Port Blair Itinerary: 3 Days in the Andaman Capital

My stint with the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands has gone way beyond just a Port Blair itinerary for 3 days. Waiting for permits and ferry schedules made my Port Blair trip plan much longer than I could’ve anticipated in my dreams. The permits and ferry here is a whole other scene, something which I will delve into deeper, in dedicated posts on a travel guide for the Andaman Islands and figuring out the ferry bookings and schedule in the Andaman Islands. But for now, having spent all of two weeks in Port Blair itself, I would like to call myself some kind of a Port Blair connoisseur. I have stayed in multiple locations, eaten at all kinds of places and by this time, and I am confident that I can help you with the perfect Port Blair itinerary 3 days that you need.

To give you a heads up, the Port Blair city itself may not be the most dreamy vacation spot, there’s a whole lot of history involved here which can be seen through museums and galleries, but the natural beauty lies in the outskirts of the city, in nearby islands. In this Port Blair itinerary for 3 days, I need you to look beyond the city as just the capital where permits are procured. If you like natural beauty and outdoorsy experiences just as much as I do, you’re in for a surprise treat through this Port Blair itinerary across 3 days!

🏝️Visiting Port Blair? Here are a few quick links at a glance:
✈️Book Flights: Skyscanner for cheapest deals
🛌Book Hotels: Booking and Expedia for best deals
🤳Best Tours: GetYourGuide, and Viator
🩺Global Travel Insurance: SafetyWing
🧴Sunscreen: Thank You Farmer (Reef Safe), Foxtale (SPF 70)

How to Get to Port Blair

First things first on this Port Blair itinerary 3 days, let’s figure out who one is supposed to reach Port Blair from mainland India, after all. To keep things simple, there are only two possible ways to get to the Andaman Islands from mainland India:

How to Get to Port Blair by Air

The most convenient and time-efficient way to reach Port Blair from mainland India is via air. There are several flights connecting the Andaman Islands to mainland India from major airports. There are both direct and connecting flights available from cities like Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi etc to Port Blair. Depending on the route you fly, it can take anywhere between 4 to 10 hours to complete this journey. Taking a flight to Port Blair is definitely the recommended way to reach the city in this Port Blair itinerary 3 days.

How to Get to Port Blair by Ship

For the more adventurous, and experience-seeking people out there, making your Port Blair trip plan by reaching by ship is yet another option. However, this can come out to be quite heavy on the pocket (unless you take the bunk class) and take up to 3 to 5 days of your time. So beware, coming by ship can make this Andaman 3 day itinerary much longer! The ticket booking process for the ship to Port Blair is yet another challenge in itself. There are only 3 cities that have ships going to Port Blair – Chennai, Vishakhapatnam and Kolkata. The distance from all these cities to Port Blair is more or less the same, however, the duration of your journey can vary depending on weather conditions in the open sea.

This journey, though painstaking, can be an adventure in itself. However, it is recommended that you only book the first-class deluxe cabin with attached bathrooms because the lower you go in terms of ship class and price, the lower quality of your journey you can expect. I’ve heard of plumbing problems in the shared bathrooms of the bunk class, as well as cockroaches crawling around in the lower classes. Take your pick on how you’d like to spend your days before your Port Blair itinerary 3 days even begins!

Best Place to Stay in Port Blair: Kokari Guest House

If there were ever a rapid-fire question and someone asked me to answer what the best places to stay in Port Blair is – I would answer “Kokari Guest House” without skipping a beat. Kokari Guest House is located very close to the Haddo Jetty across the Chatham Bridge, by the Foreshore Road. This means that it’s centrally located, close to the jetty to go on an adventure to Mount Harriet, overlooking the vast blue ocean and Mount Harriet itself peaking out from one side.

Kokari Guest House is named after the Giant Trevally, a fish found abundantly in the Andaman Sea, which is quite a delicacy and is also much sought-after fish in the world of sport fishing. Kokari Guest House opened its doors in 2009. Back then, it used to be the place to go to when anglers from all over the world would come down the Andaman Islands in search of the kokari fish – as the travelly is locally known across the Islands. By 2015, this B&B was open to all kinds of travellers and tourists. With spacious rooms overlooking the ocean, long term rental options, and homely meals, Kokari Guest House are where I felt comfortable, safe and looked after.

The property is run by Darran, a sailing and game fishing enthusiast who is a treasure trove of (mis)adventurous backpacking stories from his early years. Pradeep, the manager makes for a wonderful host who made the time to sit with us and give us a great company and tell us about some truly offbeat places we could visit around the Islands. His daughter, a little girl with a naughty glint in her eye, is an equal delight to be around. Deepak and Joel are the fantastic hands behind each meal that is prepared for love. Deepak, especially, very kindly got up at 4 in the morning to prepare a packed breakfast for us on our onward journey to Neil Island after our Port Blair itinerary 3 days came to an end. Wherever you go on the property, you are greeted with warm smiles that make you want to keep coming back here.

