I stay in New Delhi. My husband and I want to visit Shirdi, Pune and Mumbai. Can you kindly let me know how many days are required for visiting Shirdi temple and sightseeing in Mumbai and Pune. Please let me know the sequence of the places to be visited along with recommended hotels too. We do not want to stay in very expensive hotels so budget hotels are best for us. Thanks, Ritu
There are many ways to do this but this is what I believe the best way: Take a flight/train to Mumbai and do your sign seeing and whatever you want to do there and in the end take a night bus to Shiridi. Go to Shiridi temple during the day (early morning if possible) and you can take a bus to Pune from there. Distance between Mumbai-Shiridi and Shiridi-Pune is almost the same. I am not sure where there is to do at Pune but you can take a train or flight back to Delhi from there. ------- Another way to do this would be to take a train to Nashik road railways station. Stay the night at Nashik and go for Trimbakeshwar temple in the morning and take a bus to Shiridi the same night. Go to Shiridi temple in the morning and take an over night bus to Mumabi from there. Then Mumabi to Pune bus when you want to go to Pune. You can then either take a flight or train difect from Pune. You can also hire a taxi for the whole duration from Nashik if you have the money to spend on that. I cannot suggest hotels other then Nashik where you can find Ginger hotel which is decent and prices are reasonable.
As you are low on budget it would be best to travel by train, although this would take around around between 16 - 22 hours to travel but it is the cheapest mode of transport, other if you can fit around Rs3500 for one person for flights then it would be a better option. You can either start your journey from Pune or Mumbai, Shirdi being the middle destination. For the whole holiday I would suggest 3-4 days in Mumbai, 2 days in Shirdi and 3-4 days in Pune.
Last time I checked tickets to Pune from Delhi are more costly, than tickets from Delhi to Mumbai, before you book the tickets have a fiddle around with the dates and arrival/departure origin to find the best price.
You have to take into consideration the time to rest which is required after traveling and the flight as it can be exhausting. So I would give a day for each travel, and Shirdi can can be seen in a day, and for Pune and Mumbai you should give it 5 days each, this way you wont have to rush to see everything in one day and it would be less tiring for you.
