Mumbai to Munnar With a Dog
Roughly 1590km by road, which is around 22 hours of driving. Almost nobody does this by car with a dog. Train or plane is the sensible route.
Mumbai to Munnar and Munnar to Mumbai are one journey, so everything here applies whichever way you are pointing.
Do not drive this one
At 1590km the car stops making sense. You would be driving through two nights or paying for two hotels in each direction. Railhead for Munnar: Aluva or Ernakulam, roughly 4 hours below.
Leaving Mumbai
Munnar lies south east of Mumbai, roughly 1590km 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
The only humane way to drive this is in stages, and these are the stages.
- Gokarna , beach in Karnataka, around 48% of the way
- Goa , beach in Goa, around 37% of the way
- Chikmagalur , hill in Karnataka, around 65% of the way
Of the 57 destinations we cover, Munnar is the 31st 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
Munnar in one paragraph
Tea estate country with cool air and long walks. Leeches during and after monsoon are unavoidable on wet trails. Eravikulam National Park nearby does not permit pets.
The full Munnar guide goes into the terrain, what the two of you can do there, the places dogs are turned away from and the local hazards.
Veterinary access at the far end
Veterinary help in Munnar town, with better facilities in Kochi about 4 hours away.
Do this at the same time you book the room, not on the road out of Mumbai. 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 Munnar, where the advice is to go september to march and avoid June to August. 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 22 hours of driving this is two days each way, which is the argument for the train. The heat window decides the timetable. Leave before dawn and you buy four cool hours before the sun becomes a factor, which on a 22 hour run is most of the hard part done. Driving through the middle of an Indian afternoon with a dog in the back is the single most common way this goes wrong, air conditioning or not.
Our breed climate checker scores how your breed copes with the conditions at Munnar, 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 Munnar from Mumbai?
Roughly 1590km by road, south east of Mumbai, which is around 22 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 Munnar?
Flying is faster and harder on the dog. Airport handling, the noise, the hold if they are over the cabin limit, and a crate they cannot leave. A train is longer in hours and easier in every other respect, and you can walk them at station halts.
Can I drive from Mumbai to Munnar with a dog if I want to?
You can, over two or three days. Gokarna, Goa, Chikmagalur sit broadly along the corridor and make sensible overnight stops.
What is the best time to visit Munnar with a dog?
September to March. Avoid June to August, because very heavy monsoon.
Do I need to book pet friendly stays in Munnar 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 Munnar?
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.
Distances are straight line figures adjusted for how Indian roads actually run, which adds roughly a third and more in hills. Times follow from that. Both are approximations.
The rest of the planning
Dates, stops, packing and the order to do things in. The planner covers what this page does not.
Open the plannerMore on Munnar: the full destination guide.