Vizag Tourist Places: 20 Spots with Fees (2026)

Vizag sightseeing splits into three pockets, and planning it that way saves you a lot of driving. There is the Beach Road strip, where the museums and most of the beaches sit within a few km of each other. There are the hills and temples just inland, Kailasagiri, Simhachalam, the zoo, Thotlakonda. And then there are the Eastern Ghats day trips at 85 to 120 km, which means Borra Caves, Araku and Lambasingi. Do not mix pockets in one day.

City tickets are cheap, ₹5 to ₹70 for Indian adults almost everywhere. The two things that cost real money are the Kailasagiri glass skywalk and the Araku trip.

Entry fees at a glance, Indian adults

• Kailasagiri park: ₹5 per head, plus ₹50 for a car at the ghat road gate
• Kailasagiri glass skywalk: ₹200 to ₹250
• Kailasagiri ropeway: ₹200 return adult, ₹100 child at most counters
• INS Kurusura Submarine Museum: ₹70, child ₹40
• TU 142 Aircraft Museum: ₹70, child ₹40
• Indira Gandhi Zoological Park: ₹70, child ₹30
• Thotlakonda: ₹20
• Dolphin's Nose lighthouse: ₹10
• Borra Caves: ₹60, child ₹45, phone camera ₹25
• Beaches, Erra Matti Dibbalu, Bavikonda, Bojjannakonda: free

Fees get revised and different counters quote differently, specially for the ropeway, so budget ₹20 to ₹50 of slack per ticket. Card and UPI work at most city counters, carry cash for Borra, Katiki and the Araku stops.

Places to visit inside Vizag city

1. Kailasagiri

Hilltop park above the city, roughly 8 to 10 km from Visakhapatnam railway station, 25 to 30 minutes by cab in normal traffic. Some listings say 15 km, that's measured from a different point. Park timings are 10 am to 8 pm, a few older boards still say 10 am to 5.30 pm, so confirm at the gate if you are planning a late evening. Entry ₹5 a head. Vehicle charge on the ghat road is ₹20 for two-wheelers, ₹50 for cars, ₹150 for a mini bus, ₹300 for a tourist bus.

The ropeway runs 11 am to 1 pm, breaks for lunch, then 2 pm to 8 pm. Round trip is ₹200 adult and ₹100 child at most counters, some sources still list ₹150 and ₹80. The toy train has been out of service, so don't promise the kids a train ride. On top there's the 40 foot Shiva Parvati statue, a floral clock, and ziplining and sky cycling which run about ₹250 to ₹1,250 depending on the activity.

The glass skywalk is also up here. It opened on 1 December 2025, a 55 m cantilever walkway and currently India's longest of that type. Tickets: ₹250 for one person, ₹650 for two adults with one child, ₹800 for two adults with two children, ₹200 per head for groups of 10 or more, ₹220 per head for five or more friends, ₹1,000 for the VIP skip-the-queue ticket. Open 9 am to 8 pm, but the counter closes somewhere between 6.30 and 7.30 pm.

Important: only 40 people are allowed on the bridge per batch and each batch gets five to ten minutes, so on weekends and holidays the queue is the real cost. Reach before 11 am or expect to wait. People with vertigo should sit this one out, the floor is glass all through.

2. RK Beach and the Victory at Sea memorial

Ramakrishna Beach is the long promenade along Beach Road, about 3 to 4 km from the railway station. Free, open all hours, busiest between 5 pm and 9 pm. This is a walking and eating beach, not a swimming beach. The undertow is strong and locals treat it that way, stay at the waterline. Lifeguards have been deployed at RK Beach and some other points, but don't go in past the shallows.

The Victory at Sea war memorial sits on the same stretch, free, no timings. Club the memorial, the submarine and the aircraft museum together, they are all within walking distance of each other.

