Dharavi slum in Mumbai is the favorite tourist “experience” for travelers visiting India this year

Thursday, June 27, 2019

One of the largest slums in Asia have become the favorite tourist “experience” for travelers visiting India this year, beating classic draws like the legendary Taj Mahal.

TripAdvisor’s Travelers’ Choice Awards recognized tours to Dharavi in Mumbai as the top “experience” in India. It featured among the top 10 in the “Travelers’ Choice Experiences in Asia” category this year. The 553-acre slum in the heart of India’s capital is home to more than a million people. It is lively with industry and creativity. It is also a place where “shanty-homes line…narrow alleyways” and “open drains run along the ground, and electric cables hang overhead.”

Tours to Dharavi are offered by a number of Indian companies and are often led by guides who grew up in or currently live in that area. According to a travel publication Trip Savvy, the experience isn’t depressing for visitors or manipulative for locals. “These tours aim to dispel any notions that people may have of Dharavi being a place of misery, and are actually very inspiring. They show what people are capable of achieving despite adverse conditions,” the article claims.

Dharavi’s residents are often literate, having electricity. However, as BBC News points out, the slum is also “one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts.”

The disparity between how much visitors pay for this allegedly authentic Indian experience and how little slum dwellers survive on is enough cause for some pause. On TripAdvisor, a tour company known as “Mystical Mumbai” offers a $162-per-adult private guided day trip that includes a visit to “both sides of the city, its colonial-era grandeur and Dharavi slum.”

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