Guide · Ideas

Unique Travel Experiences in India: 12 Trips Where You Learn Something

By Troovle · Siddharth & Anshul

If you have already done the beach, the hill station and the heritage city, here is a different list. These are trips where you learn something with your hands, from people who know it well.

• What makes these unique: each one is built around doing, not only seeing
• Best for: people who have “done” the usual destinations
• Effort: from gentle (cooking, literary trails) to demanding (high-altitude treks)
• Always check: season, safety standards and who is actually teaching

In the mountains

• Learn mountain survival skills in the Himalaya. Pitch a camp, light fire without a lighter and read the weather on a real summit trek. This is what our Patalsu Peak trip is built around.
• Climb your first Himalayan summit. Several peaks around Manali are reachable on foot in four or five days without technical climbing.
• Stargaze from a high camp. Away from city light, high-altitude camps in Himachal and Ladakh give some of the darkest skies in India.

On the water

• Raft the Ganga at Rishikesh. Short stretches suit first-timers; longer ones have bigger rapids. The river is usually run from autumn to early summer.
• Learn to kayak. Several schools in India teach beginners on calm water before moving to moving water.
• Learn to surf on the west coast. Surf schools in Karnataka and Kerala run beginner lessons, mostly outside the monsoon months.
• Try diving in the Andamans. Beginner “discover” dives and entry-level certification courses are common around Havelock (Swaraj Dweep).

Around food

• Cook a regional cuisine where it comes from. Learn Chettinad cooking in Tamil Nadu or Awadhi cooking in Lucknow from people who grew up with it.
• Eat a Himachali dham. The traditional festive meal, cooked by specialist cooks and served on leaf plates, says a lot about the hills.

Around books and culture

• Walk a writer’s town. Mussoorie and Landour for Ruskin Bond, Santiniketan for Tagore, the Kumaon hills for Jim Corbett.

Around sport

• Paragliding at Bir Billing. One of the best-known paragliding sites in the world, with tandem flights and beginner courses.
• Ski in Gulmarg or Solang. Winter ski schools teach complete beginners over a few days.

How to choose

Pick one skill you would genuinely like to have in a year’s time, then work backwards to the trip. A good experiential trip is small, led by qualified people, and honest about the effort involved.

Where Troovle fits

Troovle trips are designed around exactly this idea: one place, one set of skills, small groups, certified instructors. We start in the mountains, and water sports, food, literature and sport trips are next. Want to hear when they open? Follow @troovleindia or write to hello@troovle.in.