Route Bangalore → Mysore → Bandipur → Gudalur → Ooty → Nadugani → Wayanad → Bandipur → Bangalore Distance 735 km Duration 3 days, ~16 hours at the wheel
2 overnight stops Best Months October to March
The ghats are treacherous in the monsoon Signature Roads The Gudalur climb to Ooty
Nadugani ghat and its 22 hairpins World Heritage Nilgiri Mountain Railway, 1908
Western Ghats Parks & Protected Areas Bandipur Tiger Reserve
Mudumalai Tiger Reserve
Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve

Route Map

Open in Google Maps The Plan

Two hill countries in three days, and deliberately not two hill stations. Ooty first, then across the state line into Wayanad, where the tea gives way to jungle and spice and the food changes completely.

The route avoids the Masinagudi hairpins on purpose. They are the famous way up and the wrong one for a low car — thirty-six of them, properly steep, tight enough to need full lock, and shared with buses. Gudalur is the longer climb and the better road.

The driving is the Nadugani ghat on day two: twenty-two bends down out of the Nilgiris into Kerala, generally well surfaced, and far quieter than anything on the Ooty side.

Notes

Best months are October to March. The Ghats take the monsoon head on and the ghat roads are genuinely treacherous through it.

The reserve roads close to traffic between 9 pm and 6 am, and carry a 30 kmh limit with elephants that ignore it. Neither leg is driving country; treat them as the price of admission.

For a low car this is the hardest of the three loops. Speed breakers through the Nilgiri villages are unmarked and unforgiving, and Ooty itself is congested. Gudalur in preference to Masinagudi is not a nicety.