Mumbai to Goa on the Konkan Coast

The coastal route from Mumbai to Goa winds through the Konkan — a green ribbon of the western shore with quiet beaches, fishing towns, seafood and hilltop forts. It is slower and prettier than the inland highway, running past Alibaug, Ganpatipule and the Malvan coast before reaching Goa. Best enjoyed after the monsoon, when the hills are still green and the sea has calmed.

The Konkan was a contested coast long before it was a holiday one. Through the seventeenth century the shoreline was worked by Portuguese, English and Dutch traders and by the Siddis of Janjira, and Shivaji's response was to build a navy, which was an unusual instinct for an inland-facing Maratha power. Sindhudurg, off Malvan, was commissioned in 1664 and completed in 1667 under the architect Hiroji Indulkar — forty-eight acres on a rock, ramparts twelve feet thick, and an entrance laid out so it stays invisible from the sea until you are almost inside it. Every fort you pass on this drive belongs to the same defensive argument. What followed was an economy of fish and fruit. The Alphonso belt runs through Ratnagiri and Devgad, and it is not a marketing region: the fruit really is different here because of a narrow coastal microclimate, and the season is correspondingly short. What kept the Konkan rural, though, was access. The railway only reached this coast at the end of the 1990s and the highway is still being rebuilt now. That lateness is why the villages between Alibaug and Malvan still look like villages, and why the best food on this route is in homes and small kitchens rather than anywhere on the highway itself.

Alibaug's beaches and forts, Ganpatipule's temple and shore, the Sindhudurg sea-fort at Malvan, Tarkarli's clear water, and Goa.

Mostly good two-lane coastal roads (NH-66), with some narrow, winding ghat sections through the hills; it can be slow in stretches, so plan for a relaxed pace.

Take the coastal NH-66 rather than the faster inland route, and build in stops for seafood and beaches. Fuel up in the larger towns, drive the ghat sections in daylight, and try the Malvani cuisine around Malvan and Tarkarli.

Four days is the right shape: Mumbai to Alibaug, Alibaug to Ganpatipule, Ganpatipule to Tarkarli, then Tarkarli into Goa. Take the Atal Setu out of Mumbai and you can be in the water at Alibaug by late morning. Kolaba fort sits offshore and is walkable at low tide, by boat otherwise. Check the tide before you set off across the sand, because people misjudge it every season. Ganpatipule is a temple town with a very good beach attached. The Ganesh idol faces west, which is unusual, and the crowd is a pilgrim crowd rather than a beach crowd — dress and behave for that. Save your appetite for Malvan and Tarkarli. Malvani cooking runs on coconut, kokum and red chilli, and the fish is whatever came in that morning rather than whatever is printed. Ask what they have instead of ordering off the card. Sindhudurg is a short boat ride from Malvan and the crossing does not run in rough sea. On driving: the completed four-lane sections are genuinely good and the roadworks are genuinely awful, and they alternate without notice. The ghat descents are winding two-lane with blind bends and buses that overtake into them, so drive those in daylight. Avoid the coast in June and July altogether, when heavy rain turns every unfinished stretch to slurry.