Holidays in Rural India

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Holidays in Rural India

Holidays in Rural India Real interaction can take place with time for friendships to develop and for experiences to be shared.

Central India - with its rolling hills and mixed forests, indigenous Gond and Baiga tribal people, and few tourists - is the perfect place for a comfortable but authentic experience of rural Indian life and landscape. We encourage travellers to allow themselves a slow-paced adventure, with time to absorb the wealth of images and impressions that will flood the senses. We meet most of our guests be

fore they travel to spend time discussing their interests and putting together an itinerary that best suits them. By choosing one or two main locations for their holiday, guests have the chance to get to know the people in whose country they are a visitor. We help visitors see India as it is lived by so many Indians yet seen by few foreigners. Guests have time to learn the lie of the land and the rhythms of everyday life, with visits to pottery and weaving villages, tribal markets and local schools. The countryside is safe and the people friendly and most guests become confident enough to do a little solitary exploration on foot or by bicycle.

13/05/2026

Girls on bicycles! 🚲🚲🚲

Few things whack a smile on my face as fast as this. The freedom it represents for girls in India is huge, in part due to the time saved for those burdened by domestic chores.

All our guests visit the sports academy for tribal children run by .20 and all are as bowled-over and wonderstruck as I am every time I visit.

Kind guests this season assisted in the purchase of eleven bicycles to help the girls speed from school to sports practice. One was bought in January and ten this weekend.

Thank you lovely guests and thank you Dibyaranjan fot being such an inspiration. 💪🏼

01/05/2026

Happy May Day and Happy Buddha Purnima.

It seems fitting that Buddha Purnima collides with Labour Day this year.

The revolutionary nature of the Buddha’s teachings don’t seem to get the attention they deserve and maybe today we should all look at the one of his eightfold teachings that focused on work:

‘Right Livelihood’ ie to earn a living that causes no harm to others or to oneself.

As India swelters (it has the hottest cities on earth at the moment) its forest and wild places (many lived in and depended on by indigenous communities) from the Andamans through Odisha and Chhattisgarh and up to Ladakh, are being threatened by the trillionaires who are basically setting the country of fire.

So here is to the revolutionary (aka sensible logic) of Buddha’s teachings, and here are a few drops in the ocean of lovely places to stay in India within a stone’s throw of extraordinary Buddhist sites in India. The majority of which are quite remarkably peaceful and free from crowds.

Ladakh .ladakh

Maharashtra

Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh (for Sanchi and more)

Odisha and .svanir .dalijoda

01/03/2026

A busy season of holidays in beautiful Odisha is coming to a close and it’s been a happy success.

I operate a bit differently to larger travel companies, with a focus on depth rather than breadth. I build working relationships, that almost invariably become friendships, with people in a few less touristy parts of India.

* I visit the places to which we send our guests multiple times.

* I don’t use a third party to plan my itineraries.

* I work closely with our hosts, experiencing first hand, and sometimes co-creating or fine tuning, the activities we arrange.

These are activities that make our guests’ stays more meaningful, mutually enjoyable, and which, where possible, support craftspeople, environmental activists and NGOs.

Spending a morning with at Dibyaranjan’s sports academy for indigenous kids in Baripada from

Taking a country boat on the shallow waters of the north eastern edge of Lake Chilika at Mangaljodi to see birds in their thousands, now protected by those who used to hunt them.

Learning how to paint the papier mâché-like cow dung and rice husk masks with Mausi ji in her village from .svanir

Meeting the potting community in Puri who make the thousands of pots used for prasad (blessed food) at the temples each day.

Visiting the highly skilled ikkat weavers in villages from or

Chugging through the mangrove forested backwaters of Bhittarkanika spotting crocodiles and birds from

Seeing the multitude of crafts in villages outside Cuttack from .dalijoda

Odisha is blessed with great natural beauty, some super places to stay, amazing food and extraordinary creativity.

Aching to return!

16/02/2026

The blues 🌧️

It’s not stopped raining for what feels forever here in the Pyrenees. The barn is flooded, there’s a sink hole in the field and the poor birds that flock to our feeders (a hawfinch on the table!) look miserably bedraggled.

None of it very up-cheering frankly.

So I glanced at a different kind blues on my phone pictures; dozens of bright blue painted traditional central Indian homes that make my heart sing, and I hope they do yours too 💙

Roll on November and more pedalling through this blue speckled landscape 🚲

14/02/2026

A bit of good news from Odisha

18 months ago and of .svanir took me to visit Mausi ji and Dada ji, the matriarch and patriarch of the last mask making family in their village.

This is a craft that had continued for generations, but for which demand had faded, and the prices paid pushed down to such a low by middle men that they all but killed anyone’s desire to continue.

We spent a roar-ily enjoyable morning with Mausi-ji. I can pick out about one word in twenty in Oriya but her machine gun fire conversation left me entirely flummoxed - all I can say is she is clearly one of those people you would NOT want to be on the wrong side of, and whom I suspect is also extremely witty.

Anyway she is outgoing enough to genuinely enjoy the presence of visitors, and Indrani and Sounya have been taking my guests ever since.

We pay Mausi ji for her time, so there is no obligation to buy, but I defy anyone to resist her brightly panted masks and toys. They cost a few quid and weigh nothing. Some people go away with armfuls.

The masks are mainly of animals and deities and are made from cow dung, ground tamarind (that becomes a lac like glue) and paper. Layers and layers dried in the sun. And then painted.

On the last visit Indrani told me that as they were leaving a group of young women (whose grandparents will have made masks but who hadn’t the skill themselves) approached Indrani and asked if she would help them learn the craft so they too could be involved.

Being Indrani she is obviously on it straight away, just a small fund needed to pay Mausi ji to train them up.

A dying craft revived by Indrani and Soumya’s scouting skills and some small scale tourism. 💚

10/02/2026

After two successful food tours in Odisha and the Dangs this year we have noted how many of the tools used for the catching, storing and cooking food in rural India comes from local natural materials: clay, grass, bamboo, stone and is quite beautifully hand crafted.

From October we will be focusing on some of these crafts (plus some hands on learning) alongside the food and cooking.

We will run two small group tours (November ‘26 and January ‘27), starting in Cuttack .dalijoda and Bhubaneswar .svanir moving up to Kolkata and then travelling across to the Dangs for five days

We will happily put together tailor made tours based around this itinerary for anyone interested.

You will come home with a fist full of recipes and as much kitchen kit as you can afford, make and carry.
No such thing as too many baskets, I say.

01/02/2026

Three glorious days cycling in the countryside on the western edge of Kanha Tiger reserve. A heavenly solo flit to map a new route.

I had a night at the oh-so-fancy, but also oh-so-fun-and-friendly, .experiences Outpost 12; and another at the far simpler but perfectly situated, with kind as kind could be staff, Courtyard House. An alternative to Surwahi of which we are also very fond.

On my first day, heading off from the base to which everyone loves to return it was 30 km before I met a car. People though, lots. It’s always a little disheartening coming back to cycling in France, where no one waves as you pass and children don’t shriek so excitedly that sometimes you think they are go to take off ‘bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-BYYYYYYYEEEE!!!’

Long stretches of forest where langurs leap and the occasional deer bounds away. Village houses, some still the traditional beauties, mud plaster, blue paint, terracotta tiled roofs. Meeting and guest Caitlin at Sarekha for a shared ride back on the final 20 kms I struggled not to cry when recounting the loveliness of it all.

Everyone, everyone comes back from these rides (short or long) all aglow. And the e-bikes make it open to most: on an afternoon group ride we did from Shergarh us under 70s were in the minority.

Outpost 12 offers a little bit of glamour on some spectacularly swiftly re-forested (keep the cows out and up the trees spring) green acres and we’re happy to add this to our itineraries. Having cycled along a road that passed close to the river on the opposite bank to the lodge I asked if we cyclists could access by fording the river; everyone was game. Watch this space! The funnest of arrivals.

Book a cycling trip - ours are the best - with .christian leading. I’m not a braggart. But they are.

24/01/2026

Frogs (my fave the Malabar gliding frog), birds (yellow browed bulbul, Malabar trogon, white cheeked barbet), and Thumbi (even sweeter than a Malabar gliding frog) and finally (saved for last for those who don’t want to look 😉) snakes (hump nosed pit viper and Malabar vine) all where I’ve just spent a deliciously restful and herp-full three days.

It’s very low key in its ‘resort’ness with its entire focus on the creatures with whom you share the place.

Exceptionally child friendly, and, I felt, child respectful. Respectful of children’s capacity to learn about wildlife and not need swings and slides and televisions.

Simple but perfect cabins which focus on the view not shiny interiors.

And incredible food!

Plans afoot to return with my even more frog loving M this monsoon.

Thank you all so much 💚

22/01/2026

The best of days with and of .svanir ,a couple who seem to be constantly on the hunt for people trying to make the world a better place, and finding ways to support them.

We went to visit Bichi Bhai & & the teams of women and young men with whom they work, reforesting the coast and backwaters of Odisha with native mangroves.

My ears first pricked up hearing that mangroves are a great carbon sink: people often ask me about carbon offset and knowing much of it is a sham I wanted to look into something real.

This project is about more than that though. Mangroves protect these vulnerable coastlines from the increasingly frequent cyclones that hit the Bay of Bengal, and are are host to thousands of tiny creatures that provide food for birds and mammals (otters and Irrawaddy dolphins) and turtles.

Although many of the women involved in the planting (Joshna, Sarawati, Rondhona and Roshmita in pic 1) may not live to see the benefit, most of them are old enough to remember the 1999 cyclone and terrible loss of life (10,000 +) that it brought.

They accept a tiny daily sum to plant and patrol these forests despite the discomfort of wading knee deep in mud, and the dangers, small (slow to heal) cuts from oyster shells) to large (snake bites).

It was a hugely inspiring day, and the positivity and ambition of (a million mangroves by 2030) a balm in these grubby times.

I’m going to be adding £25 to each Holidays in Rural India guest’s trip next season to put towards this exceedingly worthy cause. I’ll be very upfront about it and it will be encouraged but absolutely not obligatory. Svanir-Soumya and Indrani are kindly routing the money, and Mangrove-Soumya will provide certification. The women from the villages get 10 rupees to plant each sapling, so £25 would fund the planting out of about 250 mangrove saplings. If anyone would like to help before next season do say. This isn’t a begging bowl post, just a, ‘just in case you would like to one’. If you would, send me a message.

And either way, enjoy the pictures of an extremely uplifting day

31/12/2025

I write frequently about friends in India, appreciating the hosts and communities with whom I work, but for this end of year post I want to say a massive thank you to my GUESTS.

Although we wait eagerly for feedback from guests, and wallow delightedly in it when it comes, in many ways it is feedback from hosts about guests that matters more to me - as it should frankly. Tourism should do no harm, and the first and most basic part of that is respect for the people whose country we are visiting.

Well, my colleagues tell me VERY nice things.

It’s not just ‘they were lovely and polite and gave a good tip’ - but ‘they were especially interested in this’, and ‘they loved throwing themselves into that’, and ‘they sat and talked to my mother and father in law with such kindness and curiosity’ or ‘they compared something we do here to something you do there and it brought everyone closer’.

It’s immensely hard to feel positive about the state of the world at the moment, and I’m rarely comfortable in the milieu of the actual industry of tourism, but re-reading the joyful messages from guests and hosts about their shared pleasure in one another’s company makes me glow.

Thank you all: for trying to learn a bit of Hindi (or in the case of 79 year old J right now, Nepali); for bearing with the bumps that come with truly immersive travel, for taking the time to travel slowly and becoming aware of how slowly things have to happen for most people in India, for recognising that travel is a privilege and not a right, and being so endearingly grateful for it.

I haven’t even started on the New Year’s Eve plonk yet, and know this is verging on the purple, and too too soppy, but also, maybe we all need a bit of over the top love and gush.

Thank you.

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Pitalkhora
Kannad
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http://www.holidaysinruralindia.com/

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