Mumbai to Auli With a Dog
Roughly 2090km by road, which is around 29 hours of driving. Almost nobody does this by car with a dog. Train or plane is the sensible route.
Outbound and return together. Auli to Mumbai differs only in what time of day you set off.
Do not drive this one
2090km each way puts this beyond a sensible road trip with an animal. The train is slower per hour and far quicker in usable holiday. Auli is served by Rishikesh or Haridwar, then roughly 250 km and 9 hours by road. There is no shortcut.
Leaving Mumbai
Auli lies north east of Mumbai, roughly 2090km by road. Getting out of Mumbai is the journey's hardest hour. The Expressway and the eastern exits both jam from about 7am, and weekend departures are worse than weekday ones. Leaving before 6am is the single change that most improves a Mumbai road trip.
Where to break this journey
For anyone determined to drive, break it here rather than attempting it in one push.
Of the 57 destinations we cover, Auli is the 46th closest to Mumbai.
Closer from Mumbai, if this is further than you wanted
- Mumbai to Gokarna , about 13 hours, beach in Karnataka
- Mumbai to Udaipur , about 12 hours, heritage in Rajasthan
- Mumbai to Goa , about 12 hours, beach in Goa
Auli in one paragraph
High altitude, so ascend gradually and watch for laboured breathing or lethargy. Cold suits thick-coated breeds, though snow and road grit crack paw pads.
The full Auli guide has the detail on what is walkable, what is off limits to dogs and what the season does to the place.
Veterinary access at the far end
Effectively none at Auli. Joshimath has minimal facilities and Srinagar or Rishikesh is many hours down a difficult road. This is the most isolated destination on this list, so travel prepared and conservatively.
Know where the nearest twenty four hour option is even if the local one looks fine, since local ones close. Emergency vets by city.
Timing it from Mumbai
Humidity rather than heat is the Mumbai problem. Skin and ear infections are constant, and the monsoon adds standing water, which carries leptospirosis risk for dogs who walk through flooded streets.
Monsoon, roughly June to September, brings paw infections, leptospirosis risk and dogs who will not go outside. Ganpati and Diwali both bring firework and crowd stress.
Set that against Auli, where the advice is to go march to june, september to november and avoid peak winter unless prepared for snow. The overlap between those two windows is your actual travel season, and it is usually narrower than either one suggests on its own.
Doing this journey with your dog
At around 29 hours of driving this is two days each way, which is the argument for the train. Feed light before you leave rather than not at all. A small meal three hours ahead settles most dogs better than an empty stomach, which brings its own nausea. Carry the food they already eat, since a strange brand on the road is how a holiday turns into a clean up. Roughly 29 hours in the car is long enough that what went in that morning matters.
Our breed climate checker scores how your breed copes with the conditions at Auli, and the travel hub has the other 56 destinations if this one turns out to be the wrong fit.
Questions people ask
How far is Auli from Mumbai?
Roughly 2090km by road, north east of Mumbai, which is around 29 hours of driving. At that distance almost nobody drives it with a dog, and the figure is an estimate rather than a looked-up number.
Should I fly or take the train from Mumbai to Auli?
The train, in most cases. Indian Railways carries dogs in first class AC coupes and in the brake van with no weight limit on the animal, so a Labrador travels the same as a Pomeranian. Flying caps the cabin at roughly 7 to 10kg including the carrier, and everything above that goes in the hold.
Can I drive from Mumbai to Auli with a dog if I want to?
You can, over two or three days. Jodhpur, Udaipur, Mount Abu sit broadly along the corridor and make sensible overnight stops.
What is the best time to visit Auli with a dog?
March to June, September to November. Avoid peak winter unless prepared for snow, because heavy snow and altitude.
Do I need to book pet friendly stays in Auli ahead?
Yes, and confirm by phone rather than trusting a listing. Properties marked pet friendly frequently turn out to mean small dogs only, or specific rooms, or an undisclosed fee. Get the size limit in writing.
What should I pack for Mumbai to Auli?
Water and a collapsible bowl, their own food rather than a new one, the physical vaccination card, any medication, a spare lead, poo bags and an old towel. The vaccination card is the item people leave behind and then need.
Treat the numbers as a planning figure rather than a measurement. They come from a model fitted to 56 routes with known drive times, and the real number depends on your exit from the city and on the final stretch.
Before you book anything
Run the trip through the planner. It orders the decisions so you are not booking a room before you know the travel day works.
Plan the tripMore on Auli: the full destination guide.