Mumbai City Tour with Ferry Ride and Dharavi Slum Walk

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Free cancellationExcellent quality

1/14

Duration8h

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN

PickupAt your hotel

See Mumbai's layers in a single day without arranging the route yourself

A full-day private tour of Mumbai with a local English-speaking guide, pickup from your hotel or airport, and an air-conditioned car. You walk through Dharavi for one to one-and-a-half hours, see Dhobi Ghat's traditional laundries, visit the Hanging Gardens and Mani Bhavan Gandhi Museum, drive Marine Drive, take a ferry from Colaba, and end at the Gateway of India. Entrance fees and a local lunch are included. The ferry does not run during monsoon season (July 1–September 15), when the operator shows the Taj Mahal Palace hotel interior instead; tours starting after 4 PM skip Mani Bhavan.

Step-by-step itinerary

Mumbai city tour with slum walk

Pickup from accommodation
Visit Gateway of India
Ferry ride along Mumbai coast
Walk at Marine Drive
See Dhobi Ghat laundry area
Visit Hanging Gardens for sunset views
Tour Mani Bhavan Gandhi Museum
Walking tour inside Dharavi slum
Visit Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus
See Victorian architecture at Town Hall area
Drop off at accommodation

The Experience

Your driver picks you up from your hotel, airport or port and drives you through South Mumbai's colonial heart—past Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, the Gothic railway station that still moves 2.5 million commuters a day, and into Colaba, where Victorian buildings cluster around the High Court and University. The car stops at Marine Drive, the three-kilometer curved boulevard along the Arabian Sea where locals gather for sunset, then continues to the Hanging Gardens atop Malabar Hill, terraced gardens built over the city's old reservoir with views across the water.

The walk through Dharavi comes next. You spend one to one-and-a-half hours on foot through Asia's largest slum, moving through both residential and commercial quarters—workshops, homes, narrow lanes—with your guide explaining how the neighborhood functions. Afterward, you visit Dhobi Ghat, where nearly two hundred dhobis and their families work as hereditary launderers, soaking clothes in concrete wash pens, thrashing them on flogging stones, boiling them in starch vats, and hanging them to dry. It is a working laundry, not a museum: the process is live and the scale is visible. If your tour starts before 4 PM, you also stop at Mani Bhavan, Gandhi's old Mumbai residence, a two-story house with a reference library, photographs of his life, and the spinning wheel he used.

From the Gateway of India—the yellow basalt arch built to commemorate King George V's visit, now the city's most famous monument—you board a ferry at Apollo Bunder in Colaba and cruise the coastline. The ferry does not operate during monsoon season (July 1 to September 15); if you book during those months, the operator shows you the Taj Mahal Palace hotel interior instead and provides snacks. A local lunch is included in the day. Your driver returns you to your hotel, airport or port by evening.

What’s included

Pickup and drop-off from your hotel, airport or port.
private air-conditioned car for the full day.
local English-speaking guide.
entrance fees to all attractions.
a local lunch.
and bottled water throughout the tour.

Good to know

Moderate physical levelPublic transport nearbyNot for pregnant travelersInfants must sit on laps

Operated by India Magic Tours

Is this one for you?Book the morning or early-afternoon slot if you want to include Mani Bhavan and see the Hanging Gardens before the light fades; afternoon departures after 4 PM skip the Gandhi Museum but still cover Dharavi, Dhobi Ghat, Marine Drive, the ferry and the Gateway. Choose the luxury car option if you prefer a larger or more upscale vehicle for the full eight hours.