Our office and our yard are at 9/5 Subramaniam Road, Ramanathapuram, Coimbatore — twenty minutes from CJB airport and eighty-eight kilometres from Charing Cross, Ooty. This is the page where that proximity turns into a number.
In short
Coimbatore to Ooty is 88 km and 2 hours 30 minutes via Mettupalayam, Kallar and the 14 hairpin bends of the Coonoor ghat. A one-way drop is ₹2,500 in a sedan and ₹4,200 in an Innova. A full 1 night / 2 days Ooty tour with the vehicle held throughout is ₹7,140 in a Dzire and ₹9,765 in an Innova, both including 5% GST.
Reviewed 20 September 2026 · fares re-checked quarterly; route and check-post notes re-checked monthly in monsoon
All figures include the vehicle, fuel, the driver, tolls, parking and 5% GST. Hotel, green tax and attraction entry are separate and named below.
| Vehicle | One-way drop | Same-day return | 1N / 2D tour | 2N / 3D tour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dzire / Etios — 4 seats | ₹2,500 | ₹5,200 | ₹7,140 | ₹10,400 |
| Premium sedan — 4 seats | ₹2,900 | ₹5,900 | ₹8,100 | ₹11,800 |
| Ertiga / SUV — 6 seats | ₹3,400 | ₹6,600 | ₹8,400 | ₹12,300 |
| Innova — 7 seats | ₹4,200 | ₹7,900 | ₹9,765 | ₹14,200 |
| Innova Crysta — 7 seats | ₹4,900 | ₹9,100 | ₹12,075 | ₹17,300 |
| Tempo Traveller — 14 seats | ₹7,500 | ₹12,800 | ₹14,017 | ₹20,400 |
| Coach — 20 seats, non-AC | ₹9,800 | ₹16,400 | ₹19,792 | ₹28,600 |
Almost nobody flies into Ooty, because there is no airport within 88 km of it. Every visitor arrives through Coimbatore — CJB for the fly-ins, Coimbatore Junction for the overnight trains, Mettupalayam for the toy train — and then needs a vehicle and a driver for the climb. An Ooty-based operator has to send an empty car down the ghat to collect you, and that dead leg is inside the price you are quoted whether or not anyone itemises it. We are already at the bottom.
It also changes who drives you. The same drivers run Coonoor's 14 bends several times a week, which is a different skill from driving on the plains: engine-braking down a 1-in-12 gradient instead of riding the brakes until they fade, knowing the two blind bends above Kallar where buses cut the corner, and knowing that the fog between Burliar and Coonoor at 5 pm in July is not a reason to stop but a reason to have started earlier. When a monsoon landslide shuts NH181 — which happens most years somewhere between June and September — a Coimbatore driver has Kotagiri and Manjur in his head, not on his phone.
And it changes the 6 am problem. Half the flights into CJB that matter for an Ooty trip land before 8 am. A driver who lives twenty minutes away can be in the arrivals lane at 5:40 am with your name on a board. A driver dispatched from Ooty has to leave at 3 am to do the same thing, and you can hear that in the price.
Send the flight number when you book. The driver leaves our yard timed to the actual landing, so a 40-minute delay does not turn into 40 minutes of waiting charges. CJB to the Ooty road is a five-minute run, which is why we hold the car close rather than parking it overnight at the terminal.
CJB has one arrivals exit. The driver waits just past the pre-paid taxi counter with a printed board, and you get his name, photo and vehicle number on WhatsApp the evening before — not at 5 am when you land.
For rail arrivals we use the Platform 1 exit at Coimbatore Junction. If you are taking the toy train, we drop you at Mettupalayam station, 46 km out, in time for the morning departure up the rack section, and meet you again at Coonoor or Ooty, whichever leg you booked.
Most Ooty hotels will not check you in before noon, and you will land with five idle hours. We build the first day around that: the tea factory at Burliar, breakfast at Coonoor, and Sim's Park before the coach parties arrive, then check in at 1 pm having already seen something.
The day trip is our most-asked question and the one where we most often talk people out of what they asked for. Five hours of the day go to the road, 88 km each way. What is left is six or seven hours in the hills, which is genuinely enough for Ooty town — the Botanical Garden, Ooty Lake, the tea museum and, if you leave Coimbatore by 6 am, Doddabetta before the afternoon cloud sits on it. It is not enough for Coonoor as well, and it is nowhere near enough for Pykara or Avalanche.
So: yes to a day trip if you are already in Coimbatore for work, you leave by 6 am, and you accept that you are seeing one town rather than a hill station. No if it is your only visit, if you are carrying children under six, or if it is between June and September when a two-hour rain delay on the ghat removes the entire point. One night turns the same trip into something people remember, for roughly ₹2,000 to ₹3,000 more in vehicle cost plus a room.
