Homestays

A rapidly increasing number of home-owners are welcoming visitors from across India–and abroad–into their homes and their lifestyle; for brief as well extended home-stays. Encouraged by the government, people are putting to good use their extra bedrooms by letting them out to discerning travellers willing to imbibe a culturally different way of life. A complete departure from the facility-rich albeit impersonal environs of a hotel, home-stays are indeed answering the home-away-from-home call.

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The Mirage, Andretta

Typical home-stays require visitors to check into another’s house and life for the length of their stay, in exchange for respect for their timings, and pocket-friendly tariffs that may or may not include meals. Most of which are home-cooked and usually eaten with the host-family, who will be happy to accommodate dietary restraints if they have prior knowledge. A large number of travellers are happily lapping up this concept as it allows them a chance to experience local flavours through warm and hospitable families.

Home-stay properties dotting the length and breadth of the country include centuries’ old heritage homes, cottages in alpine solitude, colonial-era planters’ bungalows, restored royal mansions, modest yet clean village houses, well-appointed floors in modern homes; the list is endless. However, it is not so much the property that makes your stay worthwhile; in the end, it is the host family that extends the quality of experience.

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