Kerala

Kerala is narrow. The Arabian Sea is on one side, the Western Ghats on the other, and the distance between them is small enough that you can have breakfast beside the water and be in tea country by the afternoon. That compression is the whole appeal: three distinct landscapes without long transfers between them.

The backwaters are a genuine working waterway — a network of lakes, canals and river mouths running parallel to the coast, with villages, churches and paddy fields along the banks. Inland and upward, the hills around Munnar and Thekkady are cooler, quieter and planted with tea to the horizon.