Destinations
Kasauli
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
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Kasauli is two hours from Chandigarh and about a hundred years behind it, and the reason is administrative rather than romantic. The whole town is a cantonment, so building is controlled by the army rather than the municipality, and the multi-storey hotels that filled every other hill station within reach of Delhi were simply never permitted here.
What that leaves is a small place with two roads, a church, a brewery, some colonial bungalows behind hedges, and pine forest immediately in every direction. There is no market to speak of, no promenade, and nothing organised for you to do. People come here specifically for that.
The single best thing is the walk. The Gilbert trail contours around the hillside under the Lower Mall, and it is flat, quiet and shaded the whole way, which is an unusual combination in Himachal.
Two practical notes. Monkey Point is on an Air Force station and the rules are real: bring photo ID, expect to leave your phone at the gate, and check first if anyone in the group holds a foreign passport. And the town is close enough to Delhi that on a long weekend the Mall fills up — midweek is a different place entirely.
- Altitude
- 1,927m
- From Chandigarh
- About 60km, roughly 2 hours
- From Shimla
- 77km, about 2.5 hours
- Roads
- Good tarmac all the way. The last climb from Dharampur is steep
- Give it
- A night, or a long day trip from Chandigarh
- Best months
- March to June, and September to November. The monsoon is atmospheric here rather than ruinous.
Worth your time
What to actually go and see
Upper and Lower Mall
The two roads that make up the town, running parallel around the hill and joining at either end. Walking the loop takes about an hour and is essentially what there is to do, which people either love or find baffling.
Christ Church
Consecrated in 1853, sandstone, with stained glass brought out from England. It sits at the junction of the two malls and is still in use.
The Gilbert trail
A level path cut around the hillside below the Lower Mall, about 1.5km of it, through pine with the valley dropping away on one side. Easy, shaded, and the best half-hour in Kasauli.
Monkey Point
The highest point, with a small Hanuman temple on top and a long view over the plains. It is inside an Air Force station — photo ID is required, cameras and phones are not allowed up, and foreign nationals are generally not permitted.
The Central Research Institute
A vaccine institute founded in 1905 and still working, in colonial buildings spread over a large campus. Not open to visitors, but the setting is a large part of why the town looks the way it does.
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