Dwarka to Khodaldham Taxi: Fares, Route Options & Booking Guide

Khodaldham sits 229 km south-east of Dwarka, four to four and a half hours by road, with a sedan one-way running Rs.3,700-5,500 depending on who dispatches it. It is the newest pilgrimage stop on this corridor, and 75 lakh people walked through the gates during the five-day Pran Pratistha in January 2017. The temple at Kagvad holds the idol of Maa Khodal, patron goddess of the Leuva Patel community, in a Maru-Gurjara structure raised from pink Bansi Pahadpur stone and set deliberately ten feet shorter than Somnath. For the traveller, the errand is simpler: one highway east, one turn at a village board, four kilometres of spur road, and the flag hoisted twice a day over a 158 bigha campus. A cab from the temple lane in Dwarka is the only vehicle that does the run door to door; the railway hands you over at Virpur or Jetpur, 8.6 and 14.5 km short, and the bus leaves you on the highway. The nearest airport is Hirasar (Rajkot International), 90-95 km north-east of the temple, and Porbandar’s runway lies 126 km back on the coast.

Two clocks shape every booking. The first is darshan: take the morning slot, check Dwarkadhish Temple darshan timings, roll out of the temple lane by 10:30, and the Kagvad turn arrives before 3:00 PM with the Virpur halt still unspent. The second is the flag: the Dhaja is raised at the temple twice daily and the trust takes those slots on advance booking, so an afternoon arrival on a festival week without a booked flag is a long drive to watch someone else’s ceremony. Full timings, thaal and yagna bookings sit in our Khodaldham Temple, Kagvad complete guide; this article covers the cab that gets you there. Choose the line below before you choose the hotel, because the difference between the fastest and the slowest is half an hour of the day you came for.

Dwarka to Khodaldham Distance and Route Options

Two roads reach Kagvad from Dwarka, and only one of them makes sense as a transfer. The coast line climbs NH51 to Porbandar, turns inland on NH27 and delivers you at the village board for 229-234 km; the interior line goes east through Junagadh and arrives at 256-272 km. The gap is not arbitrary; it is the price of chaining the heritage cities into the same cab.

Route line	Distance	Driving time	What it suits
A: Coast NH51 to Porbandar, then NH27 east	229-234 km	4-4.5 hours	Default point-to-door: the shortest honest run, Kirti Mandir halt on the road you drive anyway
B: Interior via Junagadh and Jetpur	256-272 km	5-5.5 hours	Chaining Junagadh’s fort or the Gir safari gate into the same booking
Rail + road: DWK to Rajkot, then cab	223-224 km rail + 63-67 km road	2.5-5 hours rail + 1.5 hours road	The overnight or mail-express fallback when the road booking is full

Line A: the coast and NH27 line (default). NH51 south to Porbandar, the inland turn on NH27, Jetpur after another 103-115 km, and the Kagvad village board a short stretch beyond; then exactly 4 km of spur road to the gate. The run lands at 229-234 km; the Khodaldham Trust’s own directions page quotes Dwarka at 229 km, which is the number every dispatcher works from. It does not pass Junagadh: that city sits 47-48 km south-west of the temple on the other line.

Line B: the interior line via Junagadh. 208-224 km to the city, the corridor our Dwarka to Junagadh car rental guide prices in full, then 47-48 km north to the Kagvad board: 256-272 km in all. It is thirty to forty kilometres longer and half an hour slower, and it earns that only when Junagadh’s Uparkot or the Girnar foothill is part of the same ticket. Book it as one continuous hire and the extra leg folds into a stitched quote; book it as two one-ways and you pay a second 225-235 km minimum at the city line.

The rail split. Dwarka to Rajkot by train covers 223-224 km against the road’s 229, eight trains daily, and the track loops east through the Jamnagar–Rajkot belt before turning inland; so the taxi wins on door-to-door, the train wins on sleep and price, and only your exit hour decides. What matters for this destination is the last leg: Rajkot Junction is 63-67 km from the temple, Virpur station is 8.6 km and Jetpur/Nawagadh 14.5 km, so a rail plan only works if the station-to-gate cab is already booked. Full timetables sit in the alternatives section below; the fare arithmetic starts next.

