Diwali vacation triggers boom in domestic tourism in Gujarat

Ahmedabad

A kilometer long traffic jam, nearly 100 cars parked on both sides of a narrow road inside the jungle. Tea shop, Chinese food shop, burger, ice-cream van and more at offer inside the jungle and at least 500 people enjoying picnic on riverside at anytime.

This is Polo forest in north Gujarat, one of the best conserved thick forests in Gujarat, and a very popular picnic/outing/hiking place emerged in recent years.

But Polo forest is not just one place which is witnessing heavy rush of visitors these days during Diwali vacation. Every other tourist attraction is full of hundreds of and thousands of visitors.

Yesterday a gentleman on Facebook was ranting about heavy traffic on Ahmedabad-Rajkot highway. He said the traffic jam on highway is matching to traffic jam on busy road of city. At least 10 people are killed an 15 are injured in different road mishaps in last 24 hours across the state on highways.

Due to nonavailability of domestic air services and fully booked trains, lot of people are choosing domestic outing of 1-2-3 days as last option during Diwali vacation.

Kutch, Sorath(Junagadh-Diu belt), Saputara are popular places that attract visitors for more than one days of travel/stay while other smaller places like Ambaji, Jambughoda, Polo forest, Pavagadh etc attract visitors for a single day.

Like every year, the season of domestic tourism has brought brisk business to locals.

Ask Khamabhai who offers horse riding to visitors in Polo forest, or Kalubhai who runs rifle shooting activity with couple of rifles and balloons. They all just don’t want Diwali season to end.

– DeshGujarat