Shirdi to Sambhajinagar — Ajanta, Ellora & Taxi Fares (2026)

Extending a Shirdi darshan to Ajanta and Ellora is one of the most common questions Yatris ask, and the honest answer is: plan for two days, not one.

Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad) sits roughly 120 km from Shirdi, Ellora barely 30 km beyond that, and Ajanta a further 100 km on top — good roads throughout, but real hours behind the wheel that most one-day itineraries quietly ignore.

🛣️ The Road from Shirdi to Sambhajinagar

The drive covers about 120 km and takes close to 2.5 hours, longer over a festival weekend when Shirdi's outbound traffic backs up near the temple road.

Most taxis take the Vaijapur–Gangapur Road (NH753F) rather than cutting through Vaijapur town, since that stretch has patchier surfacing — worth confirming with your driver.

Sambhajinagar city and its airport (IXU) are the gateway for both caves; from here your day splits into an Ellora direction and a separate Ajanta direction. Arriving from elsewhere instead? The Sambhajinagar airport to Shirdi route covers the same corridor in reverse.

🏛️ Ajanta and Ellora Are Not the Same Trip

They get bundled in every brochure, but they sit in opposite directions from the city and cover different ground.

Ellora, the closer of the two, is 34 rock-cut caves in a basalt cliff — Buddhist, Hindu and Jain monasteries side by side, with the Kailasa Temple (Cave 16) carved top-down out of a single rock.

Ajanta is a separate detour further out — 29 Buddhist caves famous for painted murals, set in a horseshoe gorge above the Waghur river, reached by a mandatory shuttle from the Fardapur T-point since private vehicles stop about 4 km short.

Ellora also sits minutes from Grishneshwar Temple, one of the twelve Jyotirlingas — many Yatris fold a short darshan in alongside the caves. Our Sambhajinagar airport to Grishneshwar guide has the walking distance and timing if you're planning that stop too.

⏰ Can You Do Both Caves in One Day from Shirdi?

Add up the driving alone and you'll see why operators steer people away from this.

• Shirdi to Sambhajinagar is 2.5 hours

• Ellora and back adds 1.5 hours plus 1.5–2 hours walking the caves

• Ajanta and back is 4–5 hours round trip plus 2–3 hours on site once the shuttle and the walk to the far caves are counted.

Stack that onto a same-day return to Shirdi and you're at 9–10 hours of driving before a single minute at either monument — a plan that closes before midnight on paper but leaves nobody rested, and nobody who saw the caves properly.

Most operators quote this honestly as a two-day plan instead:

• day one is Shirdi to Sambhajinagar, Ellora and Grishneshwar with an overnight in the city

• day two is Ajanta, then back toward Shirdi or onward.

🎯 Which Plan Should You Choose?

• Elders or families with young kids — take the two-day plan. One cave complex per day means nobody sits in a car for nine-plus hours straight, and there's time to rest between the temple visit and the caves.

• Budget-conscious Yatris — drop Ajanta and cover Sambhajinagar, Ellora and Grishneshwar as one long day trip from Shirdi. It roughly halves the driving and the fare, and you still see the Kailasa Temple.

• Only one day to spare — pick Ellora over Ajanta. It's 70 km closer to the city, the round trip is manageable in an afternoon, and the Kailasa Temple alone justifies the detour.

• What to avoid — don't try both caves plus Bibi Ka Maqbara and Panchakki in a single day starting from Shirdi. It reads fine on a brochure PDF; in the car, it's a 14-hour day that leaves almost no real time inside either monument.

💰 What a Taxi Actually Costs

Aggregator listings put a one-way sedan around ₹2,000 for Shirdi–Ellora and ₹2,400 for Shirdi–Ajanta, SUVs running higher.

a Shirdi–Sambhajinagar sedan fare tends to sit around ₹3,000.

For the two-day circuit, most operators price it as a per-day hire instead — roughly ₹9–11 per km on an outstation sedan package, with tolls, driver allowance and parking added on top, not folded in.

Ask specifically whether tolls, the Fardapur shuttle fee, and driver batta are included in the figure you're given — that's usually where a "cheap" quote stops being cheap on the road.

📅 Entry Fees and the Best Months to Go

Both sites charge ₹40 for Indian and SAARC visitors, ₹600 for foreign nationals, and let children under 15 in free; online ASI tickets carry a small discount.

For timing, October to February is the comfortable stretch — cooler air for the walking and stair-climbing both sites involve.

April to June gets genuinely hot on the exposed stone courtyards by midday, and the monsoon (July–September) turns the hills around Ellora green but makes the steps slippery, so budget extra care rather than extra time.

🛏️ Where to Stay for This Trip

Doing the two-day plan? Base yourself in Sambhajinagar overnight instead of driving back to Shirdi and out again next morning — it saves a full unnecessary leg, and the city has options near CIDCO and the airport road within reach of both cave directions. Keeping this to one long day trip from Shirdi instead?

Then your Shirdi stay needs to work around the trip — see our best time to visit Shirdi guide for the months and festival dates that affect hotel rates and how crowded the outbound road gets.

Whichever plan you pick, sort the road first and the rest of the trip settles into place on its own. Om Sai Ram.