Dwarka to Khodaldham Taxi Fare

A sedan one-way from Dwarka to Khodaldham runs Rs.3,700-5,500: two quoting systems, not two routes. The app floors are prepay prices against a fixed pickup window: EasyMyTrip opens the Dwarka–Virpur corridor at Rs.3,576 for a sedan and Rs.4,365 for an SUV, and RealRental quotes the Rajkot-class drop at Rs.3,995. The local dispatch end runs higher: the car is held against your darshan clock and the halts are permitted. At the far end sits the full-service quote: HireMeCar lists the same corridor at Rs.6,508 plus 5% GST, Rs.6,833 all-in with 45 minutes of waiting baked in, which is the ceiling, not the centre. Our band below sits between the two, and the anchors in the third column are the numbers you can verify before you pay anything.

Vehicle	One-way fare band	Verified quote	Extra km after 225-235	Luggage fit
Sedan: Dzire / Etios	Rs.3,700-5,500	EasyMyTrip Rs.3,576 · RealRental Rs.3,995	Rs.11/km	2 medium bags
Ertiga / Marazzo	Rs.4,800-6,600	RealRental Ertiga Rs.4,935	Rs.14/km	3-4 medium bags
Innova Crysta	Rs.7,500-9,600	RealRental Crysta Rs.9,400	Rs.19/km	4-5 medium bags
Traveller 14-seater	Rs.8,500-11,500	Fleet day rate	On request	Seat-bag balance, not a load carrier
Traveller 26-seater	Rs.11,000-14,500	Fleet day rate	On request	Best for the Chaitra Navratri crowd

Per-kilometre rates on this sector run Rs.11 for a sedan, Rs.14 for an SUV and Rs.19 for a Crysta on the DDcab scale, the same 11/14/19 grid that prices their Jamnagar and Rajkot legs, while Gozocabs opens round trips at Rs.12.50 per km from the temple side. Published rates that low are why the math looks cheap: 229 km at eleven rupees is Rs.2,519 on paper; the gap to your quote is the empty return and the minimum billing. If your dates are fixed and the bags fit, take the app fare; if the flag slot moves or the queue at Dwarkadhish runs long, the dispatch card is the booking that bends.

Minimum billing applies at 225-235 km. Every figure above is a minimum against the actual 229-234: you are paying for the driver’s empty run back to the coast. The Porbandar halt, a Virpur detour and the 4 km spur sit inside that band; the interior line via Junagadh does not, and it shows as the extra thirty to forty kilometres it is.

What the quoted fare includes

Fuel, FASTag tolls and city parking sit inside every figure: roughly Rs.75-200 across the gates on either line, and app quotes show them folded in. Added at checkout on both app and phone bookings: driver bata, typically Rs.250-500 for a day run, and 5% GST on the total. A pickup after 10:00 PM adds a night charge of about Rs.500, relevant because the 19252 reaches Rajkot at 00:50 and Saurashtra Mail passengers often chase a pre-dawn temple slot. Waiting: most operators allow 30-60 minutes free at the Dwarka pickup, then bill by the half hour; declare the Porbandar and Virpur halts at booking so the clock starts when you are back at the gate. Both ends sit inside Gujarat, so there is no border tax either way.

Round trips and stitched circuits

A return prices about 1.8-1.9× the single fare, not 2×; the empty leg is billed once at a discount. Same-day round trips are honest math only without the halt: eight to nine hours of driving plus Kirti Mandir leaves the temple campus a photograph through a window. When Khodaldham is one leg of a bigger Saurashtra move, be it the coast chain, Junagadh fort or the Gir gate, book it as one continuous hire instead of separate one-ways: stitched legs discount 10-15% against standalone bookings, and the same courtesy applies when the temple is a mid-route drop. If you need the car to wait through the full darshan and flag ceremony, ask for a fixed idle price rather than an open clock: a waiting vehicle quoted per hour beats a second minimum almost every time.

