People ask me this almost every Monday morning. They have ten days, a flight into Bagdogra, and a choice to make. Do we base ourselves in Gangtok first and move west, or do we start with Darjeeling and climb east? I have been making this call for guests since 2012 and I have changed my mind more than once. The answer is not the same for everyone, but the reasoning is usually the same, and this is how I walk through it on the phone.
The short answer
Start with Darjeeling if it is your first time in the Eastern Himalayas, if you are travelling with older parents, or if you want the softer, tea-garden introduction. Start with Gangtok if you are planning to push north to Lachen and Lachung, if you are short on time, or if you want the livelier town first and the quieter hill station second. Everything else is nuance. Here is the nuance.
Gangtok at a glance
Gangtok sits at 1,650 metres on a single long ridge. It is the capital of Sikkim, a working city of about 100,000 people, with a pedestrianised main street called MG Marg where nobody is allowed to smoke, litter or drive. The energy is urban — cafés open at eight, bars close at eleven, the ropeway runs from Deorali to Tashiling every fifteen minutes. On a clear October morning you can stand at Tashi Viewpoint and see Kanchenjunga, all 8,586 metres of it, framed between two pine branches. I have watched first-timers stop mid-sentence at that view.
Hotels run the full range. A clean budget room at The Golden Pagoda or Hotel Tibet costs around 3,500 to 4,500 rupees a night in season. Mid-range like Summit Golden Crescent or Denzong Regency sits in the 6,500 to 9,000 bracket. The top end — Mayfair Spa Resort on the Ridge — starts at 22,000 and goes well past that for the suites with the Kanchenjunga-facing balcony. Food is better than people expect. Taste of Tibet does the momos and thukpa most locals still eat, and The Coffee Shop at Baker's Cafe does a workable all-day breakfast.
The quirks: the ridge means everything is either a climb or a descent. No flat walks. The weather turns in an hour — clear sun at eleven, full cloud at one, sun again by four. And Gangtok is the springboard for the stuff that actually pulls people here: Tsomgo Lake and Nathu La to the east, Rumtek Monastery twenty-four kilometres south, and the long drive north to Lachung and Lachen that I still love after a hundred trips.
Darjeeling at a glance
Darjeeling is 2,042 metres, older, smaller in feel, slower. It sits in West Bengal, not Sikkim, which catches some guests out — different state, different tax rates, no need for any permit to enter. The town is built around The Mall, a broad flat promenade, and Chowrasta, the square where the buskers play at four in the afternoon. Tiger Hill, 11 kilometres away, is where people wake at 3:30 a.m. to see the sun hit Kanchenjunga over Sandakphu. On a bad day you see fog. On a good day you see why people have been coming here since 1839.
The Toy Train — officially the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999 — is the obvious draw. The two-hour joy ride from Darjeeling to Ghum via Batasia Loop costs around 1,500 rupees for the first-class coach, 800 for chair class, and leaves at 8:00, 10:40 and 13:20 from Darjeeling station. Book the day before. The full journey from NJP up to Darjeeling is ten hours and I do not recommend it unless you are a serious railway person — the road is quicker and less spine-compressing.
Tea is the other thing. Happy Valley is the closest estate — fifteen minutes from the Mall, working since 1854, tours at eleven and three — but the better visit is Glenburn or Makaibari, each an hour out, with a stay option if you can afford the 18,000 to 28,000 a night. Darjeeling hotels at the top end mean Glenburn Penthouse or Mayfair Darjeeling; mid-range is Viceroy or Seven Seventeen around 5,500 to 8,000; budget Dekeling at 3,200 is the cleanest room I know at that price. Food is worse than Gangtok, honestly. Keventer's breakfast is a nostalgia trip, not a meal. Glenary's bakery is reliable.
Which to visit first, really
The textbook answer is to do the lower, gentler one first so your body acclimatises before the big altitude. That logic works if you are pushing to Gurudongmar at 5,430 metres later in the trip. Gangtok at 1,650 is below Darjeeling at 2,042, so technically Gangtok comes first on altitude. But the difference is 400 metres and nobody gets AMS at either. In practice, the order that matters is energy level, not altitude.
For first-timers
Darjeeling first. It is gentler, the roads are better known, the famous-name sights (Toy Train, Tiger Hill, Happy Valley, the HMI Museum) are all inside an hour. By the time you arrive in Gangtok two or three days later you have warmed up, understood what hill-station air feels like, and the sharper Gangtok pace will feel like a gear-up rather than a shock.
For honeymoons
Gangtok first, then Pelling, then a night at Glenburn. Skip Darjeeling town itself if you can — it is busier and more commercial than newlyweds usually expect. The tea-estate bungalows are where the romance sits. Gangtok gives you one lively evening at MG Marg before you retreat into the quieter circuit.
For families with kids
Darjeeling first, hands down. The Toy Train, the Padmaja Naidu Zoo with its red pandas and snow leopards, the HMI museum, the ropeway — children have something every morning. Gangtok with kids is harder: the ridge is steep, the ropeway is one ride not five, and Tsomgo Lake day is an early start with altitude. Do Darjeeling for three days with the kids fresh, then Gangtok as the change of pace.
For solo travellers
Gangtok first. The cafés have wifi, MG Marg is safe to walk alone at any hour, and you can find other travellers at the hostels on Paljor Stadium Road. Darjeeling on your own is quieter and a bit lonelier — better as a two-night wind-down at the end of the trip than as the opener.
“The guest who told me "we did Darjeeling first and I thought we had peaked too early" — they had. They went to Gangtok three days later and realised the state was bigger than the hill station. Order matters.”
Do both if you can — here's how
In ten days you get both, comfortably, with a North Sikkim push in the middle. This is the rough frame we use for the most-booked version of the trip:
- Day 1–3 — Darjeeling. Arrive NJP, drive up. Toy Train day, Tiger Hill morning, Happy Valley afternoon.
- Day 4 — Drive Darjeeling to Gangtok, 4.5 hours via Teesta Bazar. Evening walk on MG Marg.
- Day 5 — Gangtok local: Rumtek, Do Drul Chorten, Enchey Monastery, ropeway.
- Day 6 — Tsomgo Lake and Baba Mandir day trip (Nathu La if Indian and it is a permit day).
- Day 7 — Drive Gangtok to Lachung, 5 hours. Permit processed that morning.
- Day 8 — Yumthang Valley and Zero Point at dawn, back to Lachung or onward to Lachen.
- Day 9 — Gurudongmar Lake pre-dawn start, return to Gangtok by evening.
- Day 10 — Drive down to Bagdogra, fly home.
One more thing that does not always get said. The two towns feel different and they should. Gangtok is Buddhist, Sikkimese, quieter than you expect after dark, with a mountain on every horizon. Darjeeling is Gorkha, Bengali, British-hangover, with tea gardens rolling in every direction. Doing both is not repetition. It is two different Himalayas in the same trip.
Common questions
The five questions below come up on almost every call. If yours is not here, write to us — I will add it.
