Let’s help you
plan your journey
Explore responsibly, discover offbeat places, guided by locals, rooted in culture.
Let’s help you
plan your journey
Explore responsibly, discover offbeat places, guided by locals, rooted in culture.
Soumen Bhowmick
Soumen Bhowmick founded Pollen Dots in 2024 to plan journeys across India and Bhutan. He works in the Commercial Department of Indian Railways, where he has been since 2000. From 2016 to 2020 he was Head of Business Development and Partnerships at ScoutMyTrip, a community-driven road trip planning platform. There he built a nationwide network of local Scouts who helped travellers on the road, and grew the Road Trippers Club to 16 Indian cities. As a core member of Devil On Wheels, he helped travellers plan Himalayan trips and started Spreading Smiles. He has driven solo from Arunachal to Goa and from Himachal to Karnataka, and has run his own caravan for more than ten years. His photographs have won national and international salon awards, and his writing has appeared in Outlook Traveller.
Planning a trip to Odisha means working around calendars that belong to the places themselves. Bhitarkanika closes every year from 1 May to 31 July so that saltwater crocodiles can nest, and Similipal closes for the monsoon and opened again on 1 November this season. The temples, the two big parks and the turtle coast each keep their own dates, and those dates decide the order of a trip.
Odisha is a coastal state with hills behind it. The coast holds Puri, Konark and Chilika. The south holds the hills of Koraput, Rayagada and Kandhamal. The north holds Similipal and the forests of Mayurbhanj. The west holds Sambalpur, Bargarh and the Hirakud reservoir. Weather, opening dates and temple rules all change as you move between these parts.
Three dates matter more than the rest. The parks close in different months, the turtles nest in winter, and one of the most visited temples in the state does not admit everybody.
Bhitarkanika is shut from 1 May to 31 July every year. Similipal is shut through the monsoon. The olive ridley season on the coast runs through the winter, and a fishing ban runs with it. The Jagannath temple at Puri admits only Hindus, and that rule has held for centuries.
Odisha became a separate province on 1 April 1936. It was the first province in British India drawn on the basis of language, twenty years before the States Reorganisation Commission redrew the rest of the map. The day is still kept as Utkal Divas.
No. Entry is for Hindus only, and the rule applies whatever the visitor's nationality or office. A sign at the Lion's Gate states it.
Indira Gandhi was refused entry in 1984 while she was Prime Minister, because she had married a Parsi. She watched from the roof of the Raghunandan Library, which stands opposite the Lion's Gate on the Grand Road. That roof is still where non-Hindu visitors go, and from it you see the spire and the Nilachakra, the wheel at the top.
The restriction covers the temple building. It does not cover the Rath Yatra, when the deities come out on to the Bada Danda and anybody may stand in the crowd. Leather items, phones, cameras, bags and umbrellas are left outside the gate by everyone.
Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneswar keeps the same rule, with a viewing platform outside the wall.
October to February suits the whole state. The coast is mild then, and the southern hills are cold at night.
March and April are dry and hot on the plains. The hills stay workable later than the coast does. The monsoon arrives in June and runs to September, and the rivers in the north and the delta in the east carry a lot of water in those months.
The Bay of Bengal makes its own season. Cyclones form off this coast most often in the weeks before and after the monsoon, which puts October and November on the watch list along with April and May. The state runs one of the largest evacuation systems in India for those weeks.
| Months | Coast | Hills |
|---|---|---|
| October to February | Mild, the main season | Cold at night, clear by day |
| March to May | Hot, humid | Warm, dry, still workable |
| June to September | Monsoon, heavy rain | Monsoon, roads slow |
They are open in different months, and neither closure matches the other. Bhitarkanika closes from 1 May to 31 July for crocodile nesting and reopens on 1 August. Similipal closes for the monsoon and opened for the 2026-27 season on 1 November.
Similipal now takes bookings online only. Sixty four-wheelers are allowed in each day, thirty five through the Kaliani gate at Jashipur and twenty five through Pithabata near Baripada. Only vehicles with a ground clearance of 180 mm or more are let in. Entry at Jashipur is between 5 am and 9 am, entry at Pithabata between 8 am and 9 am, and everybody leaves by 6 pm. A guide travels in each vehicle.
Bhitarkanika is entered at Khola, Gupti or Dangmal, and the park is seen from a boat. Photo identity proof is required at the gate of both parks.
In winter and early spring. Gahirmatha is the largest known mass nesting ground for olive ridley turtles in the world, and the other two in the state are the Rushikulya and Devi river mouths.
The protection that comes with the season affects anyone on the coast. Mechanised trawling is banned within 20 km of the shore from 1 November to 31 May. Mass nesting itself lasts days rather than weeks, the exact nights are not announced in advance, and some seasons pass without one at a given beach.
Five civilian airports work in the state. Bhubaneswar is the only one with international flights, and the other four are small domestic fields.
| Airport | Place | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Biju Patnaik International | Bhubaneswar | International and domestic |
| Veer Surendra Sai | Jharsuguda | Domestic |
| Rourkela | Rourkela | Domestic |
| Jeypore | Koraput district | Domestic |
| Utkela | Kalahandi district | Domestic |
The main rail line down the east coast runs through Balasore, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Brahmapur. Puri has its own terminus. Sambalpur and Rayagada carry the western and southern lines. Our guide to getting ready for a trip in India covers the paperwork and the booking windows that apply here as everywhere else.
One journey on our list runs through both Kolkata and the Odisha coast, and West Bengal is written separately.
If your dates fall inside a park closure or a cyclone watch, the route can be rebuilt around the hills and the temple towns instead. We rebuild routes that way on Journeys, Just for You. Our ten day journey through the sacred coast and tribal heartland of Odisha runs across the same two halves of the state.
October to February suits the whole state. The coast is mild in those months and the southern hills are cold at night. March and April stay workable in the hills after the plains turn hot.
No. The Jagannath temple admits Hindus only, and the rule applies whatever the visitor's nationality. Non-Hindu visitors watch from the roof of the Raghunandan Library opposite the Lion's Gate.
No. Similipal closes for the monsoon and reopened for the 2026-27 season on 1 November. Booking is online only, sixty vehicles are allowed in each day, and each vehicle must have a ground clearance of 180 mm or more.
Those are the nesting months for saltwater crocodiles. The park shuts from 1 May to 31 July so that the nesting is not disturbed, and it reopens on 1 August.
Nesting runs through the winter and into spring at Gahirmatha, Rushikulya and the Devi river mouth. Mechanised trawling is banned within 20 km of the coast from 1 November to 31 May. Mass nesting lasts only a few nights and the dates are not announced in advance.
Yes. Biju Patnaik International Airport at Bhubaneswar is the only airport in the state with international flights. Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Jeypore and Utkela handle domestic flights.