Read this before you book Mumbai

A two-day plan built around one hotel base, 2 metro lines and zero rented cars — designed for the business traveller who lands Thursday night and flies out Sunday morning.

Seven days across the island city, the suburbs, Navi Mumbai and the harbour islands — including 2 UNESCO World Heritage sites and one full day you should keep free for work.

Three full days in India's most expensive city for under ₹9,000 all in — using local trains at ₹10 a ride, free monuments and 3 walkable districts.

The premium version of a short Mumbai trip: 3 nights in certified green five-stars, 2 chef-led tasting menus, a private harbour crossing and a car you do not have to drive.

A UNESCO World Heritage site 10 km across Mumbai harbour, reached by a 1-hour ferry from the Gateway of India — closed Mondays, and best done before 11am.

The Konkan coast 20 km across the harbour: a 45-minute ro-ro ferry to Mandwa, 6 beaches, a tidal fort, and the reason Mumbai's weekend traffic exists.

India's only vehicle-free hill station, 90 km east of Mumbai: a 1907 narrow-gauge railway, 30-plus viewpoints, and no cars allowed past the Dasturi car park.

83 km up the Mumbai–Pune Expressway into the Western Ghats: 2,000-year-old rock-cut caves, a UNESCO-listed hill fort, monsoon waterfalls and the chikki capital of India.

150 km inland to Maharashtra's second business capital: 3-hour trains, a Peshwa palace, the house where Gandhi was interned, and the best bun maska in the state.

Mumbai runs on roughly seven business pockets strung along 40km of coast and one bridge to Navi Mumbai. Pick the wrong one and you lose two hours a day in traffic.

Mumbai has three seasons, not four, and one of them drops around 2,200mm of rain in 100 days. Here is how to time a work trip around it.

Mumbai's suburban rail moves around 7 million people a day for as little as ₹5 a ride, and it is still often the fastest way across the city. Here is how to use it, and when not to.

Mumbai runs on QR codes: UPI handles billions of transactions a month and a ₹20 vada pav is paid by phone. Here is what things cost and where cash still matters.

Mumbai is among India's safest big cities for visitors, with the main risks being traffic, monsoon flooding and overcharging rather than crime. Five practical habits cover 90 percent of it.

Mumbai feeds around 20 million people from every corner of India, and you can eat your way from Kerala to Kashmir inside three square kilometres. Ten dishes, and exactly where to get them.

From a 1869 Gothic produce hall to Asia's largest wholesale complex across the harbour, Mumbai has around a dozen markets worth a morning. Go before 10:00.

₹500 in Mumbai buys a two-course lunch at a 1940s Udupi restaurant, an unlimited thali, or four rounds of street food with change left. Twenty-odd addresses that never disappoint.

More than 20 things in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai that cost nothing beyond a ₹10 train ticket — heritage streets, seafronts, flamingo creeks and gallery districts, mapped for the gaps in a working week.

Mumbai stops serving at 1.30am, charges ₹700 to ₹1,200 for a decent cocktail and bans alcohol on four dry days a year. Here is where the money is well spent across five neighbourhoods, and the six places to walk past.

Mumbai faces west, so the whole city is a sunset city. Fourteen spots ranked by view, crowd and cost — from free seawalls to a ₹1,000 rooftop, plus the Navi Mumbai options nobody tells you about.