Tallital, at the south end of the lake, in June 2019. Buses and most taxis from the plains stop here, and the green sign points back down the hill to Kathgodam and Pantnagar airport. Photo © Abhimanyu7793, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
How far Nainital is from Delhi on each road, and how the train, the Roadways and Volvo buses, your own car and the flight to Pantnagar compare on time and cost, with what changes when the fog and the cold arrive.
The short answer: Nainital is 290 to 325 km from central Delhi by road, depending on which road you take, and Google Maps puts the drive at five and three-quarter to six and a quarter hours without stops; with Delhi traffic and a meal on the way, plan on seven to eight. No train goes to Nainital. The line ends at Kathgodam, 35 km below the town, and the train most people should take is the 12040 Shatabdi, which leaves New Delhi at 06:20 and reaches Kathgodam at 11:55. Uttarakhand Roadways runs Volvo buses from Anand Vihar to Haldwani for Rs 946 and one daytime ordinary bus straight to Nainital for Rs 530. The nearest airport is Pantnagar, 68 km from the lake, with IndiGo flights from Delhi. For most trips the morning Shatabdi and a taxi or bus up the hill is the surest way to arrive in daylight, and in winter it is the option least upset by fog.
By Nandini Upreti, Contributor, Almora. About the author ↓
We measured the drive on Google Maps on 20 October 2026, from India Gate to the Tallital bus stand at the south end of Naini Lake. Every road begins the same way, out of east Delhi on NH 9 through Ghaziabad, Hapur and Garhmukteshwar to Moradabad, about 170 km and close to three hours. At Moradabad the roads part.
| Road after Moradabad | Distance | Drive without stops | How it climbs to Nainital |
|---|---|---|---|
| North across the Tarai to Kaladhungi | 290 km | 5 h 41 min | The Kaladhungi road, a forest climb on the west side |
| Rampur, Rudrapur, Haldwani and Kathgodam on NH 109 | 325 km | 6 h 7 min | NH 109 through Ranibagh and Jyolikot to Tallital |
Google usually offers the Kaladhungi road first because it is 35 km shorter, but the time saved on the map is about 25 minutes, and the road above Kaladhungi is narrower, with fewer places to eat, refuel or get help. The highway through Rampur, Rudrapur and Haldwani is the one the Roadways buses use, it passes the railway at Kathgodam, and it is the road to take after dark and in winter: after the heavy snow of February 2022 the Kaladhungi road was among the roads the district closed. From Haldwani the last stretch is the same 40 km up NH 109 that our Haldwani to Nainital guide describes, with the cab fares and the other two roads up.
Distances quoted elsewhere vary between about 280 and 330 km because people measure from different parts of Delhi and to different parts of Nainital. From Noida or east Delhi the trip is shorter; from Gurugram or west Delhi add up to an hour to cross the city.
There is no railway to Nainital. Three trains a day run from Delhi to Kathgodam, the end of the line at the foot of the hills, and you finish the trip by road. The 12040 Shatabdi leaves New Delhi at 06:20 and reaches Kathgodam at 11:55; the overnight 15013 Ranikhet Express leaves Delhi Junction at 22:05 and arrives at 05:05; and the 15035 Sampark Kranti leaves Delhi Junction at 16:00 and arrives at 22:45, too late to go up the hill the same night. Our Delhi to Kathgodam train guide has the full timetable, fares, booking rules and this winter’s fog cancellations, and our list of all Kathgodam trains covers other cities.
From Kathgodam station it is 34.5 km to Nainital, about an hour and a half by road. The prepaid taxi counter outside the station sells seats in shared cabs for Rs 200 to Rs 300 a person, a whole sedan costs Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 one way, and Roadways buses leave from the Haldwani bus stand, 1.8 km back down the road, every half hour for Rs 50 to Rs 80. Those are the May 2026 figures in our Haldwani to Nainital guide. The Shatabdi is the train we would pick: it arrives at midday, which leaves the afternoon to get up the hill in daylight.
