Lansdowne Trip Travel Café (Lansdowne)

Perched on a cliffside near Saint Mary's Church in Lansdowne, Uttarakhand, the Trip Travel Café is a hand-crafted artistic space built by Amit and Shipra , an MBA couple who left corporate life to settle in the hills. The café faces snow-clad peaks, a deep valley, and a surrounding oak forest, and has held the number one spot on TripAdvisor for Lansdowne for eight consecutive years. It is also one of the very few dining spots in this quiet cantonment town that actively welcomes pets, charges nothing extra for them, and has a stated preference for seating guests who are travelling with their animals.

The Setting

Lansdowne is one of Uttarakhand's quieter hill stations , a former British cantonment at roughly 1,700 metres, far less crowded than Mussoorie or Nainital. The Trip Travel Café sits on the edge of a cliff near Saint Mary's Church, which means the views from your table are genuinely dramatic: a deep valley dropping away below, oak forest on the slopes, and snow-capped ridges in the distance on clear days. The café has been described as hand-crafted by its founders , the interiors are vintage in character, full of collectibles and curated objects, which gives it an atmosphere closer to an art gallery than a typical hill-town eatery.

The building has been a Lansdowne institution for fourteen years, according to the café's own Instagram profile. That kind of longevity in a small hill town is not accidental , it reflects a consistent product and a loyal repeat visitor base. With over 1,300 Google reviews averaging 4.1 out of 5, and a 4.7 out of 5 from 38 votes on Facebook, the café's reputation is well-documented across platforms.

For pet parents specifically, the setting matters beyond aesthetics. Lansdowne's roads are quiet compared to larger hill stations, the town has relatively low traffic, and the oak forests around the area are walkable with a dog before or after your café stop. The café itself is indoor seating only , there is no open terrace or garden area , so the cliff-view experience is through the windows rather than from an open-air deck.

Pet Policy in Detail

The café's pet policy has been directly confirmed by the property. There are no pet charges of any kind , pets enter and dine alongside you at zero additional cost. There are no breed restrictions and no size restrictions. The only conditions are behavioural: your pet must be non-aggressive, must not disturb other guests, and must be kept on a leash throughout your visit. These are reasonable conditions that any well-socialised dog travelling with you should meet without difficulty.

The more unusual element of the policy is the seating preference. The café has stated that it actively prioritises guests who are travelling with pets when allocating tables. In practice, this means that if you arrive with your dog during a busy period and there is a queue, your table may come sooner than it would for a group without pets. For anyone who has experienced the frustration of being turned away or made to wait at the door of a café because of their dog, this is a meaningful distinction.

The indoor-only seating means your pet will be inside the café with you , not relegated to a pavement table outside or tied up at a gate. This is worth noting because many Indian cafés that claim to be pet-friendly in practice only allow pets on an external terrace or in a designated outdoor section. Here, the entire indoor seating area is accessible to pets on a leash.

Food and Menu

Reviewers on Google mention chicken momos, coffee, ginger lemon honey tea, waffles, pasta, pizza, burgers, and shakes. The menu covers a wide range of café staples rather than being narrowly focused on a single cuisine. Google's AI summary of the review base notes that pizza, burgers, and shakes are mentioned frequently, with the food described as tasty across multiple independent reviews.

Pricing reported by visitors on Google ranges from Rs 200 to Rs 1,200 per person, based on data from 140 respondents. That range reflects the breadth of the menu , a tea and snack visit sits at the lower end, while a full meal with drinks lands higher. For a café at this elevation in a Uttarakhand hill station with views of this quality, the pricing sits in the mid-range bracket rather than the budget end.

One critical review noted that a staff member declined to provide water to a family before they were seated at a table. This is an isolated data point in a review set of over 1,300 entries, but it is worth flagging as a real visitor experience. A separate Google review summary notes that some visitors find the food overpriced. Neither issue is specific to pet-travelling guests, but they are part of the honest picture of the café.

Activities Beyond the Café

The café organises birding trips, forest safaris, and wildlife excursions in the area around Lansdowne. These are bookable through the café directly , call 099999 31484 for details. Whether these are suitable for dogs or would accommodate a pet-travelling guest is not confirmed in the available sources, so this detail should be verified with the property before assuming you can bring your dog along on a forest safari.

Lansdowne itself has several walking routes through oak and rhododendron forest that are dog-friendly in the general sense , quiet roads, low traffic, and open forest paths. Bhulla Lake is a short distance from the town centre. These outdoor options make Lansdowne a reasonable stop for a longer road trip through Uttarakhand with a dog rather than just a single-attraction visit.

What to Know Before You Visit

Pre-booking is not optional , it is the café's stated operating model. The café opens at 11:45 AM. The afternoon last order is at 3:00 PM, after which the café breaks from 4:00 PM until 5:45 PM. The evening session takes its last order at 6:15 PM and closes at 7:00 PM. Plan your arrival window around these slots, particularly if you are driving in from Delhi or Dehradun and your road timing is variable.

The café is located near Saint Mary's Church at the address RMWJ+7R8, Lansdowne, Uttarakhand 246155. The Plus Code is useful for navigation in this part of Uttarakhand where street addresses can be imprecise. The phone number for bookings is 099999 31484.

There is no website listed for the café. The Instagram profile at @lansdownetriptravelcafe is the best place to see current photos of the interiors, the view, and what guests are eating. The profile has over 5,300 followers and is actively maintained.

Lansdowne is approximately 250 kilometres from Delhi by road, typically a five to six hour drive depending on traffic through Kotdwar. It is a realistic one-night or weekend road trip destination for pet parents based in the NCR, particularly combined with a stay at a pet-friendly property in or near the town.

Address: RMWJ+7R8, near Saint Mary's Church, Lansdowne, Uttarakhand 246155 | Phone: 099999 31484 | Instagram: @lansdownetriptravelcafe