Vaishno Devi Reviews

Food, sight-seeing and shopping
Like most pilgrim towns in India, Vaishno Devi has an excellent infrastructure - The trek path starts near the Katra bus station and has enough picture-perfect peaks. The shrine board does an excellent job of maintaining security and cleanliness and the plethora of shops ensure that you can take back an assortment of goodies from walnuts, pendants, gemstones to round off your spiritual journey in style. And yes, for the athletic ones, the trekking paradise Patnitop is just a couple of hours away

Activities & things to do
In many ways, it is a complete vacation - a spiritual experience, a trek, beautiful valleys and great shopping all rolled into one irrestible package. Being in J&K, one can always travel to Patnitop or even Srinagar for experiencing the best of himalayan beauty.

Travel tips, How to reach, travel warnings etc.
The base is Katra, which is 3 hours from Jammu town. Jammu is well connected with the rest of the country by train and flight. Night buses from North India, esp Delhi ply regularly as do tourist buses. It is quite some distance from Delhi, and the traffic can get chaotic in katra, so it can be a pain for those who'd wish to drive up. The trip wouldn't be complete if one doesnt check out Patnitop or Jammu as well. Lastly, time your ascent. Lucky ones may get the 2 hour aarti, while others may get stuck waiting for it to finish - and it does snow there at times in winter!!