About

A travel publication for places worth staying at

Stays, destinations, culture and travel intelligence. We do the boring parts — the visits, the awkward questions, the follow-ups — so a week of research turns into one good decision.

Founded 2021 Independent Reader funded
Why this exists

There is enormous information and almost no judgement

Searching for a place to stay in India is a strange experience. Listings describe themselves. Aggregators rank by commission. Reviews are written by people who stayed one night and never saw the kitchen in daylight.

We go, we stay, we ask what happens when the power fails, and we write down the answer. The brand is deliberately broad — hotels, villas, cabins, resorts, houseboats, farmstays, homestays, glamping, unusual architecture, and eventually destinations well outside India — because the question is always the same one: is this place worth the trip.

The benefit of a good stay is the thing you could not have arranged yourself.

The hour on the right balcony. The cook who knows what is in the market that morning. The walk that starts at your door.

How we work

Five rules, no exceptions

  • 01

    We sleep in it first

    No stay enters the guide from a press release or a photo set. Somebody on this masthead has spent a night in it, used the bathroom, and eaten whatever the kitchen sends out.

  • 02

    We pay our own way

    We pay for our own stays wherever we can. When a stay was hosted or discounted, the article says so in the first hundred words, not in a footnote.

  • 03

    Coverage cannot be bought

    There is no rate card, no sponsored review, and no way to pay your way into a round-up. Owners see the review when you do.

  • 04

    We write down the problems

    A house with a beautiful verandah and a terrible bathroom gets both sentences. The useful part of a review is the part that costs somebody a booking.

  • 05

    We go back

    A stay that changes hands, raises prices or slides gets revisited or removed. A guide that is never updated is a brochure.

The masthead

Who writes this

Write for us
Meera Ranganathan

Meera Ranganathan

Editor at large
Arjun Nair

Arjun Nair

Stays editor
Kavya Fernandes

Kavya Fernandes

Destinations
Tashi Namgyal

Tashi Namgyal

Himalaya correspondent
Editorial standards

Disclosure, in plain words

Where we use affiliate or booking links, they are marked, and they never decide what gets covered. If a property gives us a room, you will know before you finish the standfirst.

Read the disclaimer Terms of use

  1. A reader writes in

    Most stays reach us through the Suggest a Stay form. Owners are welcome, as long as they say so.

  2. We check the claim

    Ownership, licences, seasonality, and whether the photographs are from this decade.

  3. We visit

    Usually unannounced, usually paid for. About one suggestion in twelve gets this far.

  4. We publish

    With the rate we were quoted, the season we saw, and the problems we found.

  5. We revisit

    Anything in the guide is fair game for a second look, especially after a change of hands.