Best Places to Visit in Karnataka

Hampi Ruins

Vijayanagara Empire ruins scattered across a boulder-strewn UNESCO World Heritage landscape.

Mysore Palace

Seat of the Wadiyar dynasty since 1399, the present Indo-Saracenic structure was rebuilt in 1912 after fire destroyed the wooden original. The official residence of the former Kingdom of Mysore.

Chamundeshwari Temple, Chamundi Hills

Sati's hair is said to have fallen on the 1,062 m Chamundi Hills overlooking Mysore, making this the fourth peetha of the Ashtadasha. The 12th-century Hoysala-era shrine is the kuladevata of the Wadiyar royal family. Two ways up: 1,008 ancient stone steps, or a winding 13 km road from the city centre.

Coorg (Madikeri)

At 1,200 m in the Western Ghats, mist swallows the coffee estates, cardamom grows wild, and Kodava warrior tradition runs deep. Hence the Scotland-of-India label.

Bengaluru (Lalbagh & Cubbon Park)

The Garden City. Thirteen million people, two Tipu-era parks, fifty tech campuses, and India's densest stretch of microbreweries. Altitude does the rest: at 900 metres, this is the only major Indian metro where a sweater earns its keep through summer evenings.

Gokarna

Sadhus and surfers share the same shoreline along this five-beach horseshoe on the north Karnataka coast. A thousand-year-old Shiva pilgrimage town. Its crescent coves — Gokarna, Kudle, Om, Half-Moon, Paradise — became the subcontinent's quiet answer to Goa, made for travellers who wanted sand without dance-floors.

Hampi: Walking Through the Ruins of the Last Great Hindu Empire

Coorg: Inside Karnataka's Coffee Country and the Last Warrior Clan

Ajanta & Ellora: The Cave Art That Predates the Renaissance by a Millennium

Madurai’s Meenakshi Temple: 33,000 Sculptures and 2,500 Years of Dravidian Devotion

Tirupati: The World's Richest Temple and the 30 Million Pilgrims Who Climb to Its Gates

Cherrapunji: The Wettest Place on Earth and Its Living Root Bridges