3. INS Kurusura Submarine Museum

A decommissioned Soviet built submarine pulled up on the sand at RK Beach, the first submarine museum in Asia. Closed on Monday. Tuesday to Saturday it is 2 pm to 8.30 pm, Sunday it opens in the morning too, 10 am to 12.30 pm and then 2 pm to 8.30 pm. Entry ₹70 for adults, ₹40 for children below 12. Still camera ₹50, video ₹200.

Inside it is narrow, hot and low. Tall people will duck a lot. Twenty-five to forty minutes is enough. There are combo tickets doing the rounds, around ₹100 for submarine plus aircraft museum and about ₹140 for three museums, ask at the counter because the combo list changes.

4. TU 142 Aircraft Museum

Right opposite the submarine, so you cannot miss it. A Soviet era TU-142M maritime patrol aircraft the Navy flew for 29 years. ₹70 per adult, ₹40 per child, and the district administration lists no separate camera charge. Timings follow the submarine, 2 pm to 8.30 pm Monday to Saturday, with a morning slot on Sunday. There's an audio guide included and a VR flight simulator platform the kids usually want a second turn on.

5. Visakha Museum and VMRDA Park

Two small Beach Road fillers for a spare hour. Visakha Museum is in an old building about 5 to 6 km from the railway station, 11 am to 7 pm, ₹10 for adults and ₹5 for children, with city history, naval and local collections. VMRDA Park, which older boards and cab drivers still call VUDA Park, charges ₹20 to ₹30 per adult and ₹15 per child and is open roughly 8.30 am to 8.30 pm, confirm before you plan an evening around it. It's for families with small kids, rides and lawns, nothing more.

The old Matsyadarshini aquarium building on Beach Road is no longer operating as before, so don't build an itinerary around it, check locally first.

6. Rushikonda Beach

About 15 km from the railway station on the Bhimili road, 30 to 40 minutes. Free entry. This is the one beach in Andhra Pradesh with Blue Flag certification, which was restored in March 2025 after a suspension. The managed zone with lifeguards and water sports usually works around 6 am to 7 pm.

If anyone in the group wants to actually get into the sea, this is the place to do it, inside the marked zone, with the lifeguards on duty. Jet ski, banana boat and kayaking are available, rates move with season and operator so ask two or three of them. Sunday mornings are crowded by 8 am.

7. Tenneti Park and Lawson's Bay

Tenneti Park is on the Beach Road between RK Beach and Rushikonda, free, 6 am to 9 pm. Good for a ten-fifteen minute stop and the public toilets. Lawson's Bay is a smaller crescent beach a bit further up, calmer water than RK, popular with morning walkers. Both are free, both are quick, neither needs more than half an hour.

8. Simhachalam temple

Sri Varaha Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy temple, on a hill about 16 km from the city centre, roughly 45 minutes up a ghat road. The deity stays covered in sandalwood paste through the year. On Akshaya Tritiya the paste is removed for Chandanotsavam and that is the one day you get nijaroopa darshan, which also means enormous crowds and separate ticketing.

General timings are about 7 am to 4 pm and again 6 pm to 9 pm, but the darshan slots are broken up through the day and get changed for festivals and for the monthly rituals, so check the current board or the temple notice before you leave the hotel. Sarva darshan is free or a nominal ₹10, special darshan is around ₹50 and the quick entry is around ₹100 per head. Dress conservatively, leave leather and phones in the counters, and go before 9 am on a weekend.

9. Indira Gandhi Zoological Park

Closed Monday. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9 am to 5 pm. ₹70 per adult and ₹30 per child, still camera ₹50, video ₹200. The battery operated vehicle is ₹70 per adult and ₹50 per child, and a cycle costs ₹100, which is worth it because the zoo sits on 625 acres inside the Seethakonda reserve forest with over 120 species. Walking the whole thing in the afternoon heat with kids goes badly.

It's about 9 to 16 km from the city depending on where you start, roughly between the city and Kambalakonda. Budget two to three hours. Go at opening time, the animals are out and the walk is bearable.

