South India
Kerala
South India's slow-travel coast for UK travellers: an Alleppey houseboat night, the Munnar tea hills, the Fort Kochi old town and a Periyar wildlife day — plus why you hire a car-and-driver instead of doing it all yourself.
In short
Kerala at a glance
Kerala is the slow-travel south of India — a thin strip between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats that most UK first-timers do as a one-to-two-week loop rather than a single base. Four very different places carry the trip: Fort Kochi, the walkable Portuguese-Dutch-British old port with its Chinese fishing nets and Jew Town spice lanes; the Alleppey (Alappuzha) backwaters, where you spend a night on a converted-rice-barge houseboat drifting the canals; Munnar, the cool tea-estate hill country at around 1,600m; and Periyar at Thekkady, the lake-and-spice-hills wildlife reserve. They string together south-to-north or the reverse, and the honest move is to hire a car with a driver for the linking legs — Kochi to Munnar alone is a slow 4–4.5 hours of hairpins — and not try to self-drive. Allow 7–10 days; come November to February, the dry, cooler window, and avoid the June–September southwest monsoon when the backwaters and hills are at their wettest.
Kerala is the part of India people picture when they say they want to slow down — a thin green strip between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats where the trip is built from four very different stops rather than one base. You land at Kochi, walk the old Portuguese-Dutch port at Fort Kochi, climb into the tea-covered hills around Munnar at 1,600m, spend a night drifting the Alleppey backwaters on a converted rice barge, and turn up wildlife on a Periyar lake boat at Thekkady. The instinct is to cram all of it into four or five days. Resist that: the distances are short on the map but slow on the ground, and Kerala rewards doing four things properly over a week, not eight things in a blur.
The two things first-timers get wrong are the drive times and the houseboat. Kochi to Munnar looks like a short hop and is actually 4–4.5 hours of tea-estate hairpins up the Ghats, so plan a night at each stop and let a private driver — around ₹3,000–4,000 a day, roughly £24–31 with fuel — do the linking while you look out of the window. And book the right boat in Alleppey: a smaller one- or two-bedroom barge with its own crew for a single overnight, not a giant multi-deck party boat for two nights. One night on the water, moored up by evening with a cooked dinner and the canals going quiet, is the memory you came for.
Time it for November to February, the dry, cooler window when the backwaters sit calm and Munnar’s hills are crisp rather than lost in monsoon cloud. Come in the June–September southwest monsoon and the Ghat roads are slick, the views are grey, and the houseboat day is spent under cover — beautiful in its own way, but not the trip most people are planning.
The route
A 7-day south-to-north loop that lands at Kochi (COK) and works coast-to-hills-to-backwaters before flying out. Base in each place for a night or two rather than hotel-hopping; the drive times below are road estimates with a private driver, the way almost everyone covers Kerala. It works best in the November–February dry season — the June–September monsoon turns the Ghat roads and backwaters sodden.
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Days 1–2
Fort Kochi
Land at Kochi airport (COK), about 1.5 hours north of Fort Kochi by taxi (~₹1,200 / around £9.50). Spend a full day on foot in the old town — the Chinese fishing nets at dawn or dusk, St Francis Church, the Mattancherry Palace and the spice and antique shops of Jew Town — and catch a Kathakali dance performance in the evening (tickets ~₹400 / about £3, arrive early for the make-up demonstration).
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Days 3–4
Munnar tea country
It's a 4–4.5 hour drive east and up into the Western Ghats to Munnar at ~1,600m. Spend a day among the Tata tea estates — the Kanan Devan Tea Museum, a walk through the plantations and the Eravikulam National Park for the Nilgiri tahr (foreigner entry ~₹200 / about £1.60, often a timed shuttle in season). Bring warm layers; the hill evenings are cold.
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Day 5
Periyar at Thekkady
Drive ~3–3.5 hours south to Thekkady for the Periyar Tiger Reserve — a lake-and-spice-hills park where the morning boat ride turns up elephants, gaur and birdlife. Book a guided border patrol trek or bamboo-rafting slot in advance through the reserve rather than expecting tiger sightings, and walk a spice garden in the afternoon.
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Days 6–7
Alleppey backwaters
Drive ~3.5–4 hours west down to Alappuzha (Alleppey) and board a private houseboat around midday for an overnight on the canals — crew, cooked meals and a slow drift past paddy fields and village life, returning to the jetty mid-morning. Then it's roughly 1.5 hours back up to Kochi airport for the flight home, or carry on south to Varkala's clifftop beach if you have extra days.
Where to base yourself
Pick one or two bases rather than moving every night.
Fort Kochi
££ mid-rangeThe walkable heritage quarter, full of restored Dutch and Portuguese merchant houses turned into boutique homestays and a handful of grand harbour hotels. The one part of Kerala with a genuine on-foot old town — cafes, galleries and the fishing nets on the doorstep — and the natural first and last base around the airport.
Best for: Heritage stays, walking, the airport leg
Munnar
££ mid-rangeTea-estate hill country at altitude, where the stays are plantation bungalows and view-facing resorts spread across the slopes rather than a town centre. Cool, scenic and quiet, but spread out and reliant on your driver to get between viewpoints — a place to slow down for a night or two.
Best for: Tea estates, cool air, scenery
Alleppey / Kumarakom
££ mid-rangeThe backwater base: Alleppey for the main houseboat jetty and budget-to-mid lake hotels, Kumarakom across Vembanad Lake for the higher-end lakeside resorts. You come for the overnight houseboat and a lakeside night either side, not for a town — the appeal is the water, not a centre.
Best for: Houseboats, lake resorts, slow days
Varkala
£ valueA clifftop beach town in the far south, with cheap guesthouses and yoga cafes strung along the red-cliff path above the sand. The relaxed coastal add-on if you want a few beach days after the hills and backwaters; livelier and cheaper than the manicured Kovalam resorts down the road.
Best for: Beach days, budget travellers, winding down
Getting around Kerala
Don't try to self-drive Kerala — the Ghat roads up to Munnar and across to Thekkady are slow, winding and erratic, and road accidents are a serious risk (GOV.UK). The standard way to do the region is a car with a private driver for the linking legs, around ₹3,000–4,000 a day (about £24–31) including fuel, who carries you Kochi–Munnar–Thekkady–Alleppey and waits at the stops. For the airport hop and short town runs, prepaid taxis and the Uber/Ola apps work in Kochi and Trivandrum (a Kochi-airport-to-Fort-Kochi taxi is ~₹1,200 / about £9.50). Trains are useful for the long flat coastal runs — the Kochi–Trivandrum line is cheap and scenic, with second-class AC fares only a few pounds — but they don't reach Munnar or Thekkady, which are road-only. Within Fort Kochi you walk; the backwaters are done by houseboat and the small public ferries, and autorickshaws cover short hops everywhere (insist on the meter or agree the fare first).
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