Kerala, done properly — hills, backwaters and a houseboat night

What ₹15,645 covers

Most Kerala quotes look cheap until you read the fine print. Here’s ours in full.

• Your hotels, five nights, with breakfast every morning. Twin sharing. You pick the comfort level — we’ll come back to that below.

• A private air-conditioned car with a driver, for the whole trip. Not a shared coach, not a transfer here and a transfer there. The same car and the same driver from the airport to the last stop, 8am to 8pm each day, for every transfer and every sightseeing stop on the route.

• A night on an Alleppey houseboat, with all meals on board. Twenty hours on the water. Lunch, evening tea, dinner and breakfast the next morning, cooked on the boat. This is the part everyone comes to Kerala for and it’s in the base price, not an upsell.

• Every toll, permit, parking fee and driver allowance. Interstate permits included. You won’t be asked for cash at a checkpost.

• One point of contact in Delhi. Us. Not a call centre and not a chatbot — a phone number that a person answers.

Six days, and what you actually do with them

1. 1

   Day 1 — Kochi to Munnar

   Land at Kochi, meet your driver, and drive up. It’s about four hours and the last ninety minutes are the good part — the road climbs through tea, and if it’s raining the whole valley goes grey-green. Cheeyappara and Valara waterfalls are on the way and worth the ten minutes. Check in, and don’t plan anything for the evening.

2. 2

   Day 2 — Munnar, all day

   Tea estates, Mattupetty Dam, Echo Point, Kundala Lake, and the Tea Museum if the weather closes in. Eravikulam National Park if it’s open — it shuts for a few weeks in the calving season, and your driver will know. Munnar is a place you look at rather than a place you do things in, which is the point.

3. 3

   Day 3 — Munnar to Thekkady

   Three or four hours across to the spice belt. Afternoon at Periyar — the boat on the lake is the standard thing and it’s genuinely good early or late, less so at midday. Spice plantation walk in the evening, and a Kathakali performance if you want one.

4. 4

   Day 4 — Thekkady to Alleppey, and onto the houseboat

   Four hours down out of the hills to the backwaters. You board around noon, and the boat moves slowly through the canals for the rest of the afternoon. Lunch on board, tea as it gets dark, dinner, and you moor somewhere quiet for the night.

5. 5

   Day 5 — Alleppey to Kochi

   Breakfast on the water, disembark around nine, and drive to Kochi. Afternoon in Fort Kochi — the Chinese fishing nets, the Dutch Palace, the Jewish quarter in Mattancherry, and some of the best cafés in the state.

6. 6

   Day 6 — Home

   Transfer to Kochi airport whenever your flight is.

Want it shorter or longer? The 4-night version drops Kochi. The 7-night adds Kovalam beach and the 8-night adds Kanyakumari. Same car, same driver, same houseboat.

Pick your comfort level

Same route, same car, same houseboat. The difference is where you sleep.

Prices include 5% GST. In the hill stations the rooms are non-A/C at every level — Munnar and Thekkady are cool enough that hotels there simply don’t fit air conditioning. Everywhere else is air-conditioned.

Six of you? It’s a third cheaper each.

The car and the driver cost the same whether two people are in it or six. So the more of you there are, the less each person pays — and it’s not a small difference. Same trip. Same hotels. Same houseboat.

Six people travelling together pay about a third less per head than a couple does, for exactly the same holiday. Most agencies quote you the couple price and let you find out later.

Prices include GST. Groups of eight and ten travel in a tempo traveller — send us the numbers and we’ll price it.

What you’ll pay for separately

We’d rather you know now than find out in Munnar.

• Flights. Delhi to Kochi and back is typically ₹9,000–16,000 return per person depending on how far ahead you book. We can book them for you — just ask.
• Lunches and dinners. Breakfast is included at every hotel, and every meal on the houseboat is included. The rest is on you. Budget ₹400–800 a head per meal; Kerala is not an expensive place to eat. If you’d rather have dinner included at the hotels every night, we can add it — it’s roughly ₹3,500 per person for the trip.
• Entrance fees. Every monument, park and boat ticket on the route is paid at the gate. Realistically ₹300–800 per person per day. Periyar’s boat and Eravikulam are the two that matter.
• Anything personal. Tips, laundry, phone, room service, the spa.
• Travel insurance. Not included and worth having. We’ll point you at something sensible.

These are monsoon rates. Here’s what that actually means.

The prices on this page are for travel between now and 30 September. That’s Kerala’s monsoon, and it’s the cheapest time of year to go by a wide margin.

What you get for that: everything is green in a way it simply isn’t in December, the tea estates look like the photographs, Periyar has water in it, the roads are empty, and the hotels that are full and expensive in December are half-empty and reasonable now.

What you’re taking on: it rains. Not constantly, and rarely all day, but it rains. Some days in Munnar you’ll see cloud instead of a view. The Alleppey houseboat runs regardless and is arguably better in the rain. If you need guaranteed sunshine for a photo shoot, this is the wrong three months.

Travelling October onward? Message us — the rates for the winter season are different and we’ll quote you properly rather than guessing.

The Kerala packages in full