Trust this Port Blair itinerary for 3 days and without batting an eye, book your stay with Kokari Guesthouse. It is my sincere promise that you will not be disappointed.

Port Blair Itinerary 3 Days: Where to Go

Day 1 : Wandoor

On the first day of the Port Blair itinerary 3 days, I’ll assume that you will land in the early morning, having flown a red-eye to save some bucks, much like me. In that case, the best thing to do is to land straight at Kokari Guest House. Get your check-ins out of the way and refresh with a quick nap. Followed by lunch, make your way to the very first stop on the Andaman Islands – the Wandoor Beach to commence this Andaman 3 day itinerary!

Wandoor is a tiny island southwest of Port Blair city and is known for its pristine beach and stunning sunset views. The beach is located about 25 kilometres from Kokari Guest House. You can easily hire a scooter, get a taxi or hop onto a bus to make this trip and come back after sunset. The first sunset on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days should be special, and the best way to make sure that happens is by catching one here!

Wandoor Beach has several chai and snack shops. ANET, the Andaman Nicobar Environment Team, an environmental organization dedicated to researching and protecting the flora and fauna of the Islands also has its headquarters in Wandoor. Several people I met during my travels across the A&N Island, including Mr. Saw John of Koh Hee Homestay in Mayabunder, have worked at ANET and speak highly of its work. If you’re interested in learning about the native wildlife or forests, consider stopping by here to add value to your Port Blair 3 days itinerary.

As you walk up north along Wandoor Beach dotted with sea mohwa trees, you will come across a section that has driftwood after driftwood washed ashore. These make for some fantastic photo ops, and also for admiring the tiny marine life that starts growing here!

Day 2 : Mount Harriet National Park

On day two of your 3 days in Port Blair, consider going on an adventure to Mount Harriet National Park. Mount Harriet is the highest point of the South Andaman district, and the third-highest in all of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The mountain overlooks several of the South Andaman islands including Havelock, Neil and Ross. It is home to a large variety of birds, some endemic to the islands, a sight one seeing – one of the best things to do in Port Blair.

For this day trip on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days, I suggest you wake up early and leave Kokari Guest House by 6:30 am and hop on the first ferry headed to Bambooflat from the Haddo Jetty. Haddo Jetty is located less than a kilometre away from Kokari Guest House, which makes life so much simpler! Just hop on your scooter, drive to Haddo Jetty past the Chatham Bridge, get yourself and your scooter loaded onto the ferry and get off on the other side, at Bambooflat! The ferry trip costs INR 11 per person and INR 40 for a two-wheeler.

Mount Harriet National Park View Point

To reach Mount Harriet National Park – now named Manipur National Park – you must drive uphill around 8 kilometres from the Bambooflat Jetty. There are rickshaws available but these will be expensive and I highly recommend taking a rented scooter along to make things easier. Before you reach the top, you must pay INR 50 per person and INR 120 for the two-wheeler at the forest checkpoint. On the way to the top, you can check out the ruins of the erstwhile house of Harriet Tyler, the wife of a British army officer who was posted here, after who this mountain was originally named.

Right before you reach the top of Mount Harriet, there is a lunch canteen (that was closed both times when we visited – perhaps that’s been the way since COVID). Here, there is also a parking space beyond which no vehicles are allowed. The top of the mountain is just a hundred meters walk from here, on a well-paved blacktop road. Once at the top, you can find carefully manicured lawns – a little offputting in a national park, if we’re being honest. However, the viewpoint gazebos offer stunning views of the neighbouring islands like Havelock, Neil and Ross with signboards showing you which way is which island. It’s a beautiful, quiet place to just sit and watch birds go about their business and the sky meets the ocean across a hundred shades of blue. Mount Harriet National Park is definitely worth putting on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days!

Kalapathar Trek

At the top of Mount Harriet, you will see a wooden signboard indicating the way to Kalapathar Trek. This is a beautiful trail going through the stunning rainforest that Mount Harriet should actually be known for – and not just the viewpoints and garden that now flourish at the peak. Although the Kalapthar point has a dark history behind it, the magical forest trail is definitely worth adding to your Port Blair itinerary 3 days.

Kalapathar is actually that – a big black rock – from where prisoners used to be pushed down a steep cliff to death as a form of capital punishment during the British Raj. I have to warn you, though – don’t expect a whole lot at the end of the hike. There’s nothing to “see” apart from the big black rock but definitely do go for the beautiful trail abound by endemic trees and plants. If you are on the more adventurous side, consider hiking further up from Kalapthar to Mount Carpenter, another peak within the Mount Harriet National Park.

