You don’t expect a forest to swallow the sound of one of the busiest cities on earth. But that’s exactly what happens about ten minutes into Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The auto-rickshaw horns fade, the air cools, and suddenly you’re hearing birdsong instead of traffic.
I had to remind myself I was still in Mumbai. A 100-square-kilometer stretch of forest, tucked inside a city of 20 million people. It shouldn’t work, and yet it’s one of the most peaceful days you can have in Mumbai.
I visited for the first time in 2021, during a 5-day Mumbai trip. We’d gone to Goregaon Film City, which sits right next to the park, and I genuinely wasn’t prepared for how green and quiet the place next door turned out to be.
When we think of national parks in India, our brains jump straight to jeep safaris and tiger sightings. Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a different animal (pun fully intended). This is a self-exploration kind of place, short hikes through dense forest, ancient rock-cut caves, and a slow paddle boat on a lake. There’s a zoo and safari section too, but if you ask me, the magic here is on foot.
In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly what we did during our day at the park, how to get there using public transit, the ticket costs, and a few food spots nearby to round out your day. Consider this your one-stop guide to doing SGNP right.
About Sanjay Gandhi National Park
Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a protected green belt in the northern suburbs of Mumbai, a sprawling mix of forested hills, rivers, lakes, and ancient caves. It’s one of the few national parks in the world that sits entirely within a city’s limits, which is a flex very few places on the planet can claim.
The park has roots that go back centuries. Long before it was a protected reserve, this was a key spot on an ancient trade route, which is exactly why Buddhist monks carved the Kanheri Caves into its basalt hills over 2,000 years ago. The forest also feeds two of the lakes, Vihar and Tulsi, that have historically supplied drinking water to Mumbai. So this isn’t just a pretty green patch; it’s been keeping the city alive, literally, for generations.
Today it’s home to leopards (yes, actual leopards living on the edge of a megacity), spotted deer, macaques, butterflies, and over 250 species of birds. The leopards are real and the park doesn’t hide it, but they’re shy and nocturnal, so daytime visitors mostly get birds, monkeys, and the occasional deer.
How to Reach SGNP by Public Transit
Here’s the best part for anyone staying in Mumbai: you don’t need a car. The park is incredibly easy to reach by local train, which, if you’ve spent any time in Mumbai, you’ll know is the fastest way to get anywhere.
Take the Western Line local train to Borivali station. The park’s main entrance is on Western Express Highway, roughly a 10-15 minute auto-rickshaw ride from Borivali station (east side). Autos are plentiful right outside the station, and the ride is cheap, expect around ₹30-50.
If you’re coming from the central or harbour side of the city, transfer onto the Western Line, Borivali is a major junction, so it’s well connected. Once you’re at the gate, you’re in forest territory.
Quick tip: Go early. The park opens at 7:30 AM, and the morning hours are when the forest is coolest, the birds are most active, and you beat the weekend crowds. Mumbai heat is not a joke, and a lot of this is on foot.
Tickets & Entry Costs
The park is refreshingly affordable, this is a budget-friendly day out, which is rare for Mumbai. Here’s a price breakdown but the prices may change depending on when you visit, so check the website for latest updates.
- Adults (Indian): ₹130 per person
- Children (Indian): ₹52 per child (below 12)
- Foreign Nationals: ₹287 to ₹500 per person
- Vehicle Entry: ₹10 for two-wheelers & ₹50 for four-wheelers
- Kanheri Caves separate entry fee: ~₹25 (Indian nationals)
- In-park bus (one way): ~₹30-40
- Boating (per boat): ~₹80-180 depending on type
- Lion & Tiger Safari (optional): ~₹80-90
We got our entry tickets at the checkpoint for ₹45 each back in 2021 and walked in. For a full day in a forest inside a city, that’s a steal deal.
Things to Do in Sanjay Gandhi National Park
We structured our day around three things: the caves, the forest, and the lake. Here’s how it went.
Hike Up to the Kanheri Caves
We kicked off our visit with a hike up to the Kanheri Caves, and honestly, this is the highlight of the entire park. It’s a remarkable complex of 109 rock-cut caves, Buddhist temples, monasteries, and prayer halls, carved by hand into a single massive basalt outcrop. We’re talking about more than a thousand years of continuous Buddhist heritage, preserved right here.
The name “Kanheri” comes from the Sanskrit Krishnagiri, meaning “black mountain,” a nod to the dark basalt rock. The earliest caves date back to the 1st century BCE, and over the centuries this grew into an important center of Buddhist learning, with carved stupas, intricate pillars, and an ancient water-management system of rock-cut cisterns that still impresses engineers today. Standing inside the great prayer hall, with its towering carved Buddha figures, it’s genuinely hard to believe the chaos of Mumbai is just a few kilometers away.