None of these reach us. We list them so the cash in your pocket on the morning you leave is the right amount.
| Item | Amount | Paid where | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nilgiris green tax — car | ₹150 – 200 | Kallar check-post, cash | Every non-TN-43 car |
| Nilgiris green tax — SUV or MUV | ₹200 – 300 | Kallar check-post, cash | Innova, Ertiga, Crysta |
| Nilgiris green tax — minibus | ₹300 – 500 | Kallar check-post, cash | 20-seat coaches |
| Nilgiris e-pass | ₹0 | epass.tnega.org, online | We file it for you |
| Botanical Garden entry | ₹50 adult | At the gate | Plus ₹50 for a camera |
| Doddabetta entry and parking | ₹10 + ₹30 | At the gate | Per person, per vehicle |
| Toy train, Ooty–Coonoor | ₹140 – 295 | IRCTC, 60 days ahead | Second class, per person |
Vehicle-only prices, for guests who book their own room. Add a hotel and these become the package prices on the main packages page.
Day one: leave Coimbatore 6:30 am, tea factory at Burliar, Ooty by 9:30, Botanical Garden, Rose Garden, lake, check in. Day two: Doddabetta at 9 am before the cloud, tea museum, Charing Cross for shopping, back in Coimbatore by 6 pm.
Adds the whole Coonoor side on day two — Sim's Park, Dolphin's Nose, Lamb's Rock and a working tea estate — and either Pykara or the toy train on day three before the drive down.
Work backwards from the gate, not from the airport. Allow 3 hours from your Ooty hotel to CJB — 2h30m of driving plus the standing time at Kallar and the Mettupalayam level crossing, which can hold traffic for eight to ten minutes when the toy train is running. For a 10 am departure, we leave Ooty at 6 am. For the 6 am flights, we leave at 2:30 am and you sleep in the car.
88 to 90 km by the Mettupalayam and Coonoor ghat road, which takes 2 hours 30 minutes in normal conditions and up to 3 hours in the April–June season or during monsoon rain. The first 46 km to Mettupalayam is flat and fast; the last 42 km is the climb and it is where all the time goes.
₹2,500 one way in a sedan, ₹3,400 in an SUV, ₹4,200 in an Innova and ₹7,500 in a 14-seat tempo traveller. Those are all-in figures with fuel, driver, tolls and 5% GST. A same-day return in a sedan is ₹5,200 because the vehicle waits rather than doing two separate runs.
The same ₹2,500 sedan and ₹4,200 Innova fares apply from CJB, because the airport is on the Ooty side of the city. Flight tracking and up to 60 minutes of waiting are included. Night arrivals between 11 pm and 5 am carry a ₹300 hold charge and we tell you that before you book.
Yes, unless the vehicle carries a TN-43 Nilgiris registration. Our Coimbatore-registered vehicles need one and we file it free on epass.tnega.org using your travel dates, passenger count and hotel address. You carry your driving licence or ID and the hotel booking to show at Kallar.
Yes, on the Coonoor ghat only — NH181 is the route buses and trucks use. A 20-seat non-AC coach is ₹9,800 one way and ₹19,792 for a 1N/2D tour including GST. It cannot take Sigur ghat's 36 bends, and inside Ooty we often switch groups to smaller vehicles for Doddabetta and Dolphin's Nose.
For Ooty town only, and only if you leave by 6 am. Five of the day's hours are the 176 km round trip, leaving six or seven in the hills — enough for the Botanical Garden, the lake and Doddabetta, but not Coonoor and definitely not Pykara. One night costs about ₹2,000–3,000 more in vehicle time and changes the trip completely.
Coonoor ghat on NH181 by default: 14 hairpin bends and the only route we take coaches on. We switch to Kotagiri ghat, which has just 4 bends, for guests prone to motion sickness and when NH181 has a landslide closure, and we keep Manjur ghat from Karamadai as the wet-season backup.
Yes, and it is a common plan: we drive you the 46 km to Mettupalayam, you take the Nilgiri Mountain Railway up, and the same driver meets you at Coonoor or Ooty station with your luggage already in the car. Second class tickets are ₹140–295 and open on IRCTC 60 days ahead.
No. Anywhere inside Coimbatore city — Ramanathapuram, RS Puram, Peelamedu, Gandhipuram, Saibaba Colony or the Junction — is the same fare. Pickups from Tiruppur, Pollachi or Palakkad add distance and we quote those per kilometre.
Itinerary, hotel options and an all-in price, on WhatsApp. A real person in Coimbatore replies, 6 am to 11 pm.