The best free things to do in Mumbai
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Money may make Mumbai go round, but there are still plenty of free ways to spend your time here. Many of the city’s best sights don’t cost a bean to visit, so you can have a good time without splashing the cash. Take your pick from strolling around the Gateway of India, learning meditation at a golden Buddhist temple, watching flamingos gather just off the coast, or enjoying the view across the city’s remarkable outdoor laundries. Abigail Blasi, Telegraph Travel's Mumbai expert offers her top recommendations on how to spend your free time.
Fort Area and Colaba
Marvel at the majestic Gateway to India
This mighty assertion of colonial power, facing imperiously out to sea, was completed in 1924 and is a wonderful starting point for tourists. Perched at the edge of the Arabian Sea near the port, there’s a carnival atmosphere around it at most times of the day, with hawkers selling tours, photographs, postcards, candyfloss and balloons, and local and foreign tourists lining up to preserve the moment amid a forest of selfie sticks. Get here in the early morning to catch the sunrise and experience a rare moment of calm, when the main observers are just a few curious pigeons.
Opening times: 24 hours
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Take a stroll down Marine Drive
Marine Drive (renamed Netaji Subhash Chandra Marg) sweeps along a two-mile curve of the coast, and has an epic promenade. It’s one of Mumbai’s prime places for people watching, especially in the early evening, as its streetlights (earning it the nickname 'the queen’s necklace') twinkle as dusk begins to fall. It’s one of Mumbai residents’ preferred stretches to relax, jog, salute the sun, and gaze out to sea. It’s also lined by some of the city’s most fabulous colonial-era buildings, which face out onto the waterfront like crumbling, elaborately iced wedding cakes.
Opening times:? 24 hours
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Watch the sun set on golden sands
Mumbai’s beach is the best way to escape the city without leaving it, and it’s particularly favoured for watching the sunset. Street food stalls are an essential part of the experience and, bhel puri is the iconic beach snack for any time of day (but especially early evening): a salty yet sweet mix of puffed rice, sev (crunchy chickpea-flour noodles), onion, potato, and tangy tamarind chutney. During the Ganesh festival in September, the sands are a focus of the celebration, rammed with people as effigies of the elephant god are immersed in the sea water.
Opening times:?24 hours
Discover the city's artiest district
Mumbai is India’s contemporary art powerhouse, and its artiest district is Kala Ghoda, which means 'black horse', named after the statue of King Edward VII that once stood here. The area is a focus of the arts in the city, with a famous visual arts festival taking place in February, featuring an abundance of street art and sculpture. Year round it’s home to Jehangir Gallery, the city’s foremost venue for contemporary art, and free to enter. Outside the gallery there’s the Kala Ghoda Pavement, where lesser known artists spread out their work and hope to make a sale.
Contact: Jehangir Gallery; 00 91 2222843989; jehangirartgallery.com
Opening times: 10am-7pm
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Embrace the craziness of Crawford Market
Housed in a neo-Gothic colonial-era monster of a building, this frenetic and most colourful of Mumbai markets is a mind-boggling sight, a relentless sea of colour, movement and life. Renamed Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, it’s still known by its British name. It was designed in the 19th century by J Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s father: look out for his carvings of local people over the main doorways of the market building. It’s a head-swirling place to wander, and full of locals picking up fruit, vegetables, sad songbirds in cages, even sorrier chickens, clothes, decorations and stationery.
Opening times:? 9am-10.30pm
Get a glimpse of disappearing history
Escape to Goa in central Mumbai and wander around this tiny and fast-shrinking enclave of heritage wooden houses that were first built in the 18th century. There used to be around 70, and now only 28 remain. They’re all uniquely different, with gingerbread-like gabled roofs and balconies made of interlocking patterns, painted in bright colours and lined with plant pots. There’s a different atmosphere here, and it’s well worth a wander to try to imagine how Mumbai once looked, with a village feel within the city. The houses here mostly belong to small Christian communities.
Opening times: 24 hours
Watch Mumbai wash its dirty linen
The huge daily task of washing Mumbai’s dirty linen (well, that of its hotels and hospitals) in public is an incredible sight. At Dhobi Ghat, an all-male army of dhobi wallahs (washing workers) beat, scrub, rinse, hang and iron along over 1000m of water troughs. Above their heads is a spider’s web of washing lines, where colourful cottons and silks drip and flap in the inner-city heat. You’ll be beset by people offering tours, but the easiest way to observe the action is from the bridge, across the railway tracks near Mahalaxmi train station.
Opening times:? 4.30am-dusk
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Take a pilgrimage to Haji Ali Dargah
The gleaming-white mosque and pilgrimage site of Haji Ali Dargah lies off the coast of Worli, and seems to float on water, accessible via a narrow causeway 500m off the coast. Built under the Muzzafarid dynasty in the 14th century, it’s the shrine to Sayyed Peer Haji Ali Shah Bukhari, once a rich merchant, who gave up his worldly wealth to devote his life to Islam. It’s a magical experience to approach the dargah, along a path that’s lined by a stream of pilgrims, dressed in blazing colour, bringing offerings. Morning or late afternoon are the best times to visit.
Opening times: 9.30am-5.30pm
The West
Watch flamingoes flock to an erstwhile fort
In a city that so seethes with human activity, it’s a surprise to see wildlife in such close proximity to the urban sprawl. Take a trip to Sewri Jetty in November–June to see a flamboyance of pink flamingoes. Once the site of a 17th-century British fort, it is now best known for an old fishing jetty amidst battered old boats, fluttering with colourful flags. You need to aim for low tide to be lucky, and the light is better in the afternoon to catch the beautiful birds that have migrated here from Siberia, via the salt plains of Little Rann, Gujarat.
Opening times: 24 hours
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The North
Meditate in a Buddhist pagoda
If you’re feeling in need of some serenity, take a trip out north to this heaven-piercing golden Buddhist meditation hall. Inaugurated in 2009 on a peninsular between the Arabian see and Gorai, this is the most powerfully peaceful place in Mumbai, and many days could be spent aligning your chi. The central dome and main meditation hall contains the relics of Gautum Buddha. Visitors have a chance to visit the smaller hall beforehand to learn the basics before trying it out in the powerfully contemplative space of the main building.
Opening times: 9.30am-6.30pm