Route and En-Route Stops

The line is decided at the Porbandar turn, not at the destination: once the cab is on NH27 pointing east, the only thing left to settle is whether Virpur goes in the itinerary or past it. Hold that from the dispatch; a mid-run addition discovered as a detour usually means padded kilometres on the slip.

Coast line: Bhogat, Porbandar, the NH27 push

Bhogat comes at 55-60 km where NH51 bends south: first tea and fuel, the last easy halt before the expressway push. Porbandar arrives at 105-108, with Kirti Mandir and the Sudama lane inside the town, 45-60 minutes if lunch is the plan. From the far side of the city the NH27 turn takes you inland through country with no towns worth naming on it, 103-115 km to Jetpur, a scale that makes this half of the run faster than the coast half despite the distance. Fuel at Jetpur if the gauge is not full: it is the last town of size before the temple.

The exit roads decide your next leg before you arrive: Rajkot lies 63-67 km north, Junagadh 47-48 km south-west past Jetpur, and the Somnath–Veraval coast 130-odd kilometres back down NH27 the way you came. Book the onward leg as part of the same hire where you can.

Interior line: Khambhalia, Junagadh and the Jetpur road

The interior line runs east through Khambhalia, Bhanvad and the back country to Junagadh at 208-224 km, the corridor priced in our Dwarka to Junagadh car rental guide, and turns north for the last 47-48 km to the Kagvad board. It passes the heritage city on the way, which is the entire argument for it: Uparkot in the morning, Damodar Kund at noon, temple before the evening flag. Otherwise it is thirty to forty kilometres of road the coast line does not ask for, and the fare shows every one of them.

The Kagvad turn and the last four kilometres

Both lines end the same way. On the highway between Virpur and Jetpur, look for the Kagvad village board; the trust’s directions are explicit that it is the only marker that matters and that the temple sits 4 km off the National Highway, not on it. Turn there; the spur road climbs into the campus, past the outer parking, to the gate where the 52-gaj flag flies over the mandovar. Tell the dispatcher which end you want: main gate for darshan, parking edge for luggage, or the Virpur halt first (7 km short of the board) if the Jalaram temple is on today’s list. A station-bound exit adds the last decision: Virpur at 8.6 km or Jetpur/Nawagadh at 14.5 km, both inside twenty minutes of the gate.

Khodaldham Temple: Maa Khodal at Kagvad

Unlike the centuries-old shrines across Saurashtra, Khodaldham is a contemporary complex, consecrated in January 2017 after a five-year build by the Shree Khodaldham Trust, funded entirely by community donation. Knowing what is inside the gate changes how you time the arrival: this is a large modern campus with a fixed flag schedule, not a lane of ancient steps you wander into whenever.

Maa Khodal and the making of the temple

Khodal, also written Khodiyar, is the patron goddess of the Leuva Patel community, and the temple is their gathering place by design: Nareshbhai Patel proposed the idea in 2002, the trust was formed on 8 March 2010, and the foundation stone went down on 21 January 2011 with eleven lakh people attending. The stone consecration a year later drew twenty-one lakh, with 24,435 couples performing the ritual together, a Guinness and Asia Book record. The five-day Pran Pratistha ran 17-21 January 2017: 1,008 kund havans by 6,048 hosts, more than 75 lakh devotees through the gates, and on the final day 5,09,261 people sang the national anthem together, the Guinness figure that beat the previous mark of 2.54 lakh. 21 deities were installed, Maa Khodal’s 5.7-foot idol in the garbh griha at the centre and twenty companion figures around her.

The structure: pink stone, 159 feet, ten feet short of Somnath

The temple runs 298 feet 7 inches long, 252 feet 5 inches wide and 159 feet 1 inch to the flagstaff, on a 158 bigha campus, built in the Maru-Gurjara style from 2.30 lakh cubic feet of pink sandstone carried from Bansi Pahadpur near Bayana in Rajasthan. Roughly 650 statues carved by Odisha artisans fill the mandovar; a 14-foot, six-ton gold-embedded kalash crowns the shikhara, under a 40-foot pole flying the 52-gaj flag. The east-facing façade deliberately resembles Somnath: the plan kept it ten feet lower than the Jyotirlinga’s tower, out of respect for Mahadev. The whole project cost an estimated Rs.250 crore, raised by donation.