10. Kambalakonda

Eco park and wildlife sanctuary on the edge of the city, just off the national highway. Open all days, 9 am to 4.30 pm. ₹10 for adults, ₹5 for children, vehicle entry ₹200 which covers five people. Cottages are ₹250 and trekking is ₹150 for a group of ten. The trek starts around 6 am and takes about three hours to get back, so it has to be planned the previous day, you cannot decide at the gate at 10 am. There's a small lake with boating and spotted deer inside.

11. Dolphin's Nose lighthouse

This one catches people out. The lighthouse is only open 3 pm to 5 pm, a two hour window, and the whole headland is a Navy controlled area. Carry original physical ID cards for everyone, not photos on the phone. The staff may hold the driver's licence until you come back down. Entry is ₹10 for Indians and ₹25 for foreigners. The headland itself rises about 174 m over the sea near Gangavaram port.

Tip: pair it with Yarada and do the lighthouse at 3 pm, then the beach till sunset. The other way round and you will reach the gate closed.

12. Yarada Beach

About 4 to 5 km past the Dolphin's Nose area, over a short ghat road from the city side, usually quoted as 6 to 10 km from the city centre. Free. It's a quieter beach with hills on three sides and far fewer food stalls than RK, so carry water. Swimming is not advisable here either, there's no patrolled zone. The road has blind curves, so avoid it after dark, specially if you're on a two-wheeler.

13. Ross Hill

Ross Hill Church sits on a hill behind the port area, about 7 km from Beach Road, up a narrow single-lane road that is awkward for big cars. Three adjacent hills here hold a church, a dargah and a temple, which is why local tours bill it as the three faiths stop. It is a short visit, fifteen minutes, and it works well as a filler between the Beach Road museums and the Dolphin's Nose run.

14. Thotlakonda and Bavikonda

Two excavated Buddhist monastery complexes from the early centuries around the start of the common era, both on the Bhimili side.

Thotlakonda is on a coastal hill about 15 to 18 km from the city, entry ₹20 for Indians and ₹100 for foreigners, Monday to Saturday 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday 8 am to 6 pm. Bavikonda is inland, nearer the airport road, free entry, 9 am to 5 pm, and distances quoted for it range from about 20 km to 35 km depending on the source and route, so give it buffer.

There is no shade at either site and very little signage. Go before 10.30 am or after 4 pm, carry water and a cap. Historians will like these, children will be bored in ten minutes.

15. Erra Matti Dibbalu

The red sand dunes, about 20 km northeast of the city and 4 km short of Bhimili, right off the Beach Road. These are a notified National Geo-heritage Monument spread over roughly 1,500 acres, dated to around 12,000 to 18,000 years old, and they were added to UNESCO's tentative list of World Natural Heritage sites in 2025. The formations rise some 30 to 40 m.

Open ground, no ticket counter, no timings. Stay on the marked paths, this is a protected site and the cliffs are soft and crumble. Half an hour is plenty.

16. Bheemili Beach

Bheemunipatnam, about 25 to 35 km from the city at the end of the Beach Road, where the Gosthani river meets the sea. Free. There is an old Dutch cemetery and colonial era ruins in the town. The drive up is the main point of the trip, so club Rushikonda, Erra Matti Dibbalu and Bheemili into one half day and turn back by evening.

Day trips from Vizag

17. Borra Caves

About 85 to 90 km from Vizag on the Araku road, roughly 2.5 to 3 hours by car. Open 10 am to 1 pm and 2 pm to 5 pm, so there is no point reaching at 1.15 pm. Entry ₹60 per adult and ₹45 per child, phone camera ₹25, still camera ₹100, video camera ₹100.

Limestone caves with stalactite and stalagmite formations, lit up by the state tourism corporation, with a Shivling inside that people do stop to pray at. The steps are steep in places and wet through most of the year, and there are bats, so the smell is strong. Shoes with grip, not slippers. Budget 45 minutes to an hour inside, more if there's a holiday crowd on the stairs.

