Incredible India

India

7 Things to Do in Coonoor, the Nilgiris' Quieter Hill Station

Twenty minutes from Ooty by road, Coonoor pairs the same Nilgiri tea-estate scenery with noticeably thinner crowds and one of India's last working mountain railways.

India

7 Things to Do in Vagamon, Kerala's Quiet Answer to Munnar

Rolling grassland meadows, a working pine forest and a cliffside monastery sit within a few kilometres of each other in this lesser-visited Idukki hill station.

India

7 Things to Do in Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir

Set where the Lidder River meets pine-forested slopes in Kashmir's Anantnag district, Pahalgam pairs an easy riverside town with valleys and meadows that spread out in every direction.

India

7 Things to Do in Lakshadweep, India's Own Coral Atolls

India's smallest union territory is a scatter of coral atolls off the Kerala coast, where lagoon colour and limited access, rather than any single monument, are the actual draw.

India

7 Things to Do in Matheran, India's Only Vehicle-Free Hill Station

Roughly two hours from Mumbai, Matheran bans motor vehicles entirely, leaving a red-earth plateau of viewpoints, forest trails and a century-old toy train to be explored on foot, horseback or hand-pulled rickshaw.

India

7 Things to Do in Pelling, Sikkim

Perched on a ridge in West Sikkim with an uninterrupted view of the Kangchenjunga range, Pelling trades Gangtok's bustle for a quieter base built around monasteries, ruins and a glass-floored skywalk.

India

7 Things to Do in Ranthambore, One of India's Best Tiger Reserves

A former royal hunting ground in eastern Rajasthan, Ranthambore National Park pairs some of India's most reliable tiger sightings with a 10th-century fort standing inside the reserve itself.

India

7 Things to Do in Konark, Home to India's Great Stone Chariot

A 13th-century temple built in the shape of a colossal stone chariot for the sun god Surya, Konark's UNESCO-listed complex anchors a compact stretch of Odisha coast easily paired with Puri.

India

7 Things to Do in Kumbhalgarh, Home to the World's Second-Longest Wall

A 15th-century Mewar fort in the Aravalli hills, Kumbhalgarh is ringed by a 36-kilometre wall often described as the world's second-longest continuous wall after the Great Wall of China.

India

7 Things to Do in Ziro Valley, Arunachal Pradesh

Home to the Apatani people and their distinctive rice-and-fish paddy fields ringed by pine-covered hills, Ziro Valley is one of Northeast India's most quietly striking landscapes.

India

7 Things to Do in McLeod Ganj, Home to the Dalai Lama in Exile

A hill town above Dharamshala has been home to the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration since 1960, giving it a monastery-and-mountain character unlike anywhere else in Himachal Pradesh.

India

7 Things to Do in Mount Abu, Rajasthan's Only Hill Station

Rajasthan's only hill station pairs a marble Jain temple complex ranked among India's finest with a cool-climate lake town that has drawn escapees from the desert heat for centuries.