This one gets asked as though it were a choice between two destinations. It is not — they are 20 km apart on the same hill, and any reasonable trip sees both. What you are actually choosing is where to sleep.
Stay in Ooty if
You want the town: the 1824 boating lake in the middle of it, the botanical garden from 1848, the rose garden with its 20,000 varieties on the terraced slope, restaurants that stay open, and Doddabetta — the highest point in the Nilgiris at 2,637 m — a short drive away. It is also the more practical base with children, because everything is close together and there is somewhere to eat at any hour.
The trade is crowds. Ooty in May, during the flower show, is as busy as any hill station in India, and the lake road in season is traffic.
Stay in Coonoor if
You want the quiet. Coonoor sits about 400 m lower, which makes the nights milder, and it is built around tea rather than tourism. Sim’s Park is a 12-hectare botanical garden on a natural slope, with the fruit and vegetable show in May. Dolphin’s Nose and Lamb’s Rock look out over the Catherine falls and the plains, and both are best in the morning before the mist. The tea factories on the road between the two towns will show you the processing floor and give you a tasting.
The trade is that you will drive up to Ooty for the gardens and the lake anyway, and there is less to do after dark.
The train between them
The Nilgiri Mountain Railway runs the 20 km in about an hour, and it is UNESCO-listed. Whichever you stay in, do this leg at least one way — it is the single thing in the Nilgiris you cannot do anywhere else. Book ahead; it sells out in season.
What most trips do
Base in Ooty, take the toy train down to Coonoor for a day — Sim’s Park, Dolphin’s Nose, Lamb’s Rock, a tea factory on the way back — and keep Doddabetta for a clear early morning. Three days covers it comfortably. A fourth adds Pykara lake and falls, 19 km out on the Mysuru road.
