Kerala

Kerala travels easily — good roads, calm logistics, and doing less rather than more is usually the right call. The standard route runs Kochi, then the backwaters at Alleppey or Kumarakom, then up to Munnar or Thekkady for tea and hills, and out through Varkala or Kovalam for the coast. That is four stops and it is enough for ten days. People who try to add Wayanad in the north as well spend a day and a half in a car for it. North Kerala is the part almost nobody sees and where the culture is most intact: Kannur for theyyam, the ritual possession performances held between December and April, and Bekal for a coast with no crowd on it. Ayurveda here is real medicine and also a marketing word. A genuine course runs two weeks minimum with a diet; a ninety-minute oil massage at a resort is a nice massage. Both are fine, but they are not the same thing. October to March is the season. April and May are humid. The monsoon from June is loud, cheap and very green, and the state stays fully open through it — a legitimate choice if you do not need sunshine.