Incredible India
7 Things to Do in Kausani, the Himalayan Town Gandhi Compared to Switzerland
Kausani, a ridge-top town in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon hills, is built almost entirely around one thing: an uninterrupted panorama of the Himalayas, from Trishul and Nanda Devi to the Panchchuli peaks.
Sep 25, 2026 · BigTravel.in
Kausani is a ridge-top town in Uttarakhand’s Kumaon hills, roughly 1,890 metres up, built almost entirely around one thing: an unbroken sightline to a stretch of the central Himalaya that takes in Trishul, Nanda Devi and the Panchchuli peaks on a clear day. It has none of Nainital’s lake or Mussoorie’s mall-road bustle; the draw here is the view itself, best seen at sunrise when the snow line catches the first light. Here are seven ways to spend time in and around it.
1. Watch sunrise from the ridge
The town’s viewpoints, strung along the ridge that gives Kausani its name, look directly across the valley to the Himalayan range; on clear mornings the peaks turn pink and gold for a few minutes before the light flattens, which is why most visitors set an early alarm at least once during a stay.
2. Anasakti Ashram
Mahatma Gandhi spent twelve days in Kausani in 1929, staying in a small house on the edge of town that is now preserved as the Anasakti Ashram museum; it was here that he wrote much of Anasakti Yoga, his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Gandhi is widely quoted as having compared the view from Kausani to Switzerland, a line the town has never quite let go of.
3. Kausani Tea Estate
Set on the slopes below town, the Kausani Tea Estate is one of the higher tea-growing plots in Uttarakhand, its terraces giving the same mountain backdrop as the main viewpoints, with a small outlet selling tea grown and processed on site.
4. Rudradhari Falls and Cave
A waterfall and an associated cave shrine set in forest around 10km from Kausani, reached by a short walk from the road; the site is as much a walk through oak and rhododendron forest as it is a single sight, and it is considerably quieter than the town’s main viewpoints.
5. Baijnath Temple
A short drive from Kausani, on the banks of the Gomti river, the Baijnath temple complex dates to the 12th century and was built under the Katyuri dynasty, the rulers who once made this valley their capital; the main shrine, dedicated to Shiva, sits among a cluster of smaller stone temples.
6. Pinath trek
A roughly 10km trek from Kausani through rhododendron forest leads to Pinath, a small, little-visited Shiva temple on a forested hilltop with its own Himalayan outlook; the walk itself, through forest rather than open ridge, is as much the point as the temple at the end of it.
7. Sumitranandan Pant Museum
Kausani is the birthplace of Sumitranandan Pant, one of the major poets of modern Hindi literature and a recipient of the Jnanpith Award; a small museum in the town, near his ancestral house, holds his manuscripts and personal items.
Traveller tips
- The clearest Himalayan views are typically in the early morning and after the monsoon, from roughly October to March; cloud cover can obscure the peaks entirely in summer.
- Kausani has no train station or airport of its own; the nearest railhead is Kathgodam, around 4-5 hours away by road.
- Layer up even in the warmer months; the ridge sits high enough that evenings turn cold year-round.
- Rudradhari Falls and the Pinath trek both involve uneven forest paths; sturdy footwear is worth packing regardless of the season.
Where this is
Kausani, Uttarakhand