The 25 areas we cover in and around Mumbai

The southern tip of the island: Gateway of India, hawker-packed Causeway, old bars, and the shortest walk to Fort offices.

The original walled city and still the financial one: BSE, RBI, stone arcades, Irani cafes and dead Sundays.

Western Line terminus, Oval Maidan cricket, Art Deco blocks and the shortest hop to Nariman Point offices.

Three and a half kilometres of seawall, Art Deco frontage and the city's best-value luxury sea-view rooms.

Museums, galleries, cobbled Rampart Row and the best restaurants in south Mumbai, in six walkable blocks.

Chawls, wadis, the Royal Opera House and Khotachiwadi's Portuguese bungalows, five minutes from Chowpatty sand.

Old money on a green ridge: Banganga Tank, Hanging Gardens, tree-lined Ridge Road and almost no hotels.

The geographic middle of Mumbai: two rail lines, a 4am flower market, Shivaji Park, and business rooms at half the Bandra rate.

Where the island ends and the suburbs begin: a dargah, a Wednesday novena, a reclaimed forest, and Mumbai's cheapest useful rooms.

Mumbai's most liveable square mile: village lanes, two sea promenades, the best restaurants north of Colaba, and prices to match.

Bandra's calmer twin: numbered residential roads, a working fishing village, serious restaurants on 15th Road, and 20 percent lower rates.

Split by the highway: a leafy west side of bungalow lanes, an east side of airport hotels, campuses and a ten-minute run to BKC.

Six kilometres of sand, the city's best small theatre, film-industry bungalows, and beachfront hotels that trade view for commute.

Mumbai's working engine room: both terminals, SEEPZ and MIDC offices, three metro lines, and more hotel rooms than anywhere else in the city.

Lake-facing towers, IIT Bombay and two genuinely Ecotel-certified hotels — the calmest business base in the eastern suburbs.

Mumbai's corporate engine room: mill compounds turned offices, bars and malls, ten minutes from town by train.

Sea Link views, corporate headquarters and a fishing village that predates all of it — expensive, breezy and early to bed.

Cheap, leafy and startlingly well-connected since the Eastern Freeway — the value base for eastern-corridor business trips.

A separate planned city across the creek: wide roads, mangrove flamingos, cheap rooms and Asia's biggest produce market.

A city in its own right north-east of Mumbai: thirty lakes, forest hills at Yeoor, misal for ₹60, cheap rooms.

The far-north western suburb with a 100 sq km national park on its doorstep, cheap rooms and two metro lines.

Konkan coast an hour by catamaran from the Gateway — second homes, black-sand beaches and offsite villas for Mumbai board retreats.

India's only vehicle-free hill station, 800 m up the Sahyadris — red earth paths, thirty-odd viewpoints and no engines at all.

Ghat town midway on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway — corporate resorts, monsoon waterfalls, Karla caves and far too much weekend traffic.

River-and-paddy country at the foot of the ghats, 70 km out — farmstays, waterfall treks and the quietest offsite venues near Mumbai.