Darshan, the flag booking and the campus

Two practicals decide your arrival hour. First, the Dhaja is hoisted at the temple twice a day and the trust takes those slots on advance booking, along with thaal (prasad), vastra, yagna in the yagnashala and events on the open-air rangmanch, so book the flag before you book the cab, not after. Kagvad office line: 02823-252000. Second, the calendar: Khodiyar Jayanti falls on Magh Ashtami, and the campus runs two full Navratris, Chaitra in March-April and Sharad in September-October, with extended darshan, yagya and the padyatra on the first day. Those weeks carry the heaviest traffic on the corridor; hold the car against the flag slot, not the hotel checkout.

What sits on the road to it

Porbandar, 126 km back, gives the coast line its half-way argument: Kirti Mandir, Gandhi’s birthplace, and the Sudama lane inside the town you drive through anyway. Two kilometres short of the Kagvad board, Virpur holds Jalaram Bapa’s temple, 7 km from the gate, one of the most visited shrines in Saurashtra and notable for refusing donations entirely; most travellers pair the two in a single morning. Jetpur, 14 km on the other side, is the textile town: saree-printing units, the Swaminarayan temple, and the best sit-down food on the corridor before the spur road.

Vehicles: Sedan to 26-Seater

The fare table maps to three real use cases on this corridor. Two people, light bags: the Dzire or Etios sedan, with the caveat that catches people out on the first trip to Saurashtra: the cabs running this route are largely CNG conversions, and the boot swallows two medium bags and nothing more. A third bag means the seat, the floor, or a roof carrier at Rs.300-400 arranged at dispatch, not at the Kagvad board. Four to five people with festival-sized luggage: the Ertiga clears 3-4 bags, the Innova Crysta clears 4-5 and holds the NH27 push better than a squeezed middle row. Above that, the Travellers are people movers (Leuva Patel family groups for Chaitra Navratri, wedding parties, study tours), and the luggage bay is shared across every seat: count heads and suitcases together. Two sedans for nine people look cheaper until you pay two drivers, two waiting clocks and two minimums.

Two comfort notes for this specific run. The spur road is fine, but both lines end in the same single turning from the highway; on a festival afternoon the queue at the Kagvad board stretches back onto the NH, so arriving before 3:00 PM is a comfort decision as much as a darshan one. And if the plan ends at a station rather than a hotel, name it on the slip: Virpur at 8.6 km is the closer railhead, Jetpur/Nawagadh at 14.5 km the better-connected one, and the driver parks where the slip says.

Dwarka to Khodaldham by Train, Bus and Air

The train exists, it is direct to Rajkot, and it solves only two thirds of the problem. Rail from Dwarka to Rajkot covers 223-224 km against the road’s 229, because the track loops east through the Jamnagar–Rajkot belt before turning inland; so the taxi wins on door-to-door, the train wins on sleep and price, and what you actually buy with the fare is the 63-67 km from Junction to temple gate. Eight trains run the section daily; only the last leg is missing.

Train	Dwarka (DWK)	Rajkot (RJT)	Days	Fare
22946 Saurashtra Mail	11:40 departure	15:44 arrival	Daily	SL Rs.180 · 3A Rs.520
19252 Okha–Somnath Express	20:46 departure	00:50 arrival	Daily	Express class fares
19210 Okha–Bhavnagar Express	15:51 departure	20:50 arrival	Daily	SL Rs.180 · 3A Rs.520
22926 Vande Bharat	Fastest on the section, about 2.5 hours end to end	Morning-to-evening slot	Six days a week	CC Rs.945
Station set for the temple	Virpur 8.6 km	Jetpur/Nawagadh 14.5 km	Rajkot Jn 63-67 km	Cab from gate, booked with the ticket

The two useful patterns: the Saurashtra Mail at 11:40 lands you in Rajkot mid-afternoon with daylight still on the spur road, and the 19252, the same train our Junagadh corridor uses, leaves at 20:46 and hits Rajkot just before midnight, with the station cab and night charge already on the slip. The Vande Bharat does it in about two and a half hours on its operating days; check the day’s schedule rather than this table. Virpur and Jetpur/Nawagadh are the honest nearest stations: a rail plan ending at either needs the 8.6 or 14.5 km cab booked with the ticket, not improvised on the platform.