Uttarakhand Roadways buses to Kumaon leave from the Anand Vihar ISBT in east Delhi, across the road from Anand Vihar metro station. Kashmere Gate has no Roadways service to Haldwani. When we searched the Roadways booking site on 20 October 2026, for travel on 5 November, the timetable listed 28 buses a day from Anand Vihar to Haldwani and three that run all the way to Nainital.
| Bus | To | Departures from Anand Vihar | Time taken | Fare |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volvo Super Luxury (AC) | Haldwani | 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 22:00, 23:00 | 6 to 7 h | Rs 946 |
| Smart AC non-stop | Haldwani | 21:15 | 6 h | Rs 730 |
| Janrath AC | Haldwani | 08:00, 20:30 | 6 to 7 h | Rs 615 |
| Ordinary | Haldwani | 16 a day, from midnight to 22:30 | 6 to 9 h | Rs 450 |
| Ordinary, through to Nainital | Nainital | 07:00 (bookable online), 20:30 and 21:30 (tickets at the bus station) | 8½ to 9¼ h | Rs 530 |
The Roadways booking site gives the distance to Haldwani as 274 km and to Nainital as 314 km. Fares are for one seat on 5 November 2026; the timetable also lists two “Volvo non-stop” services at 09:00 and 14:00 that were not open for booking. Check times when you book, because services are added and dropped through the year.
So there is no Roadways Volvo straight to Nainital. The usual way is a Volvo to Haldwani and then one of the half-hourly buses or a taxi for the last 40 km, which adds Rs 50 to Rs 80 and about an hour and a half. Private operators also sell Delhi to Nainital seats and sleeper berths online, mostly overnight; their fares and pick-up points change by the day, so compare them when you book. The daytime buses are the easiest to plan around. The 10:00 Volvo reaches Haldwani at about 16:00, which in summer leaves daylight for the climb; in winter, when it is dark by half past five, take the 08:00 Janrath AC or spend the night in Haldwani.
The night buses are cheaper on time but arrive at Haldwani between 03:15 and 05:00, before the first buses up the hill. Before festivals and long weekends Anand Vihar is packed and the online seats sell out days ahead. The day before Raksha Bandhan this year Amar Ujala found people at Anand Vihar waiting one and a half to two and a half hours for a bus, with Roadways seats to Haldwani at about Rs 450 and some private operators asking Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000, and the Haldwani depot’s five contracted Volvos coming back from Delhi were full.
Leave Delhi early. Getting out to Ghaziabad can take an hour in rush-hour traffic, and the run to Moradabad on NH 9 is a fast divided highway with dhabas and fuel all the way, including the stretch past Garhmukteshwar where the road crosses the Ganga at Brajghat. After Moradabad the road through Rampur and Rudrapur is busier and slower through the towns, and from Kathgodam the last 35 km is a hill road of steady bends, the part where children and anyone prone to travel sickness will want a break. Allow seven to eight hours door to door with a meal stop.
A FASTag is needed for the toll plazas. The toll calculators we checked on 20 October 2026 disagreed on the number of plazas and gave Rs 270 to Rs 440 one way for a car, so keep the tag topped up rather than counting on a figure. Cars registered outside Uttarakhand also pay the state’s green cess, read by cameras at border points including Kashipur and Rudrapur and taken from the FASTag; ETV Bharat reported Rs 80 for a car at the Kumaon border points when collection began in January 2026, while the rate announced beforehand was Rs 40 a day. Electric and CNG cars are exempt. If you are driving an EV or a CNG car, our public amenities map shows the chargers and CNG pumps around Haldwani; every CNG pump on it is in the plains, so fill up before the climb.
Two things to plan around at the top. Since early October 2026 Nainital police have been holding uphill traffic from Haldwani and Kathgodam between 4 PM and 10 PM on Saturdays and Sundays, so a weekend car that leaves Delhi after about 9 AM can reach Kathgodam close to 4 PM and be held there. And parking near the Mall is scarce: the car park near the Tallital bus stand often fills by 11 AM at weekends, so ask your hotel about parking before you book.
