Bangalore rewards a thin wallet: an 1865 museum for ₹10, 300-acre parks that cost nothing, and legendary dosa counters where ₹100 buys breakfast twice over. Three days of free granite outcrops, century-old markets and metro hops under ₹60.
Three hundred acres of rain trees, bamboo groves and bandstands wedged into the CBD, open 05:00–20:00 and free every day. On Sundays and public holidays the internal roads shut to traffic and joggers, chess players and dog walkers take over.
The surviving granite bastion of Kempe Gowda's mud fort, rebuilt in stone by Hyder Ali in 1761, sits ignored beside KR Market. Entry is free and you will often have it to yourself; the Delhi Gate carvings and inner Ganapathi shrine are the draw.
India's second-oldest museum, opened in 1865, holds Halebidu temple sculpture, Mohenjo-daro relics and Neolithic tools for a ₹10 ticket. The adjoining Venkatappa Art Gallery is included in the same stub. Open 10:00–17:00, shut Mondays.
A peninsular gneiss outcrop roughly 3,000 million years old, topped by the watchtower where drummers once signalled warnings across the city. Free, shaded, full of fruit bats at dusk, with the 16th-century Dodda Basavana Gudi bull temple at the gate.
Asia's largest flower market trades from 04:00 under the Mysore Road flyover — marigold and jasmine sold by the kilo, alongside copper vessels, seed stalls and mountains of produce. Walking in costs nothing; garlands start around ₹30.
Frying one crisp benne masala dosa since 1943, ladled with white butter and eaten elbow-to-elbow at shared marble tables. A dosa runs about ₹80 and filter coffee ₹30, so two people eat for under ₹250. Cash is easiest and the queue moves fast.
A 1927 cast-iron hall where butchers, flower sellers and fruit vendors trade under one high roof, rebuilt after the 2012 fire. Free to walk through; the cheap wins are seasonal mangoes and the Mosque Road bakeries a block away.
One short lane that switches on after 18:00: holige, congress bun, akki roti, dosas and gulkand milk from stalls charging ₹20–60 a plate. Six dishes and a dessert come to under ₹250 a head without leaving the street.
The last scrub forest inside the city limits, roughly 600 acres of granite boulders off Kanakapura Road, free and open dawn to dusk. Bouldering lines, black kites overhead and a summit slab looking back across the southern suburbs.
A standing-room counter selling exactly idli, vada, khara bath and filter coffee, with coconut chutney so good people queue on the pavement. Breakfast for two lands under ₹150. Opens 06:00, cash only, and it regularly sells out by mid-morning.
A 1997 hilltop complex that stacks glass and gopura architecture beneath a 17-metre gilded flagpost, visible from across west Bangalore. Entry and shoe deposit are free, and the prasadam counter downstairs serves a full meal for around ₹100.
An 1882 reservoir dug by Colonel Richard Sankey, ringed by a 3.1 km walking track through leafy Malleshwaram. Free to enter, open 05:00–20:00, with pelicans and egrets on the far bank and sunset landing straight down the water.