Ooty Travel Guide: Tea Gardens and the Nilgiri Toy Train

Ooty is one of the old British hill stations in the Western Ghats, offering cool air, tea gardens and the famous Nilgiri toy train — a welcome break from a temple-heavy trail through the plains.

• The Nilgiri toy train, winding through terraced tea gardens
• Tea plantations around the town
• The cool hill-station air itself, a change from the plains

A couple of nights is typical for a hill-station break, added to a Tamil Nadu itinerary as a change of pace rather than a headline stop.

Ooty's hill-station climate is cooler than the plains year-round, which is much of its appeal; the same November-to-March window that suits the rest of Tamil Nadu works well here too, and it is a natural relief during the hotter April-to-June months elsewhere in the state.

Ooty is reached by private car, usually added on to a temple-trail itinerary as a hill-station break, often alongside Kodaikanal.