18. Katiki waterfalls

Near Borra, so everyone does both the same day. You park and take a shared jeep down to a point near the railway track, around 6 km, then walk the last stretch. Jeep rates are negotiated and vary a lot, roughly ₹150 to ₹250 per person shared, or around ₹800 to ₹1,500 for a full jeep. Some reports mention a small entry charge of ₹20 to ₹30 and others say nothing is collected, so keep cash.

The walk is short but rocky, and the last bit has steps. Water is best from about August to December. In April and May there's hardly any flow, and in peak monsoon the pool gets closed off when the level is high. People do slip on the wet rocks, so no flip-flops and no standing under the fall.

19. Araku Valley

Around 115 km from Vizag by road via the ghats, three to four hours one way. The road climbs after about an hour and forty-five minutes of driving and the ghat section is all curves, so anyone who gets carsick should take tablets before starting. Galikonda viewpoint on the way is a free stop.

What you pay for inside Araku:

• Padmapuram Gardens: ₹40 adult, ₹20 child. Monday to Saturday 8.30 am to 6 pm, Sunday 8 am to 5 pm
• Araku Tribal Museum: ₹40 adult, ₹20 child, camera ₹50, open daily 10 am to 6 pm
• Coffee Museum: ₹20 per head, 9 am to 8 pm
• Chaparai water cascade: ₹10 per head, 9 am to 5 pm

The APTDC road day tour from Vizag runs 7 am to 9 pm and covers Padmapuram, the tribal museum, a coffee plantation, Galikonda, Borra Caves and a Dhimsa dance performance for ₹956 per adult and ₹765 per child. That is the cheapest sane way to do Araku in one day, and it is a long day. If you have two days, sleep one night in Araku instead, the one-day version means roughly seven hours in a vehicle.

Buy the filter coffee and the pepper on the way back, not on the way up.

The train is the other option and it is the better one if you can get seats. The Visakhapatnam to Kirandul passenger leaves Vizag early, around 6.45 to 7 am, and reaches Araku about 11 am, through 58 tunnels and a long run of bridges. There are vistadome coaches with a glass roof, big windows and rotating seats, and South Coast Railway has been attaching extra vistadome coaches during holiday rushes, including through October 2026. The return leaves Araku in the afternoon, around 3 pm. Vistadome seats sell out well in advance, book on IRCTC the day the window opens, and check the running status a day before, this line has had cancellation spells for landslides and track work in the past.

20. Lambasingi and Vanjangi

Lambasingi is about 100 km from Vizag, three to four hours, and Vanjangi is roughly the same distance and about 30 km from Lambasingi. Both get sold as the Kashmir of Andhra, which is overselling it, but December and January nights do drop very low here, with sub-zero readings recorded in government records on the coldest nights.

Vanjangi is a sunrise spot and that means leaving Vizag around midnight or 1 am, or staying the night somewhere closer. If you reach at 8 am you have missed the point of the trip. The last stretch to the viewpoint is a short uphill walk. December to February is the season, carry proper jackets, people underestimate this and regret it.

Also within 50 km, if you have time

• Bojjannakonda and Lingalakonda at Sankaram, ASI maintained Buddhist rock-cut caves and monolithic stupas, about 42 km from Vizag and 3 km from Anakapalle, 9 am to 6 pm, no entry fee.
• Kondakarla Ava, a freshwater lake and bird area about 35 km out, boat rides in the ₹50 to ₹100 range, best early morning in winter.

How to reach Vizag

By air, the big change is that scheduled flights no longer use the old city airport inside the naval base. The new Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram was inaugurated on 1 August 2026 and commercial operations shifted there from 17 August 2026. It is about 40 to 45 km from the city, so build in an hour plus for the transfer and don't book a 6 am flight expecting a 20 minute drive. Air India, IndiGo, Air India Express and Akasa operate there.

By train, Visakhapatnam Junction (station code VSKP) is one of the better connected stations on the east coast and is now the headquarters of the South Coast Railway zone. Direct trains come in from Howrah, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Delhi and Mumbai LTT. Trains are the easier choice from Kolkata and Bhubaneswar.

