How To Plan A Budget Trip To Darjeeling

Darjeeling is one of the most famous destinations for people all around the world. My flight was full of couples and newlyweds (including the foreigners) while going to Darjeeling. I hope one day or other, you will plan a trip to Darjeeling and I hope this post will help you a lot.

My Own Experience Of Solo Trip To Darjeeling

I had a very adventurous experience while going to Darjeeling. I had planned to go to Bhutan but my luggage had power bank in it. It was stopped in Delhi and I got it after a few days. It was then I decided to visit Darjeeling and since I had no money, I planned a good budget trip. You can read my experience here:

The Most Unusual Solo Trip

Anyways, if you are only interested in going to Darjeeling, read below.

How To Reach Darjeeling?

Darjeeling can be reached either by air or train from anywhere in the country.

Reaching Darjeeling By Air:

To go via flight, you have to board the plane going to Bagdogra. Bagdogra airport is the closest and flights are easily available from major airports in India.

Reaching Darjeeling By Train:

To go via train, you have to board a train to New Jalpaiguri station or the Siliguri station. To reach Siliguri station you might have to change trains since direct trains are rarely available to Siliguri.

Anyways, reaching Siliguri is your goal.

Siliguri To Darjeeling

From Bagdogra airport to SNT bus stand, you can take a bus that takes 10-15 rupees as the fare.
From SNT to Darjeeling you have to hire a cab.

You have two options from here.
Hiring a private cab: Charge - 2000 INR.
Hiring a shared cab: Charge - 150 INR.
Duration: Approximately 2.5 hours.

Places To Visit During Darjeeling Trip

These are the listed must-visit places in Darjeeling. If you get the time you can visit more but they are not that good.

Peace Pagoda, Darjeeling

Gorkha War Memorial

Tiger Point, Darjeeling

Ghoom Monastery, Darjeeling

Happy Valley Tea Estate, Darjeeling

I loved my stay at Darjeeling very much and had a real budget trip there. Comment your experience or query here and I will help you out!!

Have a great trip!!

Comments

Retiring In The Mountains - Is This FIRE Fantasy As Good As It Seems?

"Mountains are calling", "No Network Just This", "Send It To Someone With Whom You Would Like To Visit This Place" are some of the popular reel captions. And in many ways, they are true. Mountains do call you, and you are attracted to them. A video of a beach might not be as appealing as a video of a majestic white mountain, whose peak is hidden by clouds as if they are saying, "Do you think we'll let you see everything from down there? If you want to see the peak climb it!" It has something to it, which is why, I guess, Pandavas traversed these mountains in the search of their final aim rather than thinking about going down south and thinking, let's see where this ground ends, instead of finalising, let's see where this mountain ends. But even Pandavas and other travellers like Guru Gobin Singh kept on moving. They never thought about building a permanent settlement and dying at that place, like we do in our cities. We build our hom...

continue »

Chronicle of Harsil Valley - Part 3 - Gartang Gali and What Lies Beneath

The day when CP and his wife went to hike to Llama top, I had decided to visit Gartang Gali. A trek used in earlier times to trade between India and Tibet. The highlight of this trek was the end, where golden wooden stairs (around 50) end the Indian side and from where the Tibetan side begins. I started for Gartang Gali at around 11 AM, and CP had already left by then. Ishan's mother said that CP and his wife ate separately in the morning. She was happy to see that, although I did not understand why. Before leaving, I asked Ishan whether I would be able to reach Gartang Gali or not. This was because there are no petrol pumps in Harshil. The last petrol pump one will see is in Uttarkashi, around 60-80 km away. My car showed that it can run 270 km, but these readings are never accurate. I had to calculate the distances beforehand. Additionally, once you are outside Harshil, there are no networks. I had to reach Gartang Gali from Harshil Valley the old-school way, remembering the rou...

continue »

People I Met Only Once | Leo Beer in Lucerne, Switzerland | Part 1

When you travel, especially alone, you sometimes meet other people who are in the same space as you. What's exciting for me is to think for a second about how we met at the same place. If you think about it, if they are foreigners like me, they might have decided to come to that country, applied for a visa, and booked tickets while I was also doing the same, sitting in my home. They must have thought about going to the same place that day when I decided to go too. Sometimes, they would have other plans, but they got changed, and they arrived at the same location at the same time where I was, or vice versa. It's something I witnessed long back, an account I wrote in the Butterfly Effect blog. These people stayed with me even after those meetings. I have often found myself telling these stories to my friends, and they have often appreciated it. Some stories, I have never told anyone. Such encounters rarely end up in exchanging numbers, but I still remember all of them, and I wi...

continue »

My Trip To Vietnam - Peace in the Chaos (Ho Chi Minh City)

Vietnam has always fascinated travelers all around the world without actually pointing out any one thing specifically. You might be traveling to India to visit just the Taj Mahal but why do you want to take a trip to Vietnam? There is no such thing. You just want to visit Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City. But why do you want to do that? I don't know! And perhaps I did not get this answer from all the videos describing the beauty of Vietnam. This was something that had been playing in my mind ever since I saw a guy crossing a road with a million scooters coming at him. That looks like India though! Would that be the reason? I don't know! And so I pinged my friend Sudhanshu if he'd be interested in taking a trip to Vietnam with me - a beautiful and mesmerizing country. Ah! Sure he is. I knew the answer before even asking him. He and I have made and canceled plans a lot of the time. The one thing that we decided on our trip to Ladakh was to visit Vietnam (or maybe another south-east...

