Coast & Islands
We avoid the resort strip. The coastlines we plan are working coastlines — fishing villages, mangrove channels, monasteries built into rock above the sea.
Places we plan
8 places we’ve walked, returned to, and would send a friend.
Karnataka
Gokarna
A temple town with five beaches the buses do not reach. Karnataka coast, Brahmin priests at dawn, fishing boats at dusk.
Lakshadweep
Lakshadweep
Ten inhabited atolls 400 km off Kerala. Permit-only. Coir villages, reef lagoons, and a tuna economy that still runs the day.
Puducherry
Pondicherry
The French Quarter is fifteen blocks. The rest is a Tamil port town. Aurobindo Ashram at four. Auroville at sunset. Don't conflate them.
Maharashtra
Ratnagiri
Konkan coast, mango country. Alphonso orchards behind black-rock beaches. Ganpatipule's temple, Jaigad's fort, Velas's turtles.
Tamil Nadu
Tarangambadi
Once Tranquebar, the Danish trading post on the Coromandel. A fort on the Bay of Bengal, Lutheran graves, and the old Tamil agraharam behind.
Maharashtra
Tarkarli
Sindhudurg coast, Maharashtra. A river meets the Arabian Sea at a Maratha sea-fort. Malvani fish-curry kitchens. No resorts worth naming.
Coast
Kerala Backwaters
Houseboats, fishing villages, a quieter way to spend a week.
Coast
Andaman Islands
Forest-fringed coves, no resort strips, snorkel at dawn.
Who plans this · Coast
Reena on Coast.
We avoid the resort strip. The coastlines we plan are working coastlines — fishing villages, mangrove channels, monasteries built into rock above the sea.
“The right coast is the one nobody is photographing for Instagram.”