10 Places in India You NEED to Visit at Least Once 🇮🇳
Forget Delhi, Agra & Jaipur — after 3 months travelling India, these are the places that actually made me fall in love with the country.
Forget the India itinerary everyone gives you.
Before I went to India, I kept seeing the same places everywhere: Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Goa.
And don't get me wrong — I'm not saying you shouldn't visit them. But after spending three months travelling around India, they weren't even close to being the places I loved the most.
The India that made me fall in love with the country was somewhere else.
It was riding through tiny villages surrounded by nature, watching the sunset from a cliff above the Arabian Sea, waking up in the desert, wandering through local markets where I barely saw another tourist, and ending up in places I'd literally never heard of before arriving in India.
So if you're planning an India itinerary and want to go beyond the usual Golden Triangle route, these are the 10 places in India I personally think you should visit at least once.
Some are famous. Some are seriously underrated.
And one became my favorite place in the entire country.
1. Coorg, Karnataka 🌿
My favorite place in India — and I didn't even know it existed
Out of everywhere I visited during my three months in India, Coorg was my favorite.
And the funny thing is that before travelling through South India, I barely even knew anything about it.
Coorg is completely different from the chaotic India people often imagine. Think endless green landscapes, coffee plantations, waterfalls, little roads through the countryside and this incredibly peaceful atmosphere.
What made me love it wasn't one huge tourist attraction. It was the whole feeling of being there. It's one of those places where slowing down becomes part of the experience.
If you're looking for hidden gems in South India or somewhere to escape the big cities for a few days, put Coorg on your list.
📍 Best for: Nature, slow travel, countryside & escaping the crowds
⏰ I'd stay: 3–4 days
Planning South India?
I'm working on my complete South India route with where I stayed, transport, costs and everything I'd change.
COMING SOON →
🎥 Want to see what Coorg actually looks like?
Come explore it with me — from the places I stayed to everything I got up to while I was there
2. Varkala, Kerala 🌴
India... but make it tropical paradise.
Varkala was one of those places where I arrived and immediately thought: yeah... I could stay here.
It's a beach town in Kerala known for its dramatic cliffs overlooking the Arabian Sea, but what I loved was the whole atmosphere.
Beach days, cafés, sunsets, backpackers, good food and a much slower pace than India's major cities.
If you're backpacking through Kerala, Varkala is somewhere I'd absolutely make time for — especially if you've been travelling through busy Indian cities and need a few days where your biggest problem is deciding where to watch the sunset.
📍 Best for: Beaches, backpackers, sunsets & relaxing
⏰ I'd stay: 3–5 days
3. Jaisalmer, Rajasthan 🐪
A golden city in the middle of the desert.
Jaisalmer genuinely doesn't look real.
The entire old city has this golden colour, there's a massive living fort towering over everything, and just outside the city you've got the Thar Desert.
Yes, it's HOT. Like why did I voluntarily leave the air conditioning? hot. 😭
But it was easily one of my favourite places in Rajasthan.
And some of my craziest India stories happened here — including somehow ending up spending a night in the desert with people I'd only just met.
📍 Best for: Desert experiences, architecture & adventure
⏰ I'd stay: 3–4 days
→ Read: The Night I Slept in the Indian Desert With Strangers(coming soon 👀)
4. Munnar, Kerala 🍃
The India I didn't know existed.
If your image of India is traffic, cities and chaos, Munnar will completely mess with that picture.
Rolling mountains covered in tea plantations, mist, winding roads and green EVERYWHERE.
It was one of the most beautiful places I visited in Kerala and one of those destinations where the journey itself is half the experience.
📍 Best for: Tea plantations, nature, photography & peaceful travel
⏰ I'd stay: 3–4 days
🎥 See this side of India for yourself
Tea plantations, insane landscapes and one of the most beautiful places I found in South India.
5. Bikaner, Rajasthan 🐀
Rajasthan without the crowds.
Bikaner surprised me SO much.
It feels far more local than some of Rajasthan's famous tourist cities, and I barely saw foreign tourists compared with places like Jaipur.
You've got chaotic local markets, beautiful architecture, incredible food and some seriously unusual experiences.
Including, yes...
the Rat Temple. 🐀😭
The famous Karni Mata Temple is home to thousands of rats that are considered sacred. It's one of the strangest places I've ever visited — and somehow I loved the experience.
