Odisha India Travel Guide 2026: Konark, Puri, Bhubaneswar, Chilika and Similipal Complete Guide
Browse more guides: India travel | Asia destinations Odisha India Travel Guide 2026: Konark, Puri, Bhubaneswar, Chilika and Similipal Complete Guide TL;DR I planned my first long Odisha trip with three questions: how good is the Konark Sun Temple in person, can a non-Hindu actually see anything at the Jagannath Temple in Puri, and is Chilika Lake worth the long drive south. After two weeks on the ground I can answer yes, yes (with limits), and absolutely yes. Odisha covers 155,707 square kilometres on India's eastern coast, holds about 42 million people, speaks Odia, and gets far fewer foreign visitors than Rajasthan or Kerala, which is exactly why I loved it. The core route is simple. Fly into Bhubaneswar's Biju Patnaik International Airport (the new Veer Surendra Sai terminal opened in 2018 with direct flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Dubai and Bangkok), then build a Golden Triangle of Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri over five days. Bhubaneswar is called the...