Things to do in Nagpur

Culture · Near Nagpur University, central-south

The white dome — among the largest hollow stupas in Asia — marking where Dr B. R. Ambedkar and several hundred thousand followers converted to Buddhism on 14 October 1956, founding the Navayana movement.

Local tip: Come on an ordinary weekday morning when it is quiet and the scale registers, or on Dhammachakra Pravartan Din each Vijayadashami when well over a million people arrive and the whole city reorganises around it. This is the most historically consequential place in central India and most visitors leave without knowing it exists.

Landmark · Civil Lines

A sandstone pillar and four stone horses marking the Great Trigonometrical Survey's reference point, from which distances across colonial India were measured.

Local tip: It takes four minutes to see and sits on a traffic island, which is the joke and the point. The metro station named after it is the easier way to get there than driving.

Landmark · Sitabuldi, central

The 1817 hilltop fort that decided the battle for central India, now an army installation and closed almost all year.

Local tip: It opens to the public on just three days a year — Republic Day, Independence Day and 1 May. If you are here on one of them, go; if not, you cannot, and no amount of asking changes it. Almost nobody outside Nagpur knows this.

Nature · 90 minutes north; 3 hours south

Two of India's most productive tiger reserves, with Nagpur as the airport and road gateway to both — plus Umred-Karhandla and Bor closer in.

Local tip: Core-zone permits open online through the forest department well ahead and sell out for weekends. Buffer zones book more easily and sightings there have been excellent in recent years. Go in the hot months if you actually want to see a tiger — April and May concentrate animals at the waterholes.

Nature · West of the city

The city's two main lakes — Ambazari with a long walking loop and a garden, Futala with a promenade, a musical fountain and a line of food carts.

Local tip: Futala after dark on a weekday is where Nagpur actually goes out. The tarri poha and the chaat carts along the road are better than anything you will find in a restaurant, and the whole thing is a few hundred rupees.

Culture · Kamptee, 20 km north

A white Japanese-funded Buddhist temple in a landscaped garden, built in the 1990s and quietly one of the most beautiful modern buildings in the region.

Local tip: Pair it with Deekshabhoomi for a day that explains why Nagpur is a centre of Indian Buddhism at all. Go early — it is calm, the sandalwood Buddha is worth the trip, and the gardens are properly kept.