continue »

The Last Few Steps - Manikarnika Ghat

Varanasi or Kashi or Banaras, whatever one may call it, the place plays a significant role in the life of a Hindu whether he believes in god or not. It's not about the temples you visit but the air you breathe when you are walking on the congested streets of Varanasi. It's about the ghats you visit. It's about the food you eat. For long people have associated Kashi with a sense of spirituality often labeling you with tags as "devotee" or "Shiv Bhakt" but my trip to Varanasi made me realize that the magic that people talk about happens not inside the temples but in the places you would least expect. Varanasi and the vibes I was one among the millions of people who arrived in Varanasi for the annual event of Dev Deepawali celebrated fifteen days after Diwali and organized by the Uttar Pradesh Government. The highlights of the event are the firecrackers which when I witnessed, completely left me in awe of the moment. The greatest fire show I witnessed! Bu...

continue »

Chronicle of Harsil Valley: My Last Night in Harshil

In the last part , as I mentioned, we hurriedly went to the market to buy wool as the clouds were getting darker, and when I looked over the mountain peaks, they looked straight from an alien movie. Harshil Valley had changed many colours since I had arrived. My main motive for visiting the market was to buy original sheep wool from a local house, and my mother had promised she would knit the sweater for me. When we reached there, all the shopkeepers were running to shut their shops to get to their homes before the rain. I was there in November, and it was not a "touristy" time. People just pass through Harshil in the summer months as it falls on the way to Gangotri Dham. The gates had closed in October, and in addition, it was the start of harsh winters that Harshil faces. Half of the locals had already migrated to Uttarkashi and Pauri for the winters, while a few left who were waiting to prune the Apple trees. The first shop I went into, the woman was in a hurry. It is wor...

continue »

Pangong Tso to Leh - Final Chapter - Ladakh Diaries Page 4

The morning in Pangong Tso was the most beautiful morning ever. My window had a perfect view of the lake and between us were green crops and vegetables grown by the locals. It is too far from the world and no vegetable vendor, fruits or anything else come here. You eat what you grow beside your home. The last village was Tangtse which was 30 km back and this was the day we were to move from Pangong Tso to Leh with our bikes. View from the window The sun was shining brightly and the cold wind filled the dry atmosphere with a view of snow that fell last night on the mountains just a few meters above us. I went outside to the door which was already open and the sunlight was coming inside forming a door shape on the floor. Outside was a small dog, white in colour, bombarded by thousands of smells he was sensing here. All these smells made him too excited on this bright day. He had a very short concentration span. He would smell something and a second later run towards another to smell s...

continue »

Street Smart: 5 Life Lessons I Learnt From A Stray Dog

It's 5 am in the morning. My mother opens up the gate and two regular dogs arrive waiting for this time to eat their food. One has golden fur, and one has black fur. We have nurtured them since they were only a few months old. I started giving food to the golden boy, and after a few months, he brought his friend. That's how their connection with my home started. Soon, they started spending a big part of their day inside my home, sunbathing in winter, and making sure all the home flies are eliminated from this territory. Soon they regained their health, and their fur got dense. This transformation must not have gotten hidden in their community, and I am sure some of their friends would have asked them, "Where are you getting all the food from?" and they must have replied, "We eat the same food. It is just our body type!" I say so because no other dog visited us with them from their territory. However, this got changed when the black boy became a young father....

continue »

My fight with Guillain Barre Syndrome || Part 1

I took my empty bag, I took my jacket, dressed in college uniform I started my ride. I was going to my college to give my final semester presentation for the project I had done in LTI, Mumbai . I was happy about the fact that after today, there will be no exams, no attendance and my college life would be over. I had my days planned. Since I had been on the flight from Mumbai to Delhi to come home, I had planned all my days. I wanted to learn driving at a driving school. I wanted to learn swimming. I wanted to go to the gym. I wanted to go on at least three trips in one month. I had all planned but I guess life had other plans for me. I gave my presentation to a four-judge panel out of which three were ladies. They were chit-chatting and I don't remember any of them listening to me after I told them the company and brief of the project. My presentation was over as soon as they told me "Thank You". It was a moment of epiphany. My college was over with ...

continue »

The Divided States Of India

As I landed in the city of Bangalore, a man is shouting just outside the airport. He is shouting something that I do not understand. Fortunately, he has learned 4 5 English words. After all, he is standing outside the airport. “ Where, ” he asks. “ Marathahalli ” I spoke. “ Bus 8 ”. He says one word and starts shouting again. He was a bus driver. But most importantly, a resident of Karnataka state in India. Yes, this place is in my country and we both cannot communicate. Many years back when I was in the eighth standard, my textbooks proudly and boldly highlighted the words, “ India is a diverse country ”. They would show the culture and folk dances of each state. Unique on its own. A moment to feel proud. You can never find a country as diverse as India, as culturally rich as India. That was just the textbook. My practical started almost 2 months ago. Soon when I reached my hotel I realized nobody in the hotel knows Hindi. Yes, Hindi. A language spoken in India....

continue »

Travel Blog - Journey, Stories and Experiences

Search This Blog