The bus is the usual Saurashtra compromise. State services converge on the temple from Rajkot, Junagadh, Virpur and Jetpur, and the trust’s own page confirms government buses to the gate, but from Dwarka it means a change at the coast, and frequency thins after evening. Workable without a deadline; not a plan for a flag slot at noon. For everyone else the taxi is the only vehicle that goes from the temple lane to the Kagvad board with your bags in it.

Flying in or out of Khodaldham

Two airports touch this run and only one has frequency. Hirasar (Rajkot International) sits 90-95 km north-east of the gate, an hour and a half away, and is the connection that works with morning flights. Porbandar’s runway is the coast-line option at 126 km from the temple, close enough to matter if your inbound flight lands there and the coast line was the plan anyway. Either way the terminal is a road run: book the airport drop in the same slip as the temple arrival, name the terminal code, and skip the second negotiation at the kerb.

Trip Plans That Use This Run

Plan A: the temple-and-Jalaram day

The standard version: morning darshan in Dwarka, out of the temple lane by 10:30, line A running continuous: Bhogat tea, Porbandar’s 45-60 minutes at Kirti Mandir, Jetpur for the late lunch, the Kagvad board before 3:00 PM. The afternoon belongs to the flag slot and the campus; the next morning takes Jalaram Bapa’s temple at Virpur, 7 km back, when the queues are still thin. Exit on the Rajkot side (63-67 km, the mail trains out of Junction) or roll home by road with the night charge already on the slip. The plan works because the 229 km never outruns the day.

Plan B: the coast chain, then Kagvad

For travellers running the Char Dham-to-Jyotirlinga line first: the Dwarka to Somnath car rental run takes you down NH51 to Prabhas Patan the previous day, and the return leg folds in cleanly: Veraval to Khodaldham car rental covers the 133 km from the harbour town through Junagadh to the Kagvad board in about three and a half hours, breakfast in the heritage city, temple before the afternoon flag. Book it as one continuous hire: stitched legs discount 10-15% against standalone bookings, and the three minimums you avoid are worth more than the discount.

Plan C: the forest chain, Gir gate to the temple

The version that pairs the safari with the goddess: reach the Sasan Gir gate on the Dwarka-side leg, take the morning slot at the park, then run east the same afternoon: Sasan Gir to Khodaldham car rental covers the 105 km via the Mendarda, Junagadh and Kagvad board in about two and a half hours. Sleep at the campus edge, walk the temple in the cool of the next morning, and keep Junagadh’s Uparkot as the exit-day stop 47-48 km south-west. It is the longest chain on this corridor and the one that needs the stitch discount most: three separate one-ways bill three times for the same driver going home.

Booking Checklist

Six things to settle on the call. Every dispute on this corridor (waiting time, a wrong gate, extra kilometres) traces back to one of them being assumed instead of stated.

• The flag slot first. Book the Dhaja hoisting with the trust on 02823-252000, then the cab; the schedule picks the line, and a festival-week arrival without a slot means the car idles while you queue.
• The quote in writing. Line A or B; the 225-235 km minimum; the Rs.11/14/19 per-km rate beyond it; driver bata, GST and night charge named separately. A single total with none of those is the quote that grows at the board.
• Both endpoints exact. Pickup as temple lane, hotel name or station side: “Dwarka” is a city, not a point. Drop as main gate for darshan, parking edge for luggage off-load, “Virpur first” if the Jalaram temple is on the list, or “Virpur station” / “Jetpur station” when the train is the target.
• Bag count against vehicle. Two medium bags fit a sedan; more means an Ertiga or Crysta, or a roof carrier at Rs.300-400 on the dispatch slip. Count heads and suitcases together for the Travellers: a Navratri group split across two cabs pays two minimums.
• The Porbandar halt declared. 45-60 minutes stated at booking turns Kirti Mandir and the Sudama lane into scheduled stops; discovered mid-route, they bill as waiting at city rates.
• The waiting terms. Free window at pickup (usually 30-60 minutes), the half-hour rate after it, and, for the full campus walk and flag ceremony, a fixed idle price instead of an open clock.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far is Khodaldham from Dwarka by road?

