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I'm planning to visit south India in May and my itinerary includes Karnataka, Kerala and Goa. I've heard, Kerala could have random strikes for a variety of reasons. My question is whether the strikes would affect my travel plans as a tourist. I'm concerned about my ability to travel, find lodging and find places to get food in case if the day I'm in Kerala happens to coincide with when they call in a public strike?

Are there any recommended guidelines to deal with such an occurrence?

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  • Public strikes are also common in Buenos Aires. Last time I was there I've seen some strikes, but they didn't affect me. I just try to stay away from them, in case the Police decides to end it. I don't know about strikes in Kerala, but do they involve public transportation? A transport shut-off is, probably, the major problem for a you as a tourist.
    – gmauch
    Feb 3, 2015 at 19:32
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    From what I've gathered, they stop all sorts of public transport. I'm worried about me being stuck at a place on such a day.
    – edocetirwi
    Feb 3, 2015 at 19:42
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    Judging from my experiences with normal traffic in India, you are likely to be stuck in a place anyhow - even without a strike.
    – uncovery
    Feb 4, 2015 at 1:53
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    I'm in India right now I can agree with @uncovery. It took me 3 hours to go to Agra and 6 hours to come back the same way. Still normal.
    – AKS
    Feb 4, 2015 at 8:07

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Any public strikes that takes place in India, do not affect the tourist areas at all. Most of the strikes if at all, are concentrated around government buildings and offices and as a tourist you should not face any difficulty in finding food and lodging places.

That being said, let me assure you that strikes are not very common and do not affect the day to day activities of people of my country. The strikes that we read about in newspapers or see on TV are generally a demonstration for the media to cover. The city or town life goes on as usual until and unless there is a curfew announced in the city, which is very extreme.

However, if you shall find yourself in midst of such a situation, you may contact the local police by dialling 100 from anywhere in the country and seek for any kind of help or guidance you require. Better than this would be to have a local contact in the places you visit, which could be anyone from your hotel receptionist to cab driver. They will be more than happy to guide you in extreme situations.

But believe me, that would be very rare. I guess you can just relax on this and start working out on your itinerary.

Have a fun trip!!! :)

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Yes, strikes and demostrations are common in Kerala, but are absolutely peaceful. There are no safety reasons to be afraid to find a demostration or to live an strike day. To understand why there are no safety concerns, you have to understand that these acts are due a curios political situation: Kerala government is communist and India central government is capitalist. The 99% of the demos and strikes are organized against the central government not against the local one, so the demostrators or strikers are very polite with the police and other public organizations that are in hands of the local government.

Given that, you can be disturbed by the strikes and demostrations, but not so much to consider not going. For instance, in our last trip when we try to go out from Alleppey by bus we found a big demo (women labor day or something similar they said) and our trip was delayed 2 hours due a traffic jam. My advice is that if it happens to you, relax, enjoy the moment, take photos (we have a bunch of nice pictures) and think that this is part of the trip.

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