We know travel has the power to do good, but what does that actually look like? In northern India, one social enterprise promotes walking holidays via a profit-share model that brings tourism jobs to rural communities, in turn preserving rural life, culture and nature. Richard Franks takes a (slow) hike to see how this initiative has transformed communities.
It’s Diwali in the Himalayan foothills. Firecracker smoke swirls through a candyfloss sky at dusk and a deep orange glow silhouettes the jagged hazy peaks. Inside a guesthouse built by villagers, we light candles and pray to the goddess Lakshmi, the Hindu deity of wealth, beauty, fortune and prosperity before sitting down to a delicious thali (platter). I tuck in; there’s daal, warm roti, aloo gobi (spiced potato and cauliflower), and bhang ki, a nutty, tangy chutney made with seeds from hemp plants surrounding the villages, blended with coriander and lime juice.
I’m in the Kumaon region of north India’s mountainous Uttarakhand state on the border with China and Nepal, and on the new walking holiday ’Khali in Kumaon’ created by social enterprise Village Ways. The company was founded in 2005 by husband-and-wife duo Himanshu and Manisha Pande. With stays at intimate guesthouses, like the one I’m at in Kathdhara village, these small-group trips aim to promote rural tourism in areas largely unexplored by tourists. By catering to no more than five or six people at a time, this protects the landscape and counters overtourism too.
This community-based, low-impact tourism project connects two local villages in Uttarakhand via the ancient footpaths surrounding Khali Estate, with three further villages (Risal, Satri and Dalar) also walkable from the estate, should guests wish to extend their trip. In total, some 30 villages are now involved with Village Ways across six states in India. Guesthouses are built by local people—and owned and maintained by them too, with all profits split across the community. It’s an impressive model which I’ve come to see for myself.
My trip is bookended with an overnight stay at the sprawling, high-altitude Khali Estate, a hotel that’s been in the Pande family since 1985, and inside the 45-square-mile (116-square-kilometer) Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary. The sanctuary was founded in 1988 to protect its broad-leaved oak forests, and is home to over 200 bird species, as well as leopards, barking deer, wild boar and langurs.
Mornings at Khali are purposefully slow: Chai on the deck at dawn, as first light creeps over the Himalaya. A filling homecooked vegetarian breakfast of flaky paratha, hard-boiled eggs and chutneys of varying spice levels is enough to fuel the start of my multi-day hike.
“There are just 22 families living here. Initially the villagers were reluctant to agree— they never thought tourists would come here.”
- Deepak Joshi, senior guide trainer
Khali Estate was built over 150 years ago by General Sir Henry Ramsay, the British Commissioner for Kumaon during the early days of Britain’s colonial rule in the 19th century. Beginning as a sort-of summer refuge for officials, the estate also reportedly served as Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram in 1929.
Serving as Commissioner for several decades (1856-1884, compared to the five-year historic average of officials), the corridors of Khali feature Ramsay’s portraits, construction details and estate plans. While his legacy sits within a far-reaching, uncomfortable colonial context, it’s fair to say Ramsay did build and improve local infrastructure, such as roads, hospitals and schools.
“Ramsay is often called the King of Kumaon here, as he was the first person to build hospitals and schools in the region,” says Himanshu. “We want to build on his good work by ensuring that everyone living in the five villages close by—Kathdhara, Gonap, Satri, Risal and Dalar—has employment and can be self-sufficient, without needing to leave their traditional homes.”
My walking guide is Deepak Joshi, who joined Village Ways in 2005. With over 20 years of experience and more than 50 guides trained, he’s now a senior guide trainer. After breakfast, and a visit to Khali’s fruitful allotment, we head for Kathdhara village on a three-hour, mostly downhill amble through dense rhododendron, pine and oak forest. “There is another route, but it’s mostly uphill and takes around six to seven hours as we would go via the summit of Binsar,” says Joshi.
“There are just 22 families living here,” Joshi tells me, as we arrive in Kathdhara. “Initially, the villagers were reluctant to agree—they never thought tourists would come here. In other nearby villages, such as Gonap, there are seven families there now, but only three families remained in 2003 before Village Ways began. They wanted to leave, but income from the project has actually allowed them to stay.”
In Kathdhara village, we follow narrow hillside paths between tiny corn terraces, citrus orchards and banana plantations, and pass villagers’ homes, where kittens, baby goats and chickens roam, and large bunches of fresh red chillies are left to dry on sunsoaked doorsteps.
Hospitality in the mountains is generous. It’s impossible to walk by any home without being welcomed inside. “We have pakora waiting,” jokes Joshi each time a villager invites us in. True to his word, we’re greeted by fresh pakora and chai at Kathdhara guesthouse.
