10 Things to Do in Kolkata: Trams, Street Food and Durga Puja

The 10 things to do in Kolkata below are the ones that show you how the city actually works rather than the ones a monument list would give you: a sweet shop, a street-food kiosk, a hand-pulled rickshaw, the last tram in India, a book street, a market, a river ghat, a quarter where clay gods are built, a festival and a party street. Kolkata, still Calcutta to plenty of the people who live in it, is a city you have to spend time in before it makes sense, and these ten are how you spend that time.

Two of the ten have changed since most guides were written. The tram network has been cut back to a single heritage stretch, and the Oberoi Grand is shut for restoration, so both are dealt with plainly below.

What to do in Kolkata: 10 things

The 10 things below run from what to eat first to where the night ends, and nine of them cost either nothing or the price of a snack. They are ordered by how early in a trip you are likely to want them, not by importance.

1. Rosogolla and mishti doi

Rosogolla and mishti doi are the two Bengali sweets to eat on your first day, and you will find both at any neighbourhood sweet shop. Rosogolla is a ball of chhena, the fresh cheese Bengali sweets are built on, simmered in sugar syrup. Mishti doi is sweetened curd, set in a clay pot that gives it a slightly earthy edge.

Photo source: Flickr, by Nupur Dasgupta.

A Bengali meal is not considered finished without something sweet after it, which is why the sweet shop is a more reliable cultural introduction than a museum. Eat them even if sweets are not usually your thing.

2. Street food

Kolkata street food means the roll and chow mein above everything else, sold from kiosks clustered around every office district. The roll is a paratha wrapped around egg, chicken or both with onion and chilli, and it is eaten standing up. Chow mein is the city’s own Indian-Chinese dish, a legacy of the Chinese community that settled in Tangra.

The kiosks are temporary, they multiply at the end of the working day, and the focus is on taste rather than on hygiene. Pick a stall with a queue and watch the food come off the heat.

3. Hand-pulled rickshaw

Kolkata is the only city in the world still running licensed hand-pulled rickshaws, and riding one is a decision rather than a sight. A 2006 West Bengal law set out to end the trade on grounds of human dignity, but it was never fully enforced, and the pullers kept working because no alternative livelihood arrived.

What has changed is the economics. No new licences have been issued in decades, garages have closed, and app-based rides have taken the fares. The remaining pullers, most of them older migrants from Bihar and Jharkhand, describe themselves as the last generation doing this. You will see them in the older northern and central quarters rather than across the city.

4. Tram

The Kolkata tram is now a single heritage route between Esplanade and Maidan, and that is the only stretch you can ride. The city ran India’s last tram network for 150 years, and the state transport department confirmed the decision to wind it down, keeping the Esplanade to Maidan section as a joyride past the Victoria Memorial and the cricket and football games on the Maidan.

This matters for planning, because older guides still tell you to take a tram from Esplanade up to College Street. That journey is no longer possible. Ride the heritage stretch for what it is, a short trip in a wooden-floored carriage, and use the metro or a taxi for everything else.

5. College Street

College Street is a second-hand book market about a kilometre long, wedged between the University of Calcutta, Presidency University and several colleges. Booksellers work from wooden stalls along the pavement, and the trade is dense enough that the area is simply called Boi Para, the book neighbourhood.

Photo source: Flickr, by chopr.

Prices on pre-owned books are low and the stallholders will find a title you name rather than make you look. The Indian Coffee House upstairs on Bankim Chatterjee Street is the traditional stop afterwards, and it has been the students’ arguing room for generations.

6. New Market

New Market is where Kolkata shops for everything, and it sells clothes, cold cuts, spices, luggage and flowers under one roof. Its formal name is the Sir Stuart Hogg Market, it opened in 1874, and the rule of thumb locals use is that if New Market does not have it, nowhere in the city does.

Photo source: Flickr, by catenjohn.

Bargaining is expected, particularly on clothing and accessories. The old Hogg Market building has caught fire repeatedly, most recently in July 2025, so parts of the complex can be closed or rebuilt when you arrive; the surrounding market carries on regardless.

7. Prinsep Ghat

Prinsep Ghat is the riverside spot for an unhurried evening, on the east bank of the Hooghly below the Palladian memorial to James Prinsep. The stretch is lit at night, people sit on the steps for hours, and the boats tied up at the bank take passengers out on the water.

Take one around sunset and go under the Vidyasagar Setu, the cable-stayed second Hooghly bridge whose pylons fill the view from here. It is the cheapest hour of pleasure in the city.