Pro tip: Don't go for the Kalapathar Hike if it's raining or was raining in the area up until a few days ago. The forest gets infested with leeches during wet days and trust me when I say this, you do not want to go through the horrors of flicking off at least a 100 odd leeches and still come back with 30+ bloody bites on ya!

Madhuban Beach

Another beautiful place to visit within the Mount Harriet National Park is the pristine Madhuban Beach. Since COVID, the trek to Madhuban Beach has been closed off – the logic of which evades me. But from what I heard, if you can convince a local fisherman to take you to Madhuban in his dinghy, it’s definitely worth a trip on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days – the perfect place to catch the sunset from, after your hike up to Kalapathar.

Day 3 : Chidiya Tapu

Congrats, you have successfully completed 2 days in Port Blair! I’d say, you save the best for the last on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days. Chidiya Tapu is exactly what its name suggests – a bird island. If there’s one place you must go for a complete outdoorsy adventure, let it be Chidiya Tapu. This island is located about 30 kilometres from Kokari Guest House. If you begin at dawn, you get to this paradisical island right on time to catch the island’s birds in action, definitely one of the best things to do in Port Blair. In case birding is not something you’re interested in, definitely consider doing the Munda Pahad Trek. Apart from this popular hike, you can also consider doing the Chota Balu and the Bada Balu Beach hikes.

Munda Pahad Trek

If there’s one thing you do on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days, let it be the Munda Pahad hike. It’s a very easy trail that takes less than an hour to reach the summit. At the top, you get stunning, open views of the ocean accompanied by birdsong obviously! If you time your hike right, you can even catch the sunset from there and then head back down which shouldn’t take more than 40 minutes. Trust me, it’s an experience definitely worth having on your Port Blair itinerary 3 days, one of the best things to do in Port Blair.

Sunset Point

Once you’re back from your Munda Pahad hike, consider spending your last Port Blair itinerary 3 days sunset at the Sunset Point on Chidiya Tapu. It is probably the most magical sunset you will witness during your 3 days in Port Blair, and you’ll thank me for it!

Pro tip: Hang out by the Hashtag Chai Cafe, the only reasonably priced place to eat on the entire island that also has a friendly host and a fulfilling menu.

Port Blair Itinerary 3 Days: More Options

If by any chance, you end up spending more than just 3 days in Port Blair during your Port Blair itinerary 3 days, I have a list compiled just in case. This list came in handy for me when I was stuck in Port Blair during the Cyclone Jawad, waiting for a ferry to take me to Hut Bay in Little Andaman. These places kept me sane even in a cyclone, so I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy them when the weather’s in your favour –

Foreshore Road Sunrise Point

This Sunrise Point is actually just walking distance from Kokari Guest House. You can club this on the day you decide to visit Mount Harriet National Park. Watch the sunrise behind a sea lined with ferries and ships ready to get started with the day. This is a great place to sit in silence and watch the world wake up slowly, or even go for an inter-tidal pool walk like the one on Neil Island, to add some learning to your Port Blair itinerary 3 days, definitely one of the best things to do in Port Blair.

Corbyn’s Cove for Sunset

I’m told Corbyn’s Cove used to be the quiet place to get away from the hustle-bustle of the city back in the day. Today, it is to Port Blair what Juhu Chowpatty is to Mumbai! And yet, I add this here on your Port Blair 3 days itinerary because it’s never a bad idea to go check out the place where tourists and locals love to hang out, especially on weekends. There are also a few Japanese war bunkers from World War II here which you can check out.

North Bay Lighthouse and Water Activities

If you open up the good ol’ red 20 rupees note, you will notice a tiny lighthouse peaking from behind palm fronds. This lighthouse, ladies and gentlemen, is the red and one lighthouse located at North Bay which can be visible from several parts of the city. In case you’re interested in trying out some water activities in Port Blair such as snorkelling and scuba diving, this is the place to go. But I will advise against it on this Port Blair itinerary 3 days, and urge you to spend your money and time on water activities at Neil Island or Havelock Island instead.

Jogger’s Park

Jogger’s Park is yet another place to go to if you want to go where the locals love to spend their time. This park is making to this Port Blair itinerary 3 days purely because of its stunning location. Overlooking the Veer Savarkar Airport, or simply the Port Blair airport as most of us know it, it’s the perfect place to come and catch a sunset along with watching planes land and take off. I’d say this is to Port Blair what Jumbo Point is to Delhi – but of course, with better air quality!

