3 ways to celebrate World Tourism Day without leaving your city

This September 27, skip the flight bookings, put down the guidebooks, and see the streets you live in with fresh eyes.
Sheikh Memon Street in Zaveri Bazaar, located in the Kalbadevi area of Mumbai with the Juma Masjid in the background.
Sheikh Memon Street in Zaveri Bazaar, located in the Kalbadevi area of Mumbai with the Juma Masjid in the background.

We are all guilty of it. We hoard annual leaves, obsess over airfare portals, and convince ourselves that true enlightenment only strikes when we're jet-lagged and eating something we cannot pronounce. Meanwhile, we treat our own cities like glorified airport transit lounges, hurrying between home and work while ignoring the world outside the windscreen. This September 27, World Tourism Day, consider giving your hometown the attention you reserve for places thousands of kilometres away. 

1. Find the oldest eatery in your neighbourhood

tea getting brewed in a pot
Order whatever the guy next to you is having, whether it is a scorched mutton curry, a bowl of tripe, or black tea brewed in a pot that has never been scrubbed.

Nothing tells you more about a district than the places feeding its night-shift workers, cabbies and insomniacs. Walk past the sterile, beige café chains and find a small, unassuming canteen that has been running on the same street corner for forty years. Order whatever the cook is known for, take your time over the meal and ask the person at the till when the place first opened. A plate of slow-cooked curry or a hot cup of tea at a communal table will tell you more about the neighbourhood's living history than a dozen sanitised listicles ever will.

2. Spend an hour in the municipal museum

The Tibet Museum, Upmuhal, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India
Wander through the dimly lit rooms containing rusty colonial surveying tools, poorly stuffed taxidermy, or cracked regional pottery from two thousand years ago.The Tibet Museum, Upmuhal, Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh, India

Every city has a forgotten, slightly tragic museum run by an underpaid custodian who seems genuinely shocked when an actual human walks through the door. We travel across the globe to stare at foreign relics, yet rarely step into the quiet halls five kilometres from home. Go there this weekend. Skip the fancy, privately owned galleries with velvet ropes and look through the sepia-toned street photographs, regional textile exhibits or rusted tools from an older trade. Strike up a conversation with the staff on duty. They often know the city's history inside out and can tell you things about your neighbourhood that you might never learn from a guidebook.

3. Ride a bus from end to end

Sit by the window and take the bus all the way to the last depot where the concrete thins out into scrubland and freight yards.
Sit by the window and take the bus all the way to the last depot where the concrete thins out into scrubland and freight yards.

Step onto a public bus you have never boarded before, buy a ticket to the end of the line and secure a window seat. As the bus grinds away from the central commercial zones, the landscape changes. You will watch the social classes shift, the accents bend and the architecture give way in real time. It is an unvarnished cross-section of your world, stripped of marketing spin. If you can’t find wonder in that mess, you have no business booking a flight anywhere else.


Email: anoushkakundu@newindianexpress.com

For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.

Sheikh Memon Street in Zaveri Bazaar, located in the Kalbadevi area of Mumbai with the Juma Masjid in the background.
Why are luxury resorts making ordinary activities feel luxurious?
World Tourism Day
World Tourism Day 2026

FOLLOW US

ON GOOGLE DISCOVER
X
IndulgExpress
www.indulgexpress.com