Komic, Spiti

Trips don’t start before May. But if you want Komic, the highest inhabited village in Asia, to be your midsummer dream, you might want to reach for that phone about now (homestays in the area have few rooms and many takers). Spiti Ecosphere, a trusted local operator, runs a hiking trail here that strings a rosary of villages along the 4,000m to 4,800m gradient. Expect the usual Spiti spectacles — stark landscapes, grazing yaks, ancient monasteries — and a charming post office (the world’s highest) at Hikkim to send a postcard home.

Travel log : 5N/6D; from Rs 15,000, all inclusive, ex-Manali; medium levels of fitness required; spitiecosphere.com. You can also opt for day-trips to the villages of Komic and Demul.

Kalap, Upper Garhwal

Here milk doesn’t come in a packet and snow-capped mountains in 70mm. Girdled by the Supin river, draining into the Tons, and watched over by the Bhandarpunch range, Kalap is where the lines between myth and reality blur. Believed to be the home of brothers and arch-enemies, Pandavas and Kauravas, it’s where people in carved wooden homes still claim to be their descendants. That is when they are not growing wheat, millet, beans and potatoes on terraced fields or rearing sheep in the high-altitude Himalayan grasslands in the short summer months. Season begins in mid-March.

Travel log : from 3N/4D; Rs 7,500 per person (plus tax), inclusive of meals, one-day trek and cultural activities; about 200km from Dehradun; kalap.in.

Seijosa, East Kameng, Arunachal Pradesh

No matter how many bikers, naturalists and WWII ‘bounty’ hunters find their way to Arunachal Pradesh, it will still be as middle-of-nowhere as it gets in this country. So if you have the grit (and the paid leaves), consider trekking up to Seijosa in the East Kameng district. A fringe village bordering the Pakke Tiger Reserve, known as much for its big cats as its four species of hornbills. A Nyishi outpost, this is where the Ghora Aabhe Society — started by a group of 16 village heads — along with the forest department, the Bangalore-based NGO Nature Conservation Foundation and Help Tourism, an old hand in the East, make room for guests in the community and in the cottages on stilts.

Travel log : Rs 3,500 doubles (all inclusive); heltourism.net

Chandoori Sai, Koraput, Orissa

Tourism in the tribal belt comes with its own baggage. But Chandoori Sai at Goudaguda in the Koraput district, near the Andhra-Orissa border, has its heart in the right place. Set in the middle of an adivasi village, potters come to sell their wares at weekly haats here, even as strangers from the city become impromptu wedding guests. Friendly Bonda and Gadaba settlements lie further afield in a countryside as rustic and remote as one expects it to be. The guesthouse — built using local materials and labour — however, makes a few modcon concessions for tetchy townies.

Travel log : Rs 5,000 doubles (all-inclusive); they can also arrange for taxis; chandoorisai.com

Bamboo Village, Wayanad

You could spend a week in Wayanad’s Thrikkaipetta or Bamboo Village without ever sleeping under same the roof twice. In the shadow of the Western Ghats, seven families here have taken upon themselves the task of sharing the pleasures of a simple life. Overrun by plantations of coconut, coffee, rubber and banana, this corner of north Kerala is where you could be ankle-deep in a paddy field one day and immersed in bucolic splendour at all times. Get there before summer does.

Travel log : from Rs 3,250 for double rooms, inclusive of meals; indiauntravelled.com.

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