A week in the hills without an itinerary

The best week we hear about is usually the one nobody organised. Here is roughly what it looks like, for anyone who finds an empty diary alarming.

Mornings belong to the walk

Out early, before it warms up, on whatever path leaves from where you are staying. Forest in the Shivaliks at that hour is loud with birds and empty of people. An hour is enough. Back for breakfast whenever you get back.

The middle of the day is for water

River or pool. This is not a scheduling decision, it is what the temperature decides for you. Take a book you will not finish.

Late afternoon, go down or do not

Some days the town. Some days a chair. The freedom to decide at four o'clock is the thing an itinerary takes away, and it is worth more than any of the individual outings it would have contained.

Evenings are the point

The sun goes behind the ridge, the air cools fast, and dinner happens whenever people are hungry. Groups talk for hours in the hills in a way they do not at home, and nobody has ever explained why.

What to bring for this to work

Walking shoes. Something warm for after dark — it is cooler up here than in town, and winter mornings are properly cold. Fewer plans than you think you need.

The one thing to book

Where you are staying, and for long enough. Three nights is the minimum for any of this to happen; people who stay two spend both of them travelling and looking at the town.

Wildcrest sits above the river valley. More on staying near Rishikesh.