Has the thought of weekend camping ever occurred to you but then you rebuffed it thinking it to be impossible plan due to many reasons like safety, food, or sanitation?
If the answer is yes !!!
Well, then its time that you plan it ASAP because Mumbai gives you plenty of those options:
Prabalgarh (Prabalmachi village)
This village is just half an hour ride from Panvel plus a couple of hours hike from the base location. This is an ideal spot to camp overlooking the beautiful city of Mumbai. On a clear weather day, you can see as far as Marine Drive. Sunsets are the best I have seen in Mumbai. No doubt its is my most favourite camping spot in Mumbai.
Here is how you can reach there:
- Value for effort: 5/5 (see the sunset pictures)
- Safety: 5/5
- Crowd: 2/5 (on a fine day, average 100 tents are pitched)
- Peace: 4/5 (depend on who camps beside your tent)
- Ease of renting tent: 5/5 (you can rent it out directly from homestay)
- Ease of getting food: 5/5 (you just have to inform the homestay)
- Sanitation: 3/5 (manageable)
Bandardhara Lake
For camping at Bhandardara, Keshav is the one stop solution. You can reach out to him on +91 9765308719. He has everything sorted for you
- Value for effort: 5/5 – there no effort actually. You can drive till your base
- Safety: 3/5 – Although there are lot of fellow pitchers but since it is fairly open area, safety could be one the concern
- Crowd: 3/5 – When I was there crowd was not a problem
- Peace: 3/5 – Depend on where you take your tent
- Ease of renting tent: 3/5 – Only few operators. Book in advance
- Ease of getting food: 5/5 – there are many houses in the village where you can knock apart from the organizers
- Sanitation: 1/5 – big concern
Pawna Lake
This is the most popular camping spot near Mumbai and Pune combined. “Most popular” mean it is very crowded and full of “instagram junkies” and “wanna-be campers”. Well jokes aside, it is a very pretty and safe camping destination. There are a lot of operators running in this area and you don’t actually have to carry your own tent. Or maybe yes you do if you want a little bit of privacy and lot less noise.
- Value for effort: 5/5 – there no effort actually. You can drive till your base
- Safety: 4/5 – Staying far away in you own tent could be a bit riskey
- Crowd: 1/5 – Its like a carnival out there
- Peace: 3/5 – Depend on where you take your tent
- Ease of renting tent: 5/5 – Hundreds of operators. Book in advance
- Ease of getting food: 5/5
- Sanitation: 2/5 (just manageable)
Apart from the above mentioned location, there are couple of good location like Vashind and Kolad. I will keep on updating the blog with new areas once I explore them.
Happy camping !!!
