Monsoon Getaways
The best season, mistaken for the off-season.
The rains are a season, not a setback.
Rain on a palace courtyard in Udaipur, the lake risen to the steps and the suite half the price it was in March. Coffee slopes in Coorg under low cloud. The one stretch of the year Kerala's ayurveda physicians actually want you on the table, when the body takes the oil best.
And for those who would rather be dry: the Himalaya keeps its own calendar. Ladakh and Spiti sit in the rain shadow and open exactly when the plains close. While the Mara fills with the migration and Europe reaches its longest, warmest evenings. Either way round, June to September is a season to travel in, not through.
Where to be when it rains.
Kerala in its own season
Backwaters at full green, and the months the ayurveda calendar was built around.
The green south
Coffee and tea country under cloud. Waterfalls running, hill roads empty.
Palaces, off-peak
Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jaipur with the lakes full and the rates at their lowest.
The rain shadow
Behind the Himalaya the rain never arrives. These months are the only way in.
Away from it altogether
The migration crosses the Mara, and Europe hits its longest evenings.