No typical tourist attractions or generally welcoming atmosphere

Home > Coming to Auroville > Visiting Auroville Updated Dec. 2008 Auroville Guest Service
Auroville Visitors Centre Guest Introduction tours Guesthouses see also:
Auroville in brief Auroville, a visual tour
Between the lines

On the surface, Auroville can appear rather incomprehensible. It is an intense and challenging experiment, attempting the seemingly impossible, and one needs to be ready to actively participate in such an adventure. The meaning of Auroville only becomes clearer in the context of the vision of its founders, which has stimulated people from all over the world to join in this ‘laboratory of evolution’.

For casual visitors
Visitors to Auroville are sometimes disappointed to find here no Ashram, no typical tourist attractions or generally welcoming atmosphere. This is firstly because Auroville is quite different to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, where people are considered to have consecrated their lives to integral yoga (as compared, in Auroville, to an experiment in human unity), and secondly because Auroville is not a tourist place, despite being referred to in travel and tourist literature, and does not devote as much time and energy to welcoming tourists as sites established specifically for that purpose.

Casual/day visitors are encouraged to go first to the Visitors Centre , which is open daily from 9:00 to 17:30, and offers information, exhibitions, a video viewing facility, a cafeteria and shopping facilities. Those who come with a deeper interest and actually want to visit one of Auroville's projects should make an appointment with the concerned place through the Information Desk at the Visitors Centre.