd whose cow stopped giving milk at a particular spot. A babul tree stood over it, which is where the name comes from.
Hanging Gardens · Laid out in 1881 directly on top of a covered reservoir that still supplies part of the city, which is the entire reason there is a park on the most expensive hill in India. The hedges are clipped into animal shapes. Below the hill, out of sight, are the Parsi Towers of Silence, where the Parsi dead are exposed to vultures — no photography, no access, and the city respects it absolutely.
Banganga Tank · A rectangular stone tank from 1127, fed by an underground spring, surrounded by temples and small houses, and almost nobody finds it — it is five minutes from some of the most expensive real estate on earth and it looks like a village. The legend says Rama shot an arrow into the ground here and brought up water from the Ganges.
Dhobi Ghat · Seven hundred concrete washing pens, in use since 1890, where several thousand people wash the laundry of the city by hand — hotels, hospitals and households. Every item is marked with a code so it comes back to the right owner, and the error rate is famously low. You see it from the road bridge at Mahalaxmi station, which is the correct and respectful way to see it.

Elephanta

An island ten kilometres out in the harbour with caves cut into the rock in the fifth to eighth centuries, listed by UNESCO in 1987. The Portuguese named it after a stone elephant on the shore and, by most accounts, used the sculptures for target practice — several of the figures are missing arms and faces as a result. The ferry takes an hour each way and the caves close on Monday, which catches people out. Half a day; take water and start at nine.

The ferry · An hour each way from the Gateway jetty, about two hundred and sixty rupees return plus twenty for the upper deck, which is worth it. The harbour you cross is why Bombay existed at all: it is deep, sheltered and on the right side of India for trade with Arabia and Africa, and the Portuguese and then the British both chose it for exactly that.
The Great Cave · Cave One is not built, it is subtracted — the whole hall, its twenty-six pillars and every sculpture in it were cut downward and inward out of solid basalt, which means there is no second chance and no correction possible. Six hundred rupees for foreigners. Verified 10/2026.
Trimurti · A six-metre three-headed Shiva carved out of the back wall: the centre face serene, the left wrathful with a cobra and a moustache, the right feminine and holding a lotus — creation, preservation and destruction in one block of rock. It is the single most reproduced image of Indian sculpture and the photograph does not convey that it is six metres high.
The damaged panels · Look at the arms and faces: many are gone, and the usual account is that Portuguese soldiers garrisoned here in the sixteenth century used the panels as targets. The surviving panels — the marriage of Shiva, Shiva as half-woman, the descent of the Ganges — show how much was lost, and they are the reason conservation here is so cautious.
The island stairs · A hundred and twenty steps up from the jetty, lined with stalls, and a toy train covers the flat first stretch for a few rupees. There are also monkeys, which take food and bags, and the one rule is not to carry anything visible in your hand. Around a thousand people live on the island in three villages.
The harbour view back · From the top of the island you see the city as a line of towers across ten kilometres of water, with container cranes to one side and an oil terminal to the other. Mumbai handles a large share of India’s sea trade and generates something like six per cent of the country’s GDP on a thousand square kilometres. The view explains the city better than any map.

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Getting to Mumbai and getting around

Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport · Terminal 2 is 25 kilometres north; allow two hours in traffic
CSMT · Victoria Terminus, 1888, a UNESCO site since 2004; still a working station
Churchgate · The Western line terminus; the dabbawalas sort lunchboxes on the platform
Mumbai Central · Long-distance trains to Delhi, Ahmedabad and Rajasthan leave here
Gateway jetty · Ferries to Elephanta and Alibaug; the first Elephanta boat is at nine

Cheap eats in Mumbai

Mumbai invented most of what India now thinks of as street food, and the reason is the mill workers: a city of a million people on twelve-hour shifts needed food that was cheap, fast and eaten standing. Vada pav, pav bhaji and bhelpuri all come from that. Twenty to a hundred and fifty rupees. The rule everywhere is the same: eat where the queue is, and eat it hot.

Vada pav · 15 to 25 rupees; eat it where the queue is
Pav bhaji · Chowpatty in the evening; 80 to 150 rupees
Bhelpuri · Eat within three minutes; it goes soft
The dabbawalas · The sort at Churchgate, around 11:30
Irani cafés · Bun maska and chai; a few dozen are left
Mohammed Ali Road at Ramadan · Ramadan only; until two in the morning
Bombay sandwich · The beetroot is not optional
Koli seafood · Bombay duck is a fish, not a duck

Museums in Mumbai

Mumbai’s museums are mostly in buildings that are themselves exhibits: the Victorian Gothic and Art Deco ensemble of the Fort and Marine Drive was listed by UNESCO in 2018, which makes this the only city in the world with two separate UNESCO-listed railway and architecture entries plus island caves. Foreign ticket prices are several times the local ones and that is standard across India.