If you're looking for unusual places to visit in Rajasthan, Bikaner deserves way more attention.
📍 Best for: Local culture, unusual experiences & fewer tourists
⏰ I'd stay: 2–3 days
→ My Complete Bikaner Guide: What to See, Eat & Experience(coming soon)
6. Munroe Island, Kerala 🛶
The place almost nobody told me about.
THIS is exactly why I love travelling without knowing everything beforehand.
Munroe Island was one of the most peaceful and unexpected places I found in Kerala.
Tiny waterways, palm trees, village life, cycling around the island... it felt worlds away from the busy India I'd experienced elsewhere.
And compared with Kerala's more famous destinations, it felt incredibly quiet.
If you're searching for off-the-beaten-path places in Kerala, save this one.
📍 Best for: Slow travel, village life, cycling & backwaters
⏰ I'd stay: 1–2 days
🎥 Come discover one of my favourite hidden gems in Kerala
7. Kochi, Kerala 🌊
Come for the city. Stay for the people.
Kochi ended up being another one of my favourite stops in South India.
I loved the slower atmosphere, the history and especially the social side of travelling there. The hostel experience was SO good — one of those places where you arrive alone and suddenly have plans with six people you've known for approximately three hours. 😂
And that's honestly one of my favourite things about backpacking.
📍 Best for: Backpackers, food, culture & meeting people
⏰ I'd stay: 2–4 days
🎒 Where should you stay in India?
I'm putting together my favourite hostels from three months travelling the country — including the places where I had the best social experiences.
GET THE INDIA HOSTEL GUIDE →
🎥 Backpacking Kochi with me
Hostels, food, people and one of my favourite stops in South India.
8. Udaipur, Rajasthan 🕌
Okay, this famous one deserves the hype.
Not every popular destination is overrated.
Udaipur was one of my favourite cities in Rajasthan. Lakes, palaces, rooftop views, colourful streets — it's beautiful without feeling quite as overwhelming as some of India's bigger cities.
And if you're here, there's another place nearby that almost nobody I know had heard about:
Kumbhalgarh.
It has an enormous historic fort wall stretching across the hills and became one of the biggest surprises of my Rajasthan trip.
→ Watch my Kumbhalgarh & India's incredible fort wall VLOG
📍 Best for: Architecture, lakes, Rajasthan & day trips
⏰ I'd stay: 3 days
🎥 Come explore Udaipur with me
Palaces, streets, local experiences and everything that went slightly off-plan. 😂
9. Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 🔥
Not relaxing. Not easy. Absolutely unforgettable.
Varanasi isn't on this list because it was peaceful or beautiful in the traditional sense.
It's here because I've never experienced anywhere like it.
It's intense. It's chaotic. It's spiritual. Life and death exist openly beside each other along the Ganges, and there are moments where you genuinely don't know where to look.
Varanasi isn't somewhere I'd recommend if you're looking for a relaxing holiday.
But if you want to experience India, rather than just photograph it?
Go.
📍 Best for: Culture, spirituality & an experience you'll remember
⏰ I'd stay: 2–3 days
10. Bangalore, Karnataka 🌆
If you think every Indian city is like Delhi... go here.
Bangalore was actually the first place I visited in India, and I'm glad it was.
It's modern, young, full of amazing restaurants and cafés, and showed me a completely different side of Indian city life from what I'd expected before arriving.
If you want nightlife, good food and city energy while travelling through South India, Bangalore is absolutely worth considering.
📍 Best for: Food, nightlife, cafés & modern India
⏰ I'd stay: 2–3 days
🎥 My first ever days in India started here
See what Bangalore was actually like as my introduction to India.
So... should you skip Delhi, Agra and Jaipur?
No.
Go see the Taj Mahal. Experience Delhi. Explore Jaipur.
But don't let those three places become your entire idea of India.
After three months travelling the country, the places I think about most are the ones I knew almost nothing about before I arrived.
Coorg. Munroe Island. Varkala. Bikaner. Munnar.
India is MASSIVE. And sometimes the best thing you can do is leave a little room in your itinerary for somewhere you didn't plan.
After all...
getting a little lost is kind of the point. 🌍