Statue of Unity in one day from Vadodara

The Statue of Unity is the one trip almost every family in Vadodara has either done or been asked to do. Kevadia is ninety kilometres from the city, the roads are good, and the site has grown from a statue with a viewing gallery into a full day of things to see. That is also the problem: there is now too much to do in a day, the tickets are sold in a dozen combinations, and a family that arrives without a plan spends the middle of the day in queues.

This is the plan we run on our own fixed-departure coaches every fortnight in season, written down so you can do it yourself if you prefer to drive.

The shape of the day

Leave Vadodara at seven. Not eight: the viewing-gallery slots are timed, the earliest slots are the coolest and the emptiest, and the drive is ninety minutes with a tea stop at the Rajpipla turning. You are at the gates by nine, which is when they open.

Do the statue first. Everyone does, but do it before ten. The entry ticket includes the exhibition hall inside the base and the walk out along the Sardar Sarovar dam viewpoint; the viewing-gallery ticket adds the lift to 153 metres, which is the reason you came. On a clear October morning you see the Vindhya and Satpura ranges, the reservoir, and the Narmada below; after eleven the haze builds and by two the light is flat. Book the gallery for the first available slot and treat everything else as flexible.

From the statue, walk to the Valley of Flowers along the river. It is a landscaped garden rather than the Himalayan one, but it is well kept and it is on the way. This takes you to lunch by twelve-thirty.

Lunch

The food court at Kevadia is vegetarian, reasonably priced and busy from one o'clock. Eat at twelve-thirty and you sit down; eat at one-thirty and you stand. On our coaches we book a reserved lunch for groups of twenty and more; for a family it is not necessary, just early.

The afternoon

You have three real choices for two to three hours, and you should pick one:

• The jungle safari park. A zoo, honestly, but a good one, spread over hills with open enclosures and a bus between sections. Children under ten prefer this to anything else on the site. Allow two and a half hours.
• The Sardar Patel museum and the dam. For the adults who want the story: the museum in the statue's base is included in your entry, and the dam viewpoint is the best photograph on the site apart from the gallery.
• The Narmada boat ride and the cactus and butterfly gardens. Quieter, and the boat is worth it when the reservoir is full after the monsoon.

The glow garden and the laser show are evening events. If you want them you are not doing a day trip; you are staying at Tent City, which is a different package and a good one.

Leave by five. The drive back is easier before the evening traffic at the Vadodara end, and you are home by seven-thirty.

Tickets, plainly

The site sells tickets online only, and the viewing-gallery quota sells out on weekends and holidays days ahead. When you book our day trip, the tickets are in your name before the coach leaves. If you are driving yourself, book the gallery slot the day you decide to go, not the night before.

The individual attractions — safari, boat, glow garden — are separate tickets. We do not bundle them into the coach price because half the coach never uses them; we book them for whoever asks, at the counter price.

What it costs

Our coach day, with the return journey, the statue entry, the viewing-gallery ticket and a coordinator on board, starts from ₹1,499 per person. Lunch and the optional afternoon tickets are extra and we say so on the package page. If you drive, budget the fuel, the parking at Kevadia, and the same ticket prices; a family of four in their own car usually spends about the same as four coach seats and does more of the driving.

When to go

October to February. The reservoir is full, the gardens are green, and the temperature in the open at Kevadia is bearable. March is fine in the morning. April to June the site is a furnace by eleven and the gallery slots after lunch are the ones nobody wanted. The monsoon closes the boat and, some years, the road; the dam overflowing is spectacular but the site is wet and the safari park closes sections.

Diwali week and the Republic Day weekend are the busiest days of the year. Our coaches run both, because people want to go then, but they book out two weeks ahead and the site is at capacity. If you have the choice, go the weekend after.

Groups

Schools, offices and community groups are the trips we run most often to Kevadia. Twenty to two hundred people, one coach or five, a coordinator on each, group entry booked in the organisation's name, a reserved lunch, and a GST invoice. The group tours page has the shape of it; the desk quotes within a day.

A note on the road

The route is the Vadodara–Dabhoi–Rajpipla road, then the Kevadia approach. It is a good two-lane road with heavy truck traffic near Dabhoi in the mornings. Our drivers take the tea stop after Dabhoi, not before, for that reason. If you drive, do the same.