Holidays in Rural India

This truly exceptional Odisha cultural tour gives you the chance to spend time with Indigenous communities in parts of India left off most tourists' maps. Starting in Odisha on India's eastern coast you will stay with two different families who have built strong relationships with their tribal neighbours, you will see the multiple crafts of the region, many of them linked to the temples in Bhubaneswar and Puri; and you will spend time on two water bodies where local communities have become protectors of wildlife where formally they were hunters. An overnight train takes you to Bastar where some of the tribal communities with some of India's most diverse and ancient customs and crafts ...Read more >

This tour aims to show you some of the highlights of central India without recourse to domestic flights. The train journeys are carefully chosen so you alight at the starting point of the train and mostly end at the train's final destination, so no anxiety about missing your stop. All journeys will be in first class cabins unless you want to take a day train in a simpler style. The tour starts in Mumbai in a lovely centrally located hotel from where you will take a tour with an ethically run company that gives 80% of its profits to educational projects in slum areas. From here to the undersung city of Bhopal for the incredible tribal museum, the Ashokan era Buddhist stupa at Sanchi and ...Read more >

A cradle of civilisation and culture. Kutch has seen vast migration in and out of its desert landscape over thousands of year. And with it the most extraordinary wealth of creativity, most notably textiles. This tour stands out particularly from others with the number of workshops offered with artisans. Your guide has worked on projects with many of the communities you visit and the mutual affection between her and the people you visit is frequently commented upon. Your guide Niyati has worked particularly closely with women artisans from marginalised Indigenous communities. You will do three full workshops coming away with an ajrakh (block print with resist dye). bandhni (tie dye); and ...Read more >

From buzzing Mumbai to the heart of rural India. A first night night in Mumbai and then to beautiful Kanha National Park, and Katie and Jehan Bhujwala's gorgeous tented camp, overlooking a lake round which birds flock and dragonflies dance. Room sized tents have luxurious bathrooms for scrubbing off the dust after a park drive with the resident naturalist Raj, whose focus is very much on the forest as a whole and is not totally tiger-centric - though if you are lucky enough to see one of these beautiful wild creatures, you will understand their spine tingling allure. The focus here is not just on the national park but on the communities that live around the edges of the national park, ...Read more >

See rural Central India in the hands of a small, highly professional Indian/English team, with decades of experience taking care of guests from first contact to touch down back home. Based around beautiful Kanha National Park and the lovely Shergarh Tented Camp with its luxurious tents overlooking a pond thronging with birds and butterflies, frogs and fish, this trip aims to draw guests away from the more standard heavily jeep based, solely tiger focussed wildlife holiday. We are encouraging a safari in the true sense. A real journey exploring not just the wildlife but also the landscape, and meeting people in this quiet part of central India. Your tiger cycling safari in Kanha begins and ...Read more >