Kerala Tour: Backwaters, Tea Plantations & Beaches

You land in Cochin and are met by your driver, who takes you to Fort Kochi, the historic peninsula where the city’s Portuguese, Dutch, and British layers are still visible. The Old Harbour Hotel, set in an eighteenth-century Dutch trading house, is your base for two nights.

A private half-day tour with a local guide covers St Francis’ Church, where Vasco da Gama was originally buried, and Santa Cruz Basilica. The route is tailored to your interests; if you want to spend longer in the spice markets or the Mattancherry Palace district, your guide can build the day around that.

The evening of day two is given over to a cooking class in a Keralan family home. You learn the basics of regional dishes (fish moilee, appam, beef ularthiyathu) and eat what you cook with your hosts.

A three-hour drive inland takes you to Dewalokam, a working spice farm run by Jose and Sinta Joseph as a homestay.

The property sits beside a river you can swim in, and the days are unstructured: a guided spice plantation walk, cycling through neighboring villages, a visit to the local temple, sessions on honey extraction and dairy farming if you want them. The cooking here is among the best you will eat on the trip.

From Kodikulam, another three-hour drive climbs into the Western Ghats to Munnar, where the landscape becomes tea. Windermere Estate is the right base: a working plantation property with views that justify the elevation gain. A private guided trek through the Letchmi Hills the following morning is timed for the cool early hours; the pace is adjustable.

A four-hour drive east brings you to Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, one of India’s most established tiger reserves.

You stay one night at Spice Village, a CGH Earth property built around a working garden, with an afternoon 4×4 expedition through the surrounding villages and a family-run spice farm at Kumily.

The following day is the trip’s pivot. After brunch, a three to four-hour transfer takes you to the Alleppey backwaters, where you board a private rice barge for a single night.

The boat moves slowly along the canals through paddy fields and waterfront villages, with a chef on board and the afternoon and evening entirely your own. By any measure, this is the most distinctive night of the trip.

You disembark after breakfast and your driver takes you to Marari, a fishing village on the Arabian Sea about an hour north of Alleppey.

Marari Beach Resort is the right choice here: thatched cottages set in coconut groves, an Ayurvedic centre that is taken seriously rather than added on, and a stretch of sand that remains, even in season, largely empty.

Three nights gives you time to actually slow down. The hotel arranges bicycle hire for the surrounding lanes, fishing trips with local crews, and a full Ayurvedic programme if you want it.

On day thirteen, the drive back to Cochin takes around ninety minutes and is timed to your return flight.