How do I get around Goa?

Rent a scooter. That's the short answer, and the long answer. Goa stretches about 105 km north to south along the Arabian Sea coast, with beaches, restaurants, and churches scattered across villages connected by narrow laterite roads. No metro exists. Buses run infrequently outside the Panjim-Margao corridor. The taxi union has blocked ride-hailing competition for years. A Honda Activa rents for 300-500 rupees a day ($3-5) from shops on every main road in Calangute, Anjuna, and Palolem. You'll smell the petrol fumes before you see the rental sign. An international driving permit is technically required, but the traffic police at the Sinquerim checkpoint tend to care more about whether you're wearing a helmet. The fine for riding without one is 500 rupees. Wear one.

Goa's taxi operators run a cartel, and that's not an exaggeration. The taxi owners' association sets fixed rates that no driver undercuts. A Calangute-to-Dabolim Airport ride costs about 1,200-1,500 rupees ($13-16) for 40 km. The same trip on GoaMiles, the state-backed ride-hailing app that launched in 2022, costs roughly 700-900 rupees. The catch is that GoaMiles drivers still face pressure from taxi union members at popular pickup spots like Baga Beach and the Saturday night market in Arpora. Ola has a limited footprint. Download GoaMiles before landing, request the car from a side street rather than outside a taxi stand, and accept that availability drops after 22:00. That said, the app works well enough between Panjim and the North Goa beach belt during daylight hours.

Kadamba Transport Corporation runs the state bus network from the main stand in Panjim, near the Mandovi River. The Panjim-to-Margao express leaves every 15-20 minutes and costs 40 rupees ($0.42) for 35 km. Buses to the North Goa beaches are less frequent, sometimes hourly, and the last Calangute-to-Panjim service tends to leave around 19:30. That catches most visitors off guard. Within Panjim and Margao, yellow-topped auto-rickshaws nominally run on meters. A 3 km hop across Panjim should read about 50-70 rupees, though you might need to insist on the meter. Flat-bottomed ferries cross the Mandovi between Panjim and Betim from the jetty near the old Secretariat building. The 10-minute ride costs nothing for pedestrians, and warm salt air off the river mixes with diesel fumes from the engine. These ferries stop at roughly 22:00.

From June through September, monsoon rains turn the roads into slick ribbons of red laterite mud. You can ride a scooter through a warm 25°C downpour if you have a proper rain jacket, not the 50-rupee plastic ponchos from the beach shacks. The NH66 highway connects Panjim to both airports. Dabolim (GOI) sits 29 km south, with a prepaid taxi counter in the arrivals hall posting fixed rates on a board. Panjim to Dabolim runs 900 rupees ($9.50). The newer Manohar International Airport at Mopa (GOX), which opened in January 2023, sits 37 km north and currently has fewer ground transport options than Dabolim, so have GoaMiles ready before clearing customs. Traffic crawls through Porvorim and Mapusa during morning and evening hours. Manohar to Calangute runs about 1,100 rupees ($11.60).