NORTHEAST INDIAZIRO, ARUNACHAL PRADESH
Ziro Festival without a tent booking
Get your ILP online before you leave Guwahati. Take the overnight bus to Naharlagun, then a shared Sumo up to Ziro. The Apatani families near Hong will put you…
A COMMUNITY OF INDIAN TRAVELLERS
India, one journal at a time.
From Spiti to Kanyakumari — written by people who actually went, with real costs, real buses and real chai stops. Every journal is read by a person before it goes up.
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HIDDEN GEMSCHETTINAD, TAMIL NADU
Sleeping in a 100-year-old Chettinad mansion for ₹2,000
Karaikudi's mansions are mostly locked, but ask around Kanadukathan and someone's cousin has keys. We slept under Burmese teak ceilings and ate a Chettinad…
MOUNTAINS & TREKSHAMPTA PASS, HIMACHAL PRADESH
Hampta Pass in the first week of monsoon
Everyone said wait till August. We went on 2 July because that was when four of us could get leave at the same time, which is the real reason anyone goes…
ROAD TRIPS & RAILDIBRUGARH → KANYAKUMARI
Seventy-five hours on the Vivek Express
India's longest train route, 4,200-odd kilometres, and I did the whole thing in sleeper because I wanted to know what it felt like. It felt like a small moving…
FOOD TRAILSJODHPUR, RAJASTHAN
Every mirchi vada in Jodhpur, ranked by a man who shouldn't have
Day one: Shahi Samosa near the clock tower. Day one, forty minutes later: the stall opposite, out of spite. By day three I had a spreadsheet. The winner is a…
NORTHEAST INDIANONGRIAT, MEGHALAYA
The double-decker root bridge, and the 3,500 steps nobody warns you about
From Tyrna village it is roughly 3,500 steps down. That is the fact every blog mentions. What they don't mention is that you then have to come back up.…
FORTS & HERITAGEHAMPI, KARNATAKA
Hampi on a hired bicycle for ₹150 a day
The autos will quote you ₹1,500 for the full circuit. A bicycle from Hampi Bazaar costs ₹150 and the roads are mostly flat, except when they very much are not.…
BEACHES & ISLANDSGOKARNA, KARNATAKA
Gokarna after the crowds leave
Come in late October, the week after the monsoon lifts and before the Goa overflow arrives. Om Beach had maybe fifteen people on it. Walk the headland path…
SPIRITUAL JOURNEYSVARANASI, UTTAR PRADESH
Varanasi at 5am, from the wrong side of the river
Everyone watches the ghats from a boat. I crossed to the sandbank on the east bank instead and watched the whole crescent of the city wake up at once. First…
BUDGET TRAVELSPITI VALLEY, HIMACHAL PRADESH
Spiti for ₹9,000 in ten days, on HRTC buses
Shimla to Reckong Peo, Peo to Kaza, and then the local bus that goes up to Langza, Hikkim and Komic once a day if the driver feels like it. Homestays in Spiti…
WILDLIFE & FORESTSTADOBA, MAHARASHTRA
Four safaris in Tadoba and one tiger, finally
Three safaris of deer, langurs, a sloth bear's backside and a lot of guide optimism. Then, on the last morning at Moharli gate, a tigress simply walked out…