If you would rather not drive, Delhi taxi operators quoted one-way fares online in October 2026 from about Rs 3,300 for a sedan and Rs 4,200 to Rs 5,800 for an Innova, with tolls, state tax and the driver’s night charges extra. Get the quote in writing with those spelt out.
Pantnagar airport, near Rudrapur, is the nearest to Nainital: 67.7 km to Tallital by road, about 1 hour 40 minutes through Haldwani and Kathgodam on Google Maps. IndiGo flies the route from Delhi with a 78-seat ATR, and the flight takes about an hour. Its schedule has changed several times this year. From 29 March 2026 there were two flights a day, landing at Pantnagar at 8:10 AM and 2:35 PM. When IndiGo started flying to Pantnagar from the new Noida airport at Jewar on 1 July, Amar Ujala reported that one of the two Delhi flights had made way for it, and flight listings online in October still disagreed on whether one or two run. The winter timetable starts on 25 October, and the listings show the flights moving to the afternoon, as they did last winter, when they landed at Pantnagar at about 1 PM and 4:15 PM. Check the current times when you book. One-way fares shown online on 20 October 2026 started at about Rs 3,700 and went past Rs 5,000 closer to the date.
Flying saves time only if the flight runs and you live near the Delhi airport. Add the check-in time, the 1 hour 40 minute drive up and a taxi fare from the airport that is higher than the Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 sedan fare from Haldwani, and the morning Shatabdi often gets you to the lake at much the same time for a third of the price. In winter the flight is the least certain option of all, as the next section explains.
Fog on the plains. From about December to February fog settles over western Uttar Pradesh and the Tarai, usually thickest from late night to mid-morning. IMD’s long-term normals for Pantnagar count about ten fog days in December and fifteen in January. It slows every mode of travel. The night trains to Kathgodam lose hours, and the railway cancels or thins some trains for the season; the Shatabdi has been the least delayed of the three, and our train guide keeps this winter’s list. Flights are cancelled outright when visibility drops: on 19 December 2025 both Delhi to Pantnagar flights were cancelled because visibility at Pantnagar was 400 metres against the 800 metres needed to land, and Amar Ujala reported both cancelled again on 2 January 2026. Night buses and cars crawl on NH 9 in dense fog. If you drive in December or January, set off after the fog lifts, around 9 or 10 AM, and accept arriving in the afternoon.
Earlier dark and colder roads. The sun sets around 5:20 PM in Nainital in late December, earlier still in the valleys, and the hill road from Kathgodam is best driven in daylight because shaded bends freeze after dark. Combined with the weekend hold from 4 PM, that means aiming to be at Kathgodam by early afternoon. A late train or bus is a reason to sleep in Haldwani, not to drive up at night.
Snow and chains. Snow on the road up from Kathgodam is uncommon: it comes on a few days in a winter at most, near the top of the climb, and mostly between mid-January and mid-February. When it does fall, the district closes or clears the higher roads for hours, so timing matters more than chains: wait for the clear morning after, and use the main road through Jyolikot rather than the Kaladhungi road. If you have not driven on a frozen hill road before, hire a local driver for the last stretch. Our Nainital snowfall guide covers the odds and which roads closed after recent falls, and Nainital in December has the Christmas and New Year traffic plans.
The table adds up a typical one-way trip for one person from central Delhi to Nainital, using the fares above. Times are door to door in normal conditions, not in fog.
