North Kerala: The 7-Day Malabar Trail

Your driver meets you at Calicut airport and you head inland, climbing the nine hairpin bends of the Thamarassery ghat — about two and a half to three hours, with the plains falling away behind you and the air cooling as you reach the plateau. Wayanad sits at around 700 to 2,100 metres and feels immediately different from the coast. Check in and take the evening slowly. Overnight in Wayanad.

The Edakkal Caves are the reason most people come — Stone Age petroglyphs carved into a rock cleft, reached by a short but genuinely steep climb of around forty-five minutes. If the climb is not for you, we substitute the Banasura Sagar dam and a working cardamom and coffee estate instead. Wayanad is also one of the few places in Kerala where you can walk in a spice plantation that is actually being farmed rather than staged for visitors. Overnight in Wayanad.

Down from the hills to the coast, roughly three to three and a half hours, with two stops that make the drive the point rather than the price. Thalassery gave Kerala its biryani and India one of its first cricket grounds; we stop for lunch where the dish actually comes from. Then Muzhappilangad — four kilometres of firm sand you are allowed to drive along, the longest drive-in beach in India. Arrive Kannur in the late afternoon. Overnight in Kannur.

Between November and May we arrange a Theyyam performance at a village kavu — a shrine, not a stage. These begin before sunrise, and the performer, in towering ornament and body paint, is understood during the ritual to be the deity rather than an actor. It is not a show put on for visitors, which is precisely why it is worth getting up at four in the morning for. Later, a handloom weaving cooperative — Kannur cloth has been exported for over a century — and St Angelo Fort on the headland at sunset. Overnight in Kannur.

Two and a half hours north along a coast that stays green all the way to Karnataka. Bekal Fort is the largest in Kerala, a laterite keyhole sitting directly above the Arabian Sea, and it is at its best in the last hour of light. If the name feels familiar, this is where the “Tu Hi Re” sequence from Bombay was filmed. Overnight near Bekal.

The northern backwaters are wider, emptier and almost entirely undiscovered compared with Alleppey — a river system fed by four rivers and separated from the sea by a long thin island. We use a country boat rather than a houseboat here, which suits the scale of the place. Afternoon free at the beach or the resort. Overnight near Bekal.

Kannur International Airport is about two hours south, and it is worth checking fares there before defaulting to Calicut or Kochi — it is newer, quieter and often cheaper. If you would rather continue, this route joins the classic southern circuit neatly, making a fourteen-day Kerala trip that covers the whole state.