CSMVS museum · ₹700 for foreigners, 10:15–18:00. Verified 10/2026
Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum · Closed Wednesday; the building is the exhibit
Mani Bhavan · Nominal entry; the second-floor room
Elephanta Caves · ₹600, closed Monday. Verified 10/2026
CSMT · UNESCO 2004; lit at night
Asiatic Society · Walk up the steps; the library is upstairs
Art Deco Marine Drive · Second only to Miami; walk the Oval side
Kanheri Caves · Inside the national park; almost empty

Nature and day trips near Mumbai

This is a city on reclaimed land between seven former islands, and the natural geography is still visible if you know where to look: a hundred square kilometres of forest with leopards in it inside the municipal boundary, mudflats that fill with flamingos every winter, and mangroves along the creeks. The monsoon from June to September delivers more than two metres of rain and changes everything.

Sanjay Gandhi National Park · The highest urban leopard density on earth
Sewri flamingos · November to March, at low tide
The monsoon · June to September; the sea wall is the show
Powai Lake · Crocodiles next to a software park
Gorai and Madh · A ferry across the creek, not a road
Matheran · No motor vehicles at all; toy train up
Alibaug · Kolaba Fort only at low tide
Karla Caves · The wooden ribs are 2,100 years old

Holy places in Mumbai

Mumbai holds communities that exist almost nowhere else: the Parsis, Zoroastrians who fled Persia in the eighth century and whose world population is now under a hundred and twenty thousand; the Bene Israel Jews, who say they were shipwrecked here two thousand years ago; and Catholic communities descended from Portuguese conversions. All of them are visible on one short walk.

Mumbadevi Temple · The goddess the city is named for
Siddhivinayak Temple · The Tuesday queue is hours; everyone queues
Haji Ali Dargah · The causeway floods; check the tide
The Parsis · The Towers of Silence cannot be visited
Jama Masjid · The pillars stand in water; see the basement
Mount Mary and the Bandra Fair · The fair is in September; a million people

Things to do in Mumbai with kids

Elephanta ferry · An hour on the water, a toy train and caves at the end; closed Monday
Nehru Science Centre · Large, hands-on, air-conditioned; the answer to a monsoon day
Byculla Zoo · 1861, and there have been Humboldt penguins here since 2017
Chowpatty at sunset · Carts, balloons, a Ferris wheel, and bhelpuri in a paper cone
Sanjay Gandhi park train · A small train through the forest, plus boats on the lake
Hanging Gardens · Hedges cut as animals, and the old-woman’s-shoe slide next door
Juhu Beach · Horse carts, food stalls and space to run; do not swim
Powai Lake · A promenade and a lake with crocodiles that you watch from behind a rail

Nightlife in Mumbai

Mumbai is the one Indian city with a real night, and the reason is Bollywood plus money: the film industry, the stock exchange and the advertising business are all here and all keep late hours. Bars close around one thirty by law, which people work around. The other half of the night is free and better: Marine Drive, Mohammed Ali Road in Ramadan, and the last local train.

Marine Drive at night · Free, and it never closes
Bandra · Hill Road and Carter Road; after ten
Lower Parel · Mill compounds turned into clubs; the chimneys stayed
Irani café at midnight · Bun maska and chai; read the rules on the wall
Mohammed Ali Road · Ramadan; the scale is different the rest of the year
The last local · Calm after midnight; dangerous in rush hour

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Frequently asked questions about Mumbai

What is there to see in Mumbai?

The top sights in Mumbai are Gateway of India, Taj Mahal Palace and Elephanta Caves. The full list on this page has 10 sights, each with a photo and a short note.

How many days do you need in Mumbai?

Three to four days are enough to see the best of Mumbai without rushing, including at least one walking tour.

Is there a free walking tour in Mumbai?

Yes. sleepntrip has 3 free audio walks in Mumbai, with no guide and no group: your phone tells the story at every stop. The first one: The seven islands and the stone city.

How do you get to Mumbai and get around?

The main ways are Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport, CSMT and Churchgate. Full details are in the transport section on this page.

Where to stay in Mumbai, and for how much?

sleepntrip shows only rooms in Mumbai that meet nine conditions: a good location, high guest scores, cleanliness, and a price of up to $80 a night for two. Pick your dates and see what is free.

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