Destinations
The state is bigger and slower than the map makes it look. Two towns that sit close together can be six hours apart, and the difference between the Kangra valley and Spiti is more like the difference between two countries. Here is what each area is actually like.
Tibetan Dharamshala, tea gardens down at Palampur, the little train through Kangra, and the Dhauladhar standing right over you. The best base for a first trip, or if you would rather stay in one place than five.
Suits — first trips, long stays, walkers
The seat of the Tibetan government in exile, and the village twenty minutes above it that fills up every spring with people doing ten-day silent courses. Two very different places sharing one hillside.
Suits — long stays, Tibetan Buddhism, cafés, meditation courses
A grass ridge at 2,828m with the Dhauladhar standing directly behind it and the Kangra valley three thousand metres below. Nine kilometres up from Dharamkot, and the most-walked path in the district.
Suits — first treks, one-night walks, photographers
The wide farmed valley under the Dhauladhar, and the older half of this district. A fort the Katochs held for centuries, rock-cut temples from the eighth century, and the school of painting the valley gave its name to.
Suits — history, temples, architecture, slow driving
Tea gardens running right up to the foot of the Dhauladhar, and eight kilometres away a village that has been an artists' colony since an Irish playwright moved there in the 1930s.
Suits — tea, pottery, painting, quiet bases near Dharamshala
The Himalaya stripped back to rock and sky. Monasteries on cliff edges, no trees, thin air. Remarkable, and not something to rush — eight days at least, and only between June and October.
Suits — photographers, second visits, road trips
The Baspa valley, off the Sutlej at Karcham, ending at the last inhabited village on the old road to Tibet. Apple orchards, timber-and-stone houses, and a river the colour of glass.
Suits — Spiti trips broken sensibly, orchards, first high-altitude nights
The last comfortable night before Spiti, on a shelf of apple orchards facing the Kinner Kailash range across the Sutlej. Reckong Peo below it does the paperwork; Kalpa above it does the view.
Suits — breaking the climb to Spiti, apple season, second nights at altitude
A thousand-year-old mud-brick monastery on the valley floor and a crumbling fortress gompa on a spur above it. The two oldest things in Spiti, forty minutes apart, and the reason to give the lower valley a night of its own.
Suits — anyone interested in what is inside the buildings, slow travellers, photographers
The town everything in Spiti is arranged around, and the ring of villages above it — Key stacked up its hill, Kibber on the plateau, and three of the highest inhabited places in the country within an hour's drive.
Suits — second half of a Spiti trip, photographers, anyone who wants a base rather than a stop
A crescent lake at 4,270m, an hour off the pass that separates Spiti from Lahaul. Open for about five months, reached on a rough spur, and the one place in Himachal people plan an entire trip around.
Suits — Spiti trips going out via Manali, camping, photographers
Snow up at Solang, orchards along the Beas, and the tunnel that has opened up the whole of Lahaul. It gets busy in season, so we plan around the crowds rather than into them.
Suits — families, honeymoons, snow
Most people drive through Kullu on the way to Manali and see a bypass. The town itself is a working valley capital with a week-long Dussehra that starts when everyone else's has finished.
Suits — festivals, temples, anyone stopping between Shimla and Manali
A side valley off the Kullu that the highway misses entirely. Trout in the river, a national park at the top of it, and rules that have kept the riverbank from being built on.
Suits — slow trips, walkers, working remotely, anyone tired of Manali
A valley built around a hydroelectric scheme from 1932 and largely left alone since. The Uhl runs through the middle of it, there is a trout hatchery, and almost nobody has heard of it.
Suits — fishing, cycling, people who want somewhere with no itinerary
A town with eighty-one temples, a lake three religions hold sacred, and a thirteenth-century pagoda beside a lake at 2,730m with a floating island in it. All within an hour of each other.
Suits — temples, architecture, a stop between Chandigarh and Manali
The activity valley twelve kilometres above Manali, and the pass road above that. Snow in winter, paragliding and a ropeway in summer, and a permit system that catches out more visitors than anything else in Himachal.
Suits — families with children, first snow, anyone who has been told they need a Rohtang permit
The old capital of Kullu, halfway up the valley on the quiet side of the river. A castle built without nails, a Russian painter's house, and a road that most traffic no longer uses.
Suits — slow days, anyone tired of Manali, people who like old buildings
The far side of the Pir Panjal — wide, bare, glacier-fed and, since the tunnel opened, forty minutes from Manali in any month of the year. The one part of high Himachal you can reach in February.
Suits — winter trips, second visits to Manali, anyone who wants high country without a pass
The old summer capital. British-era buildings along the Ridge, the narrow-gauge train up from Kalka, and apple country at Narkanda an hour past the noise.
Suits — short trips, history, easy driving
The old summer capital, still built the way the British left it — a ridge with a promenade along the top and the town falling away either side. Kufri is sixteen kilometres on and is where the coach parties go.
Suits — families, first trips, train enthusiasts
A hill town that exists because a maharaja was thrown out of Shimla and built himself somewhere better. Deodar forest, a palace, and a cricket ground cut into the top of a mountain.
Suits — couples, quiet weekends, anyone avoiding Shimla
An army cantonment that never turned into a resort, because the cantonment rules would not let it. Two streets, a lot of pine, and the plains laid out below you at night like a circuit board.
Suits — short breaks from Delhi, walkers, people who hate itineraries
An hour and a half past Shimla on the road to Kinnaur, where the apple country starts and the crowds stop. Hatu Peak is 3,400m and you can drive most of the way up it.
Suits — day trips from Shimla, apple season, early snow
The quiet north-west corner. Stone temples a thousand years old at Chamba, cedar walks above Dalhousie, the meadow at Khajjiar. Nothing in Himachal is gentler than this.
Suits — couples, slow travel, older parents
A town that has been continuously inhabited since around 920 AD, with stone temples to match, and above it a lake at 4,080m under a peak nobody has been allowed to climb.
Suits — temples, pilgrimage, museums, walkers with a head for altitude
Where people turn up for a week and stay a month. Cafés over the river at Kasol, hot springs at Manikaran, and Bir Billing — one of the best places in the world to fly, half an hour from Dharamshala.
Suits — backpackers, paragliding, remote workers
Take-off is a grass shoulder at 2,400m and landing is a field fourteen kilometres away and a thousand metres lower. Between flights, a Tibetan settlement with four monasteries and a great many cafés.
Suits — paragliding, Tibetan Buddhism, long stays, remote work
Tell us roughly when you are coming and how many of you there are. We will write the days out properly and give you one price, usually the same day.
