Private Mumbai Highlights Full or Half-Day Tour with Entry Tickets

Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal Palace facade

The tour starts on the Apollo Bunder waterfront at the Gateway of India, the basalt triumphal arch completed in 1924 to mark the royal visit of 1911. Its Indo-Saracenic design mixes Islamic arches with Gujarati latticework, and it faces the Arabian Sea, so the morning light is on the stone and the harbour is full of ferries. The Gateway is also the pier for the Elephanta Caves ferry used later in the day, which is why the itinerary begins here.

Beside it stands the Taj Mahal Palace, the red-domed landmark hotel opened in 1903, which the guide describes from the outside as a photo stop. Allow about twenty minutes for both. In the half-day Elephanta option this is also the meeting point: your guide waits at the Gateway of India at 09:00 or 14:00, and the ferry leaves from the steps a few metres away.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, formerly Victoria Terminus, is the UNESCO World Heritage railway station completed in 1888 at the height of Bombay's cotton wealth. Its architect fused Victorian Gothic Revival with Indian traditions: a great central dome topped by a figure of Progress, turrets, pointed arches, stained glass, and carved peacocks, lions and gargoyles on the facade. It remains one of the busiest stations in the world, with suburban trains arriving every few minutes.

Your guide takes you to the main facade and the booking hall for about twenty minutes, explaining how the building was meant to announce the city's ambition to arriving passengers. CSMT is included in the full-day and half-day city options but not in the half-day Elephanta option; check the option descriptions on this page. The entry to the heritage gallery is covered by the tickets included in the tour.

Marine Drive and the Hanging Gardens on Malabar Hill

From the Victorian quarter the vehicle follows Marine Drive, the three-kilometre seafront boulevard along Back Bay that Mumbai calls the Queen's Necklace because its street lamps form a curve of lights at night. Art deco apartment blocks from the 1930s line the land side, one of the largest art deco ensembles anywhere, and the sea wall is where the city comes to walk at sunset. The guide stops for photos and sweeping sea views.

The road then climbs Malabar Hill to the Hanging Gardens, terraced gardens laid out in 1881 over the city's main water reservoir, with hedges clipped into animal shapes and a viewpoint across Marine Drive to the skyline. It is a peaceful stroll of about twenty minutes and the best panorama on the route. Marine Drive is especially beautiful when lit up, so later starts of the full-day option see it at dusk.

Mani Bhavan and Dhobi Ghat

Mani Bhavan is the two-storey house in the Gamdevi district that served as the Mumbai headquarters of the leader of India's freedom movement from 1917 to 1934. The room where he lived and spun cloth is preserved on the top floor, and the galleries hold a library, photographs and miniature dioramas of the key moments of the independence struggle. Your guide spends about twenty minutes here; it is a calm, moving stop that explains the modern history of the city and the country.

Dhobi Ghat at Mahalaxmi is Mumbai's famous open-air laundry, where hundreds of dhobis wash clothes in rows of concrete pens as they have since 1890, drying them on lines and roofs in colour-sorted blocks. Seen from the bridge above, it is one of the city's most photographed scenes. It is included in the full-day options and the half-day city option, not in the half-day Elephanta option.

Elephanta Caves on Elephanta Island

The Elephanta Caves are the UNESCO-listed rock-cut temples on an island in Mumbai harbour, reached by a ferry of about an hour from the Gateway of India, which is included in the tour. Carved into the basalt hill between the fifth and eighth centuries, the main cave is a pillared hall dedicated to Shiva, and its masterpiece is the six-metre Trimurti, the three-faced Shiva as creator, preserver and destroyer, which is among the greatest sculptures in India. Other panels show Shiva as the cosmic dancer and the marriage of Shiva and Parvati.

Your guide explains the iconography during a visit of about ninety minutes, including the ferry crossing and the climb of roughly 120 steps from the jetty past souvenir stalls. The Elephanta Caves are closed on Mondays, so choose another day for the full-day or Elephanta options. Entry tickets are included, and the view back across the harbour to the city is a highlight in itself.

Dharavi workshops

The full-day options end in Dharavi, the dense neighbourhood in the centre of Mumbai known for its small-scale industries. Your guide walks you through the recycling units, where plastic and metal collected across the city are sorted, cleaned and reprocessed, the leather workshops that supply bags and jackets to shops around the world, and the Kumbharwada pottery quarter with its kilns and rows of clay pots drying in the lanes. It is a walk of about an hour that focuses on enterprise and community rather than hardship.

Photography is limited out of respect for residents, and the guide indicates where it is welcome. Many travellers call this the most memorable part of a Mumbai tour because of the welcome and the scale of what is made here. After Dharavi the vehicle returns you to your hotel, or drops you at the airport if you are flying out that evening.