It's hard to visit just Lothal without actually visisting Dholavira in the northwest. I consider Lothal a potential expansion along with 4-5 other sites. They all belong to the Harappan history and the museum at Dholavira explains this pretty well. I visited Lothal first before the others so at the time I didn't know but you get the idea later. Basically Lothal was the port city of the large town in the northwest. The entire area was Harappan (a word found in the city) that stretches beyond the borders to the nearby Pakistan. In the current political climate I don't see Pakistan and India working together for these extensions. I also don't see UNESCO allowing a Pakistan Harappan site even though worse has happened such as the Sundarbans and Iguacu. I also don't want to add much to this topic as it was hard enough to persuade the immigration that I'm visiting Dholavira as a tourist. More on that in another review.

I added this on my itinerary for the northwest. It's not too far from Ahmedabad but there is plenty to see in the area to make it worth a longer trip. The total included Dholavira, Rani-ki-Vav and the Sun Temple. I also added another day for Ahmedabad. In total there's plenty to do. After a few hours from Ahmedabad you will reach this place. It's very abandonded and the people here are mainly just working on removing grass. There is no museum and no entrance fee. Some Indian tourists arrived as I was leaving so it's not soooo empty. You will also see the entire place in an hour max. There are lots of sign posts in Hindi, Tamil and English which explains the area quite well. From what is left to see I think the most important is the dockyard itself. Nowadays, or in the season I was visiting, it was under water. That's a shame. In the museum at Dholavira it is explains how this was the port town. The other buildings are just low walls now.

Continuing on you will come across a warehouse, the acropolis, the lower town and if you want you can also see the graveyard in the back but it was not interesting enough to go that way. I feel the idea that the place "was" here is all that matters. There isn't much else to see aside from the picture above as everything else was just low walls after all.