Delhi: 3-Day Kasol Tour with Private Transfers

The Parvati valley, twelve hours from Delhi

Kasol sits on the Parvati river in Himachal Pradesh at about 1,600 metres, and it is a different kind of hill trip from Shimla or Mussoorie — no colonial architecture, no mall road, just a river valley of deodar forest, apple orchards and stone-and-slate villages.

It has a long-standing reputation as a backpacker town and the scenery is the reason it earned one.

The drive

A private chauffeured sedan or SUV from your door in Delhi, roughly twelve hours via Chandigarh and Bhuntar, with the last stretch up the valley alongside the river.

It is long. The road through the Parvati gorge is the compensation.

Kasol and around

The village itself is small and sits directly on the water, with the river loud enough that you hear it constantly.

Chalal, a twenty-minute walk across a footbridge and through forest, is quieter still.

Manikaran, four kilometres downstream, is the reason many people come: a Sikh gurudwara and Hindu temples built over natural hot springs so hot that food is cooked in them — the langar at the gurudwara boils its rice and dal in the spring water, and you can eat it. Pilgrims bathe in the tanks; the water is genuinely scalding at the source.

It is one of the more remarkable places in the Himalaya and almost nobody outside India has heard of it.

Kheerganga, a full day's trek up the valley to a hot spring at 2,960 metres, if you have the legs for it.

Practical

Private transfers throughout, with hotels.

Winter closes parts of the valley and snow can block the upper road from December to February. May to June and September to October are the reliable windows; the monsoon brings landslides to this valley specifically.

Cover your head at the gurudwara, shoes off, and the langar is free to everyone.