We chat to one local, who’s lived in the village for 75 years. “We live a simple life. Everything we need to eat is grown locally, there is no internet, and other than the number of people living here, not much has changed,” he says. Joshi translates from Kumaoni, a Hindi dialect. “At least 70 people lived here when I was growing up, but people move to cities to find work.”
In each village, guesthouses are owned and run by Village Ways’ Village Tourism Committee, which include at least one member from each household. This ensures fair decision-making and an equal split of the income. Villagers are also trained as guides and hosts, and receive training on safety, sanitation and waste management.
By training and employing villagers, Village Ways has played a significant role in reducing rural migration away from mountain villages. “All Village Ways employees are from these villages; some are third-generation,” Joshi says, as another local tries to tempt us in for chai while her teenage son tends to the family allotment. Some younger people have even been tempted back to rural life since the pandemic, he tells me, as there’s more chance of employment.
Employing women is another objective across all roles, and Village Ways is proud of their almost-even split of female versus male employment (49 percent women/51 percent men across 470 members). I see at least one female guesthouse host helping to carry luggage to the next village. “She will return with grass for the cows,” says Joshi. Everyone gets involved, he tells me, adding it’s never a wasted journey.
Only a handful of homes remain in Gonap, some now stone ruins after villagers left for work in cities. With nothing to see from my room but endless hills, Gonap guesthouse feels like it’s on the edge of the world.
After Diwali celebrations and a restful night’s sleep in the Kathdhara hills, we enjoy a slow breakfast of omelette, paratha and porridge before heading for Gonap. Most walks between villages take no longer than three hours; today’s walk is another gentle one with the sun on our backs and the rolling hills always in view.
Joshi stops regularly to point out native species to Binsar, like the fiery red flowers of ginger and turmeric plants; the waxy green leaves of Uttarakhand’s state tree, Rhododendron Arboreum whose flowers make “great tea”; and even fresh leopard scat, which is “why we don’t walk at night”. Discovering porcupine quills and wet wild boar footprints add to the thrill, though the shady, cavernous hillside entrance Joshi points out, where a wild boar likes to rest, is perhaps an imaginative step too far.
“Kathdhara will feel like a city compared to Gonap,” says Joshi as we arrive. He’s not wrong. Only a handful of homes remain in Gonap, some now stone ruins after villagers left for work in cities. With nothing to see from my room but endless hills, Gonap guesthouse feels like it’s on the edge of the world.
More plates of fresh pakora are served as several Eurasian griffon pairs circle high above the guesthouse looking for fresh meat. Unfortunately for them, we’re not prey. After lunch we head on a “digestion walk” (Joshi’s words, not mine) down steep hills, across bushy ground and through hemp plantations, where, once again, offers of chai come fast.
“They are just so happy to see tourists here,” Joshi says. Back at the guesthouse, I sink into a book, Think Like a Mountain, by Aldo Leopold, whose front cover looks strikingly like my own view, before a nap on the stone terrace, all golden hues in the evening sun. After another thali and chai, I once again drift off, cradled by silence.
Our final day ends with a steep, 7,913-feet-above-sea-level hike (2,411 meters) to the highest point in the sanctuary. “I didn’t think you’d have liked this at the start,” says Joshi. He’s not wrong.
Along the way, Joshi stops to point out the bright green parakeets and spike-tufted bulbuls (passerine songbirds), before clouds move in on what was supposed to be an undisturbed view of the Nepalese Himalayas from the Zero Point viewing platform, the highest vantage point in the sanctuary. I suppose not every mountain moment goes your way.
We arrive back at Khali Estate in a similar joyful vein to that of Diwali in Kathdhara, as Village Ways co-founders have invited villagers to a celebratory afternoon marking two milestones: 150 years since the founding of Khali Estate and 20 years since the company began.
We reunite with guesthouse owners we’ve stayed with, meet villagers from around the region selling crafts from Nepalese sheep wool jumpers to hemp clothing, and watch schoolchildren performing traditional dances on the deck.
“We want our walking holidays to be authentic experiences, so it’s important to celebrate these anniversaries with the people who make it happen,” says Manisha Pande. “After all, a village is nothing without its people.”
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Richard Franks is a freelance travel journalist and guidebook writer based in Birmingham, UK, who specializes in writing about adventure travel, the great outdoors and music-based tourism across Scotland, the West Midlands and USA. Published in BBC Travel, National Geographic Traveller, The Telegraph, The Times & Sunday Times, The Independent, Metro, The i, Rough Guides, Lonely Planet and others, he enjoys photography, hiking and wild camping, and is an Aston Villa season ticket holder.
