Kochi & Central Kerala · Western Coastal Strip
A lattice of canals, lagoons and paddy fields lying below sea level, farmed behind bunds in the Kuttanad system. Best seen from a small country boat at dawn rather than a houseboat at noon.
Best time: November–February. Getting there: 55 km from Kochi by road; Alappuzha railway station (ALLP).
Tea country at 1,600 m where three streams meet, laid out by British planters in the 1880s. The Neelakurinji on the surrounding slopes flowers once every twelve years.
Best time: September–March. Getting there: 130 km from Kochi (COK) by road, about 4 hours.
Portuguese, Dutch and British layers on top of a much older port — the Paradesi Synagogue (1568), Mattancherry Palace murals, St Francis Church where Vasco da Gama was first buried, and the Chinese fishing nets on the shore.
Best time: October–March.
A reserve built around a reservoir, so wildlife is watched from a boat. Elephant, gaur and Nilgiri langur are the reliable sightings; tiger is not.
Best time: October–March.
The Travancore royal house's temple, its deity in an 18-foot reclining form viewed through three doors. The kingdom was formally surrendered to the deity in 1750, after which the rulers governed as its servants.
Part of the serial UNESCO World Heritage site covering the Western Ghats, one of the world's eight "hottest hotspots" of biological diversity and the reason Kerala has a monsoon at all.
A large laterite sea fort, keyhole-shaped observation holes cut for musketry, standing straight over the Arabian Sea in the far north.
The Chalakudy river dropping 24 m across a wide curtain, backed by one of the last riverine forests holding all four South Indian hornbill species.
Best time: September–January.
A plateau of coffee, pepper and paddy with Edakkal caves — petroglyphs at least 6,000 years old — and the highest concentration of Adivasi communities in the state.
Kerala's most-visited Krishna temple, with its own elephant sanctuary at Punnathurkotta. Non-Hindus are not permitted inside the shrine.
Places worth visiting in Kochi & Central Kerala — heritage sites, wildlife, pilgrimage and landscape, with the best time to go. (10)