By bus, APSRTC and private operators run into the city from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and Bhubaneswar. For Araku, APSRTC fares from Vizag start around ₹147 one way, which is the budget way up if you don't mind the timings.

Getting around

Ola and Uber both work in Vizag, autos are everywhere on Beach Road and will quote tourist rates in the evening. City buses cover Beach Road, Simhachalam and the Bhimili route cheaply but slowly.

For sightseeing, decide between two models. A private cab for the day gives you flexibility and is the only sensible option for the Dolphin's Nose timing window and the Bhimili side, get a written quote covering the ghat charge if Araku or Lambasingi is involved. Or take the APTDC tours, which are fixed and cheap: the Vizag city tour runs 9 am to 6.30 pm at ₹534 per adult and ₹380 per child, the AC version is ₹675 and ₹563, and there's a 4 pm to 9.30 pm leisure night tour at ₹448 and ₹340. Bookings are on aptdc.in or 0891-2788822.

Best time to visit

October to February is the season. December to February is the most comfortable, days around 28°C and nights closer to 15 to 18°C, with low humidity and clear skies. This is also when Lambasingi and Vanjangi make sense.

Important: October and November are the peak Bay of Bengal cyclone window on this coast. The weather is pleasant in those months and most people travel then, but watch the IMD forecasts for four to five days before you leave, and keep flexible hotel bookings if you are travelling in that period. Local trains and the Araku line get suspended during systems.

March to June is hot and sticky and the city sightseeing becomes a 7 am to 10 am and 5 pm onwards affair. July to September brings heavy rain, which is bad for the city but good for Katiki and Chaparai, the falls are at their best just after the monsoon pulls back. If you are comparing Vizag against other winter options, our best places to visit in India in December list has the alternatives with costs.

A sample 2 day plan

Day 1, Beach Road and the hills. Start at Kailasagiri by 9.30 am, do the glass skywalk first before the queue builds, then the statue and the ropeway down. Reach Simhachalam by around 12.30 pm for darshan, eat near there. Afternoon, be at Dolphin's Nose lighthouse by 3 pm sharp with original IDs, then Yarada beach till about 5 pm. End on Beach Road, aircraft museum and submarine museum from 6 pm (remember both are shut on Monday), then dinner at RK Beach.

Day 2, the Bhimili side. Zoo at 9 am when it opens, two hours with the battery vehicle. Then Thotlakonda around 11.30 am, Erra Matti Dibbalu by 1 pm, lunch at Bhimili, and Rushikonda in the late afternoon for water sports or a sit-down. Tenneti Park on the way back if the light is still good.

Day 3 if you have it, the ghats. Either the APTDC Araku day tour at 7 am, or the morning train up with a night in Araku and the drive back next day through Borra and Katiki. The train up and cab back combination is what most people enjoy the most, but it needs the vistadome booking to go through.

With families carrying small children or elderly parents, drop Thotlakonda, Ross Hill and Katiki, and do Araku over two days instead of one.

Where to stay

Three areas. Beach Road near RK Beach puts you walking distance from the museums and the evening crowd, and it is where most mid-range and premium hotels are. Rushikonda is quieter, better for a beach-focused trip, but you will be 20 to 30 minutes from the city for every meal. Dwaraka Nagar and the railway station area is the cheapest and the most convenient for trains and buses, with no view at all.

In Araku, the state tourism property and a handful of private resorts fill up fast in December, book ahead if you are staying over.

What to carry

• Original physical ID cards for everyone, needed at the Dolphin's Nose Navy checkpost
• Shoes with grip for Borra, Katiki, Thotlakonda and the Vanjangi walk
• Cash in small notes for jeeps, parking and camera tickets at Borra
• Caps, water and sunscreen, the Buddhist sites and the dunes have zero shade
• Jackets if Lambasingi, Vanjangi or an early morning Araku train is on the list, December nights in those hills are genuinely cold
• Motion sickness tablets for the Araku and Simhachalam ghat sections

We don't run trips to Vizag, but if you want the rest of your holiday planned, see our packages.