8. Kumortuli

Kumortuli is the potters’ quarter in north Kolkata where the clay idols for Bengal’s festivals are built, and it translates literally as the clay artisans’ area. The workshops run year-round, making figures of Durga, Kali, Saraswati and Ganesh from straw frames packed with river clay, and the idols are shipped to Bengali communities abroad as well as across the state.

Go in the weeks before Durga Puja and you will find hundreds of half-finished goddesses standing in the lanes, unpainted, with the straw still showing. Ask before photographing anyone at work.

9. Durga Puja

Durga Puja is the festival the Bengali year is built around, and UNESCO added it to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021. The main days fall in autumn, ending with Vijayadashami on 21 October in 2026.

What makes it worth planning a trip around is the pandals, temporary pavilions put up across the city to house the idols of Durga and her children. Each neighbourhood commissions its own on a theme, and the themes range from architectural reconstructions to film sets. The whole city walks between them at night for several days. Accommodation books out and moving around takes far longer than usual, so decide early whether you want to be here for it.

10. Park Street

Park Street is where Kolkata’s nightlife started and it still carries the weight of that. Newer bars have opened across the city, and this is the strip people return to. Olypub, trading since 1947 under its original name of Olympia Bar and Restaurant, is the unpretentious first drink.

Photo source: Flickr, by Joe Coyle.

Someplace Else inside the Park hotel has run live music nightly since 1994 and is the reliable choice for a band rather than a playlist. Tantra, in the same hotel, is the long-running club. For food, Mocambo and Peter Cat are the two survivors of the street’s Anglo-Indian restaurant era, and the chicken à la Kiev at one and the chelo kebab at the other are what people order at both.

Tour options in Kolkata

A guided walk is the fastest way to make sense of a city whose interest is in its neighbourhoods rather than its monuments. A full day with a guide covers the colonial core, the flower market and the north Kolkata lanes in one go, which would take you three days to work out alone. A full-day guided tour of Kolkata is the version we would book.

Where to stay in Kolkata

Kolkata’s useful accommodation sits in two areas: around New Market and Sudder Street for budget rooms, and around Park Street and the Maidan for everything else. The four options below cover a dorm bed to a chain hotel.

Budget: Bombay Backpackers Kolkata. A bright hostel close to New Market, with clean shared dorms, free wifi, a shared kitchen, a garden terrace and evening events, which makes it the easy landing spot for a first night. Check prices and availability for Bombay Backpackers.

Boutique: The Astor. A century-old building a short walk from the Victoria Memorial and New Market, fully air-conditioned, with a 24-hour desk, a garden and two places to eat inside. Check prices and availability for The Astor.

Chain: JW Marriott Hotel Kolkata. The reliable choice if you want to be out of the heat, with an outdoor pool, two restaurants and a gym. Check prices and availability for JW Marriott Kolkata.

Apartment: Service Apartments, Park Street. Self-catering, central, close to Park Street and New Market, with a kitchenette and air conditioning, which suits a stay of more than a few nights. Check prices and availability for Service Apartments Park Street.

One correction worth making, because plenty of Kolkata hotel lists still carry it: the Oberoi Grand is closed. The heritage hotel on Chowringhee shut on 15 August 2024 for a phased restoration and is not taking bookings, with a partial reopening planned and the full programme running years beyond that. Do not build a trip around it yet.

How to get to Kolkata

Kolkata has one airport, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International at Dum Dum, about 17 km (10.6 mi) north of the centre. Taxis, app cabs and buses all run into town, The metro’s Yellow Line has reached the airport since 25 August 2025, running to Jai Hind station under the terminal, which is the change most worth knowing if you have landed here before. Compare flight options and prices to Kolkata across the airlines that serve it before you book.

More India posts

The two guides below cover what you will be eating for the rest of the trip.

• 9 popular Indian dishes that will make you love Indian cuisine
• 7 vegetarian restaurants in Hampi

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below each prevent a wasted journey in Kolkata, and all four are decisions to make before you set out for the day.

1. Do not plan a tram ride anywhere except Esplanade to Maidan. The rest of the network has gone, and the College Street tram that older guides recommend no longer runs.
2. Book early if you are coming for Durga Puja. Vijayadashami falls on 21 October in 2026, rooms go months ahead, and crossing the city during the festival takes several times as long as usual.
3. Time Kumortuli for the weeks before the festival, not during it. The workshops are at their fullest while the idols are being built; once they have been delivered to the pandals, the lanes are empty.
4. Cross the Oberoi Grand off any list you are working from. It closed in August 2024 for restoration and is not taking guests.

About the author. This list was written by Arnab Nandy, a journalist and travel writer who runs travelandy.com and argues that seeing the world does not require being rich. It is maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team covers India for independent travellers, including the tours, hostels and hotels worth booking in Kolkata, and updates this page when transport, festivals and venues change.