DAY 2 | KOCHI ON FOOT: HERITAGE, SPICES AND SEAFRONT

After a leisurely breakfast and orientation, we set out with a local storyteller-guide, tracing 500 years of spice-trade history, colonialism and modern day Kerala through its many complicated layers. Imagine walking through centuries of culture, folk art, crafts like perfume making, and old spice warehouses turned into art galleries. For lunch, we’ll stop at a heritage cafe to eat vegan idiyappam, delicious sauces and our first taste of Kerala style chai. In the afternoon, we continue our walking tour into tucked-away courtyards and a closing golden-hour reflection by the Arabian Sea. Today will feel like stepping into a book and learning about Kerala’s enduring story.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

DAY 3 | EXPLORING MATTANCHERRY & A KATHAKALLI DANCE PERFORMANCE

Today we cross into Mattancherry, one of Kochi's most photographed neighbourhoods for its colorful streets. We’ll visit the Mattancherry Palace (previously Dutch) with its rare 17th-century Hindu temple murals, then walk the famous Jew Town lane with its 16th-century Paradesi Synagogue (the oldest active synagogue in the Commonwealth). We’ll learn about the resilience of the Jewish community in Kerala. For lunch, we’ll have do a vegan Kerala cooking class learning regional delicacies that you may have never tried before like avial, beetroot pachadi, banana-flower thoran, coconut chutney and payasam, all cooked by your own hands. You have the afternoon at leisure to relax with some chai, get an Ayurvedic massage or pop into a bookstore. In the evening we’ll watch a Kathakali dance performance, a 2,000 years old tradition of storytelling in gesture, eye and footfall.

Meals: Breakfast, Lunch

DAY 4 | ENTERING A LIVING FOREST & BIRD SANCTUARY

Late morning after check out, the journey gently unfolds out of Kochi toward the quiet edges of Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, where the landscape softens into river, forest, and layered green. We’ll take a road trip past rubber groves, village markets, and spice garden before arriving at an intimate eco-retreat designed around bird song and biodiversity. After check-in, a guided late-afternoon walk introduces the rhythms of the sanctuary: bird calls echoing through the canopy, medicinal plants underfoot, and the subtle interdependence of species that defines this ecosystem. As dusk settles, we’ll gather for a rustic dinner shaped by fresh farm to table ingredients, many of the herbs will be picked right from the property. In the evening, we’ll take it slow with herbal Ayurvedic tea known as Pathimukham or sappan wood water, a Kerala specialty.

Meals included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

DAY 5 | MORNING WALKS + FREE DAY (AYURVEDA)

If you are an early bird, wake up for dawn and go on a walk with us as the early morning reveals its richest layer: drongos, hornbills, kingfishers, and countless endemic species moving through the forest canopy. After a slow breakfast, the afternoon is yours to take a walk by the river, relax on a hammock, or schedule an Ayurvedic consultation with a doctor at a nearby center. Kerala is known for its Ayurvedic wisdom and is the best place to receive both consultations and treatments. In the evening, we meet up for a candle lit dinner back.

Meals included: Breakfast, Dinner

DAY 6 | SOFTLY GLIDING THROUGH THE CANALS ON AN OVERNIGHT HOUSE BOAT

After checking out, we’ll take a 2 hour drive to Kerala’s iconic backwaters, where a private, traditionally crafted kettuvallam (houseboat) awaits. We’ll begin gliding through the serene waterways, a vast, living network of canals, lakes, and narrow village channels where daily life unfolds along the water’s edge. Lunch is prepared fresh onboard full of coconut, rice, and seasonal vegetables. The afternoon moves at an unhurried pace past paddy fields, toddy huts, and open stretches of water pass through us. You can do some yoga on the deck, jump into the water and go for a swim, or journal. At some point, we’ll anchor by a small village so that we can take in some sunset reflection. Dinner is on the houseboat with open skies and eventually to unwind and fall asleep in the cabins

Meals included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

DAY 7 | SETTLING INTO LIFE ON THE LAKE

After a relaxed morning breakfast on the boat, we’ll checkout and settle into our hotel close to the lake. Let’s go on an afternoon village walk and have lunch in town. Today is about observing India’s coastal rural life as coconut vendors set up their stalls, school children buzz around in the afternoon, men do toddy tapping and women gather ingredients for evening dinner. We are going to let the time unfold at its own pace so that we become a part of Kerala.

Meals included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

DAY 8 | EXPLORING KERALA’S COASTAL TOWNS

On our last day together, we’ll go to our favorite coastal to visit artisans making Kerala pottery, local handlooms and weaving techniques, and learn how to draw traditional art using natural powders into the land as practiced in sacred local rituals. For our goodbye dinner, we will have a feast of 14 different delicacies all served on a banana leaf to signify the abundant harvest and generous spirit in this part of the country. Tonight is also to celebrate the friendships that we all created with each other!

Meals included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner