Puri, home to the Jagannath Temple and one of Hinduism's four sacred Char Dham pilgrimage sites, is also a significant beach town along the Bay of Bengal, its wide sandy shore drawing both pilgrims and conventional beach tourists in roughly equal measure. Beyond the temple itself, the town's markets sell distinctive appliqué work and palm-leaf art, traditional Odishan crafts closely associated with the wider Puri region.
The town's rhythm is shaped heavily by the temple's ritual calendar, most dramatically during the annual Rath Yatra chariot festival each June or July, when Puri's population swells enormously as pilgrims arrive from across India to witness and participate in one of Hinduism's largest processional festivals.
Puri has been a major pilgrimage centre for well over a thousand years, its status as one of the four Char Dham sites (alongside Badrinath, Dwarka and Rameswaram) cementing its place among the most significant Hindu pilgrimage destinations in India.
October to March; June or July for the Rath Yatra festival.
Puri has its own railway station, well connected to Bhubaneswar, about 60km away.
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