It felt amazing to step out of the hustle of the city and just soak this in, cool stone, soft light, and centuries of stillness. If you visit only one thing in the park, make it this.
📍 About 6 km from the main gate | Entry: ₹25 | Time needed: 1.5-2 hours
Walk (and Bus) Through the Forest
Sanjay Gandhi National Park runs its own bus service that operates through most of the day, ferrying visitors between the main gate and Kanheri Caves. It’s a lifesaver in a park this enormous, but here’s the honest catch: the bus stops are quite far apart, so we still ended up walking a good amount through dense forest patches to get around.
And you know what? That walking turned out to be the unexpected gift of the day. The reward for going on foot was incredible, birds darting between the canopy, butterflies and strange beautiful insects everywhere, and the kind of forest sounds you just don’t get from a bus window. If you grew up making trips to hill stations in India, this has the same lush, monsoon-green energy, except it’s wedged inside a metro city.
Tip: Wear proper walking shoes, carry water, and keep your snacks zipped away, the macaques here are bold and will absolutely help themselves if you give them the chance.
Self-Guided Boating on Vihar Lake
We ended our visit the best way possible, slow. The park has mini safaris, boat rides, and even a toy train (the Van Rani, or “Forest Queen”), but we chose a relaxing self-guided boat tour. We rented a two-seater paddle boat and drifted across the calm, clear waters of the lake, legs doing the work, no engine, no rush.
After a morning of climbing to the caves and trekking through the forest, floating on the water with the green hills reflecting back at us was the perfect full stop. It’s the kind of moment that makes you forget you have 200 unread WhatsApp messages and a city full of traffic waiting just past the trees.
You can do all of it if you have time and energy. The safari will take you in a bus around a little zoo like area where you can catch a glimpse of the resident animals like the leopard, tiger and many more big mammals.
Time needed: 30-45 minutes | Tip: A paddle boat is cheaper and more peaceful than the motorized option, and you get to set your own pace.
Beyond the Park: Nearby Food & Add-Ons
A day at SGNP pairs beautifully with a few nearby stops. Here’s how to extend your trip.
Goregaon Film City (Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari)
Right next door to the park is Goregaon Film City, the sprawling studio complex where a huge chunk of Bollywood and Indian TV is shot. This is actually what brought us to the area in the first place. Guided tours take you through film sets, shooting locations, and the behind-the-scenes machinery of the world’s largest film industry. If you’re a movie buff, it’s an easy and fun add-on to your park day. Book the official tour in advance, as walk-in access is limited. You can watch my Film City Tour video on YouTube to know more.
Eat Around Borivali
The park itself has basic canteen-style food and snack stalls near the entrance and the Kanheri base, fine for a quick vada pav, chai, or biscuits to refuel mid-hike, but don’t plan your meals around it. The real eating happens back in Borivali, which is packed with options once you exit.
For peak Mumbai street food, grab a vada pav or misal pav from any of the busy stalls near Borivali station, spicy, cheap, and exactly what you want after a day on your feet. After a sweaty day in the forest, a fresh sugarcane juice or nimbu soda from a roadside vendor hits like nothing else, trust me on this one.
If you want a proper sit-down meal, Borivali has everything from South Indian (hot filter coffee and crisp dosas) to classic Maharashtrian thalis. We went to Ratnagiri Family Restaurant and Bar near Goregaon Film City for our meal and had the most delicious Malvani fish curry.
Tip: Carry plenty of your own water and a few snacks into the park. The stalls inside are limited, and you’ll be doing a lot of walking between them.
How Much Time Do You Need?
Give yourself a full day, ideally 7:30 AM to early afternoon to do the park justice without rushing. That’s enough to comfortably cover the Kanheri Caves, a good forest walk, and a relaxed boat ride, with breathing room in between.
If you’re short on time, you could do a half-day focused just on Kanheri Caves and a quick forest stretch (around 3-4 hours). But honestly, the whole point of this place is to slow down, so if you can spare the full day, spare it.
A quiet forest, ancient caves carved by monks, leopards somewhere in the trees, and a paddle boat on a lake, all of it inside Mumbai, all for under a few hundred rupees. When people say Mumbai never sleeps, they forget to mention it also knows how to sit very, very still. You just have to know where to look.
Have you been to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, or is it on your Mumbai list? Drop your favorite spot, or your best leopard story, in the comments.
And if you’re planning more around Maharashtra, check out our Day Trip to Nashik for wine, temples, and the best local food. Follow along on Instagram @backpackingwithmylens for more real trips, real stories, no fluff.
