Booking a Puja holiday: a calendar that works

For many Kolkata families, the Puja holiday is the trip of the year, and every year some of them leave planning too late. Trains are full, hotels in Darjeeling and Gangtok are booked out, and prices rise. Here is the calendar we suggest for a holiday starting around Dashami.

By June, decide where you want to go and roughly for how long. Talk to us early even if dates are not final; we can hold hotel rooms in popular places like Pelling or Lachung with a small deposit, refundable within our cancellation terms. Hill hotels with good views are the first to fill.

In July and early August, train booking opens, 60 days before the travel date. For Darjeeling and Sikkim, trains from Howrah and Sealdah to New Jalpaiguri sell out within minutes of opening on popular dates. We book the moment reservations open and keep a flight option in reserve. By 15 August, confirm the trip with 25% of the package price. In September, send ID copies and photographs for Sikkim permits, and pay the second instalment of 50% thirty days before departure. This is also the time to talk to us about older parents, special diets or children’s needs, so we can choose rooms and pace accordingly.

A week before travel, pay the balance and receive your final itinerary, hotel vouchers, the car driver’s number and your tour manager’s contact. If you are reading this in September and have not booked, all is not lost: Puri, the Sundarbans and Rajasthan often have rooms when the hills do not.