Best Time to Visit Port Blair

The best time to visit Port Blair – or any other part of the Andaman Islands – is from December until April. This is when the weather is at its quietest post the cyclone season which lasts until November. So if you’re looking for dry and sunny days with calm seas, this is definitely the window you should be looking at for your Port Blair itinerary 3 days!

How to Get Around in Port Blair

The most convenient way to get around in Port Blair is to definitely rent a scooter. As has already been mentioned several times across this Port Blair itinerary 3 days, it’s best if you have a scooter on you, especially for places like Mount Harriet National Park. The best place for scooter rentals in Port Blair is to head to Syndicate Mess. Right opposite, there are several rental shops you can check out. The going rate for scooter rental in Port Blair is INR 500/ day and it’s really hard to negotiate unless you’re taking it for an extended duration, so good luck!

Rickshaws are easily accessible throughout Port Blair city so if your explorations are going to be limited within the city limits, you don’t have to worry about finding a rickshaw. These are reasonably priced, too – about 25 rupees per kilometre. Not a bad deal considering most places are located within a 5 kilometres radius in the city!

Port Blair city also has great public bus connectivity, though it can take some time to figure out the routes. Buses are also a good option for visiting Wandoor and Chidiya Tapu. Buses even go as far as Diglipur, Mayabunder and Rangat in the North and Middle Andaman District, in case you’re looking for options beyond the Port Blair itinerary 3 days.

Places to Eat in Port Blair

I’ll be honest with you – Port Blair does not have a very great food scene. The three most famous eating joints here – Icy Spicey Restaurant, Annapurna Canteen and Anju Coco all serve just about average food which is extremely overpriced (think 180 rupees for a plain dosa). I was quite disappointed by the food scene in the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, so I’m not sure what I can suggest for food in this Port Blair itinerary 3 days.

Also read: “Getting a Food Coma in Jaisalmer”.

But if there’s one thing to the city that had me floored, it was its biryani culture. Every few hundred meters you can find a small corner serving biryani by the plate for as low as 70 rupees! I even came across mobile biryani shops – mostly a bunch of vans going around the city with an overhead speaker marking their announcement.

The Food Truck Street at Marina Park is yet another one of the famous spots in the city. It has around 10 different food trucks (and one modified motorcycle!) selling different kinds of food from seafood to your regular rolls and pizzas. But truth be told, I found these average and overpriced yet again.

But if there’s one thing I can assure you about the food scene in Port Blair, it is this – so long you will stay at Kokari Guest House, you will not go hungry. Deepak loves feeding people so throughout your Port Blair itinerary 3 days, you can bank on the good folks at Kokari B&B to keep you full and happy. They serve some mad freshly cooked seafood at request. Make sure to request some crab or lobster delicacies while you’re there. For the vegetarians in the house, they have some homely meals available to order as well!

Suggested read: “Best Cafes to Eat in Bir Billing”.

Port Blair Itinerary 3 Days: FAQs

Is 3 days enough for Andaman?

I think it’s safe to say having read this Port Blair itinerary 3 days, that three days in all of the Andaman Islands are definitely not enough. 3 days in Port Blair is a fair deal so I’d say if you’re coming this far from the mainland, at least come with a week on hand so you’re able to do the popular tourist circuit, if not visit some of the offbeat places on the Islands.

How many days are sufficient for Port Blair?

As mentioned in this Port Blair 3 days itinerary, I think at least 2 days in Port Blair are required to go around some of the most beautiful spots of the city, especially Chidiya Tapu and Mount Harriet. However, 3 days in Port Blair is definitely the sweet spot – it gives you enough time to relax, and to go around as well! A lot of people don’t even spend a single night in the city and head straight to Havelock and I think that’s a grave mistake – for they must out on some quite incredible places! So if you’ve been wondering about how to plan a Port Blair trip, this Port Blair tour itinerary has your back!

Is Port Blair worth visiting?

Port Blair, in its own self, does not have a lot going on. But islands around the capital city such as Chidiya Tapu and Wandoor, as already mentioned before in this Port Blair itinerary 3 days, are quite beautiful and definitely worth a visit. Trust this Port Blair tour itinerary blindly as it is definitely the best travel itinerary for Andaman! (Blowing my own trumpet, eh!)

Which is the best area to stay in Port Blair?

Kokari Guest House is definitely the best place to stay in Port Blair. As has been established in this Port Blair itinerary 3 days already, it’s a beautiful property overlooking the ocean, close to the airport as well as the Phoenix Jetty.

How far is Andaman from Port Blair?

Port Blair is the capital city of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a Union Territory of India! Port Blair is about 1500 kilometres away from the east coast in mainland India.

We love transparency! My stay in Port Blair was sponsored by Kokari Guest House but I promise my views are all one hundred perectn genuine – and cannot be bought!

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