| How | What you pay | Rough total | Door to door |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shatabdi + shared cab | Chair car about Rs 680 to Rs 865, shared cab seat Rs 200 to Rs 300 | Rs 900 to Rs 1,150 | About 8 h (06:20 train, at the lake around 13:30) |
| Ranikhet Express sleeper + bus | Sleeper about Rs 190 to Rs 205, auto to the bus stand and bus Rs 200 to Rs 230 | About Rs 400 to Rs 450 | Overnight, at the lake around 08:00 if on time |
| Roadways ordinary, direct | Rs 530 | Rs 530 | About 9¼ h on the 07:00 |
| Volvo to Haldwani + bus | Rs 946 plus Rs 50 to Rs 80 | About Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,030 | About 8 h |
| Own car, four sharing | Fuel about Rs 2,000 (325 km at 15 km a litre and about Rs 95 a litre), tolls Rs 270 to Rs 440, green cess | About Rs 600 to Rs 650 each | 7 to 8 h |
| Taxi from Delhi, four sharing | Sedan from about Rs 3,300 plus tolls and state tax | From about Rs 950 each | 7 to 8 h |
| Flight to Pantnagar + taxi | Fare from about Rs 3,700, taxi from the airport for the car | From about Rs 5,000 for one, less each if the taxi is shared | 5 to 6 h, if the flight runs |
Train fares are the ranges railway booking sites showed on 17 October 2026, as given in our train guide; Roadways fares are from the Roadways booking site for 5 November 2026; taxi and flight fares are what was quoted online on 20 October 2026. Fuel is an estimate from the stated distance, mileage and price. All of these change with the season and the date of booking.
For one or two people the train or the Volvo is both cheaper and calmer than any car. For a family of four or more with luggage, your own car or a taxi costs about the same per head as the train and saves the change at Kathgodam, as long as you leave early enough to beat the weekend hold.
Haldwani, at the foot of the hills, is the natural place to stop if you arrive late or want to start the climb fresh. The Sampark Kranti gets in at 22:45, the night Volvos at 03:15 to 05:00, and on a weekend evening the police hold can leave you waiting at the bottom anyway. A night in Haldwani costs less than the same standard of room in Nainital, and you can go up the next morning when the road is clear and the views are open. Our guide to staying in Haldwani for a Nainital trip explains when it makes sense, the hotels near Kathgodam station suit a late train, and every stay within 1 km of the Haldwani bus stand suits a late bus.
Haldwani is also where the roads to Bhimtal, Kainchi Dham and Mukteshwar start, so if Nainital is one stop on a longer Kumaon trip, staying there for the first night and making the hill towns day trips is often the easier plan. Our Uttarakhand in winter guide has the rest of the season’s places, and Haldwani to Kainchi Dham covers the temple road. If the temple is the point of the trip, our Delhi to Kainchi Dham guide has the night train and the bus options from Delhi.
About 290 km from central Delhi on the shortest road, which leaves NH 9 at Moradabad and climbs from Kaladhungi, and about 325 km on the main highway through Rampur, Rudrapur, Haldwani and Kathgodam. Those are Google Maps figures from India Gate to the Tallital bus stand on 20 October 2026. The drive takes about six hours without stops and seven to eight with them.
No. The railway ends at Kathgodam, 34.5 km below Nainital, and you go up by taxi, shared cab or bus, which takes about an hour and a half. Most people take the 12040 Shatabdi, which leaves New Delhi at 06:20 and reaches Kathgodam at 11:55, early enough to reach the lake in daylight.
Not straight through on Uttarakhand Roadways. Its Volvo buses run from Anand Vihar to Haldwani several times a day for Rs 946 (the fare for 5 November 2026), and a Roadways bus or taxi covers the last 40 km. One daytime ordinary bus runs from Anand Vihar all the way to Nainital, at 07:00, for Rs 530. Private operators also sell Delhi to Nainital seats online.
Google Maps gives 5 hours 41 minutes on the shortest road and about 6 hours on the highway through Haldwani, without stops. Allow seven to eight hours with Delhi traffic and a meal break, more on a long weekend, and in winter set off after the morning fog lifts. On Saturdays and Sundays aim to be past Kathgodam before 4 PM, when police have been holding uphill traffic.
Pantnagar, near Rudrapur, 67.7 km from Tallital in Nainital by road, about 1 hour 40 minutes by taxi. IndiGo flies there from Delhi in about an hour. In December and January fog can cancel the flights: both were cancelled on 19 December 2025 and again on 2 January 2026, when visibility at Pantnagar was 400 metres.