Everyone I know in Bangalore does the same thing every long weekend. They pack a bag, complain about the Silk Board traffic for two hours, and then drive to Coorg to sit in a resort that looks exactly like their apartment complex, just with more dampness. It’s boring. It’s predictable. And honestly, it’s a waste of a good leave day. I’ve spent the last seven years driving my beat-up 2014 Swift across almost every district in this state—I think I’ve clocked about 42,000 kilometers just within the borders—and the ‘best’ places are rarely the ones on the top of the TripAdvisor lists.
Hampi is a furnace and I nearly died there
I know people will disagree, but Hampi is physically painful for about nine months of the year. I’m not talking about ‘oh it’s a bit sunny’ heat. I’m talking about the kind of heat that makes the ancient boulders feel like they’re personally offended by your existence. I went there in March 2019, thinking I was ‘built different’ or whatever. Big mistake.
I was trying to find some obscure temple near the Vitthala complex—I think it was the one with the carvings of the sea monsters—and I ran out of water. My phone died because the sun literally overheated the battery. I ended up sitting under a neem tree for three hours, hallucinating that a langur was offering me a Limca. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently: if you go to Hampi between March and June, you aren’t a traveler, you’re a masochist. But when the weather is right? It’s the only place in India that feels like you’ve actually stepped into a different dimension. The landscape is just wrong in the best way possible. It looks like a giant dropped a bag of marbles on a green carpet.
Go to the Anegundi side. Stay across the river. Don’t be one of those people who spends the whole time taking photos for their ‘travel influencer’ page. Just sit on a rock and realize how small you are. It’s a furnace.
The heat doesn’t care about your aesthetic. Bring an umbrella or stay home.
The Coorg problem and the Agumbe solution
I’m going to be blunt: I actively tell my friends to avoid Coorg. It’s become a caricature of itself. Every ‘homestay’ is now a boutique hotel charging 8,000 rupees a night for a room that smells like mothballs and a view of a plastic-covered coffee plantation. It’s crowded, the roads are permanently choked with yellow-board Tempo Travellers, and the food has been toned down for people who can’t handle real spice.
If you want the mist and the green, go to Agumbe. Or better yet, go to the interior parts of Chikmagalur, away from the Mullayanagiri peak. I tested four different brands of ‘leech socks’ over a 15km trek near the Someshwara Wildlife Sanctuary last July. The expensive 1,200-rupee ones from that big outdoor brand? Garbage. The leeches got through the weave in twenty minutes. Use old-school tobacco water and lime. It’s messy, it’s gross, but it works. Agumbe is where the rain actually feels like a physical weight. I remember standing at the sunset point—which is usually just a wall of white fog—and feeling more alive than I ever did in a luxury villa in Virajpet.
Anyway, I once tried to explain this to my boss who was looking for a ‘relaxing’ getaway. He went to Agumbe, got bitten by a forest slug, and didn’t speak to me for a week. But I digress. Real travel isn’t always relaxing. Sometimes it’s just wet.
My weirdly specific obsession with Badami
Badami is better than Hampi. There, I said it. It’s smaller, the red sandstone is more dramatic, and the monkeys are slightly less likely to steal your glasses (though they are still jerks). I might be wrong about this, but I feel like the Agastya Lake in the middle of the cliffs is the most underrated spot in South India.
I spent three days there just watching the way the light changes on the Bhutanatha temple. It goes from a pale orange to a deep, bloody crimson by 6 PM. Most people just do a day trip from Hubli, which is a tragedy. You need to stay in one of those slightly dusty hotels near the bus stand, eat the Jolada Rotti that’s so thin it’s like paper, and just walk.
- The Caves: Go at 8 AM before the school trips arrive.
- The Museum: It’s tiny, but the Lajja Gauri statue is haunting.
- Pattadakal: It’s 20 minutes away. It’s a UNESCO site that feels like a ghost town.
The architecture here is where everything started. It’s the DNA of every temple you see in the South. To see it in person is… it’s heavy. It makes you realize that we haven’t really improved much in 1,400 years. We just got better at making things that break easily.
The coast is a lie (except for one part)
I refuse to recommend Murudeshwar even though everyone loves the giant Shiva statue. It gives me the creeps. It feels like a religious theme park rather than a place of peace. And the beach there? It smells like old diesel and fried fish that’s been sitting out too long. It’s bad.
If you want the coast, drive past Gokarna. Gokarna is basically ‘Bangalore-on-Sea’ now. It’s full of people trying too hard to look like they’re ‘finding themselves’ while drinking overpriced beer at Namaste Cafe. Keep going north. Go to Karwar. Or go south to the backwaters near Kundapura. I stayed at a place where the only way to get to the house was a small wooden boat. No signal. No ‘vibe’. Just the sound of the water and the best fish fry I’ve had in my life. I think I ate about three kilos of pomfret in two days. I felt disgusting afterwards, but it was worth every rupee.
I used to think the more popular a place was, the better the infrastructure would be. I was completely wrong. In Karnataka, popularity usually just means more plastic bottles in the bushes and higher prices for mediocre service. The best places to visit are the ones where the roads are a bit broken and the locals still look at you with genuine curiosity rather than just seeing a walking wallet.
I’m still not sure if I should even be writing this. Part of me wants these places to stay quiet. But then I see another ‘Top 10’ list featuring a mall in Bangalore as a tourist attraction and I lose my mind. Just get in a car and drive towards the hills. Don’t book a hotel in advance. See what happens.
Just don’t forget the tobacco water for the leeches.
