Himachal Pradesh

The district of Kinnaur, along with closely linked Bushahr, is blessed with magnificent mountain and valley scenery and a distinctive cultural and ethnic mix that mutates from Aryan Hindu to Tibetan Buddhist as you progress eastward.

This is a land of ridge-villages with slate-roofed temples and countless apple orchards separated by plunging gorges and backed by towering snowcapped peaks. Beyond it lies remote Spiti, which visitors can combine with Kinnaur into a Shimla–Keylong loop through unendingly breathtaking scenery.

The Kinnauris are proud but friendly people who mainly survive through farming and apple growing. You can recognise them all over India by their short cylindrical hats (thapeng or basheri) with a half-round flash of green or red felt on the upturned lappet.

To truly appreciate their land, you need to leave the main road: other than Rampur, most population centres are high up steep mountainsides accessed by seemingly endless hairpin lanes.

Easily accessible from Manali, this utterly beautiful and very varied camping trek crosses from the Kullu Valley to Chatru on the Keylong–Spiti road in Lahaul's Chandra Valley. Bring spare shoes for a knee-deep stream crossing and be aware that there are two (nontechnical) glacier traverses. Starting from Jobri, where the Hamta and Jobri streams meet, the first two days have a combined ascent of around 800m and are fairly easygoing, helping with acclimatisation. Continuing up and over the 4270m Hamta Pass from the Balu Ka Gera campsite is contrastingly long, steep and tiring, but there are sublime snow-peak views from the top. The best time for this trek is after the monsoon, ie late September and October. Snow on the pass generally lasts until May.

When travellers talk of staying in Dharamsala, McLeod Ganj is usually where they actually mean. Three kilometres north of Dharamsala proper (or 10km via the looping bus route), McLeod Ganj is the residence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and home to a large Tibetan population, including many maroon-robed monks and nuns. The Tibetan government-in-exile is based in between at Gangchen Kyishong. McLeod attracts thousands of international visitors, many of them volunteering with the Tibetan community, taking courses in Buddhism, meditation or yoga, trekking in the Dhauladhar mountains, shopping for Tibetan crafts, or just hanging out enjoying the low-budget spiritual/alternative vibe and the plethora of good cafes where you're never far from an interesting conversation.

With mountain adventures beckoning from all directions, Manali is a year-round magnet. Backpackers are well catered for in parts of Vashisht and Old Manai where numerous agents offer trekking, climbing, rafting and skiing according to season. Meanwhile, so many Indian families and honeymooners come for a first taste of snow that greater Manali now has an estimated 800 to 1000 hotels and guesthouses. Tight-packed resort buildings already fill the town centre and are now steadily devouring former orchard terraces as far south as once-rustic Prini 'village'. But while the whole area gets jam-packed in season (mid-April to mid-July, mid-September to mid-October, and over Christmas–New Year), it doesn't take too much effort to get off the main tourist trail. And in November, clear skies plus slashed prices make Manali a bargain – if you can handle the cold and the closure of some restaurants.

Unspoilt Chehni village is one of the most magical villages imaginable. Surveying a wide sweep of valley and ridgetops from 2110m, its antique core features the astounding 350-year-old Chehni Kothi fort-towers, between six and 11 storeys high, depending how you count them, and with a distinct Pisa-like lean. There's a shorter tower across the yard and a third, medieval tower-house in front. A tiny cafe serves Maggi and tea when the owner isn't driving the ox-plough in his nearby field.

This ethereally beautiful valley stretches up through touristy, forest-ringed Kasol and the busy if grubby little pilgrim hot-springs town of Manikaran to a collection of villages around Barshani with glorious views of 5000m Himalayan peaks. Places like Pulga and Kalga here are key stops on the pre-Goa 'hummus trail' for young Israeli travellers, while Kasol and Tosh increasingly draw young Indian travellers and weekenders. The valley has plenty of hippie/backpacker hang-outs, with cheap accommodation, international food and nonstop music. The well-deserved reputation for charas (hashish) is most noted at the very odd village of Malana. Police sometimes make spot checks for drugs.

There are some excellent treks in the area, including the Chandrakani Pass route to/from Naggar, or the far tougher Pin-Parvati Pass to/from Spiti. For safety reasons, solo trekking is not recommended.

Strung out along a 12km ridge, with steep forested hillsides falling away in all directions, the Himachal capital is one of India's most popular hill resorts, buzzing with a happy flow of heat-escaping Indian vacationers. For some visitors the attraction is perusing a dwindling series of relics from Shimla's previous incarnation as the summer capital of British India. Traffic is banned from the central part of town, so walking is pleasant – even when huffing and puffing uphill. The long, winding main street, The Mall, runs east and west just below the spine of the hill. South of it, the maze-like alleys and stairways of the bustling bazaar cascade steeply down to traffic-infested Cart Rd.

From mid-July to mid-September Shimla is frequently wreathed in cloud, and from January it often gets a carpeting of snow. November is cold but clear with a distant horizon of Himalayan peaks sometimes visible from The Ridge.