229 km on the default coast line, the figure on the Khodaldham Trust’s own how-to-reach page, landing at 229-234 km depending on where inside the campus you are dropped. The interior line through Junagadh runs 256-272 km. The temple sits 4 km off the National Highway, so the spur road is counted in both.

How long does the Dwarka to Khodaldham taxi take?

Four to four and a half hours on the coast line without a long halt, five to five and a half on the interior line. Declare the Porbandar stop and add 45-60 minutes; hit the Kagvad board after 4:00 PM and add highway-turn queues. Roll out of Dwarka at 10:30 after the morning darshan and the temple gate opens before 3:00 PM.

What is the Dwarka to Khodaldham taxi fare?

A sedan one-way runs Rs.3,700-5,500: app floors at Rs.3,576 (EasyMyTrip) and Rs.3,995 (RealRental) on prepay, local dispatch at the top of the band with the halts permitted. Ertiga Rs.4,800-6,600, Innova Crysta Rs.7,500-9,600, Travellers from Rs.8,500. The minimum billing is 225-235 km; driver bata and 5% GST add at checkout.

Which route does the taxi take?

The default is NH51 to Porbandar, then NH27 east through Jetpur, the shortest honest run and the one the trust’s directions assume. The interior line via Junagadh is for chains that already include the fort or the Gir gate. Both end the same way: the Kagvad village board between Virpur and Jetpur, then 4 km of spur road to the gate.

What is the nearest railway station to Khodaldham?

Virpur at 8.6 km is the closest, Jetpur/Nawagadh at 14.5 km has the wider train set, and Rajkot Junction at 63-67 km is the major railhead with long-distance connections. None of them deliver you to the gate: a station drop is an 8.6 to 67 km cab, so book it with the rail ticket rather than on the platform.

Is there a direct train from Dwarka to Rajkot?

Yes: eight trains over the 223-224 km section. The Saurashtra Mail (22946) leaves Dwarka at 11:40 into Rajkot at 15:44, the 19252 leaves at 20:46 and reaches Junction at 00:50, and the Vande Bharat does it in about two and a half hours on its operating days. SL fares open at Rs.180. The temple leg is the part the train does not sell.

What is Khodaldham temple?

A 2017 temple complex at Kagvad, Jetpur taluka, built by the Shree Khodaldham Trust as the gathering place of the Leuva Patel community and dedicated to Maa Khodal, their patron goddess. Twenty-one deities stand inside the Maru-Gurjara structure, Maa Khodal’s 5.7-foot idol at the centre, on a 158 bigha campus that opened after a five-day Pran Pratistha in January 2017.

When is the best time to visit?

Khodiyar Jayanti on Magh Ashtami, and the two Navratris, Chaitra in March-April and Sharad in September-October, are the biggest weeks, with extended darshan and the padyatra. Outside those crowds, any morning slot works; the flag is hoisted twice daily and the trust takes those bookings on advance on 02823-252000, so hold the slot before the cab.

Is the Jalaram temple at Virpur on the way?

Seven kilometres from the temple gate, close enough that most travellers do both in one morning. Jalaram Bapa’s shrine takes no donations at all, which is the detail every guide repeats and the reason the halt runs shorter than temples with donation counters. Declare it at booking so it is a scheduled stop, not waiting time.

Can we combine this run with Junagadh or Sasan Gir?

Both, on the same ticket. Junagadh’s fort sits 47-48 km south-west of the temple on the interior line; the Sasan Gir gate reaches Kagvad in 105 km via Mendarda and the city. Chain them as one continuous hire: stitched legs discount 10-15% against standalone one-ways, and you pay a single empty return instead of three.