December is the month India saves its best weather for, and nowhere rewards it quite like Kerala. Here are the places worth booking now, from Alleppey's backwaters to Munnar's tea hills, plus the rest of the country at its winter best.
Ask anyone who travels India often when they would choose to go, and December comes up more than any other month. The monsoon has long cleared out, the punishing summer heat has not yet returned, and the whole country settles into a stretch of dry, bright, comfortable weather. It is the one month where you can plan an itinerary without building it around the rain.
It is also the month everyone else has worked this out too. December is peak season almost everywhere worth going, which means the best houseboats, the best hill resorts and the best flights get taken early. If you are reading this with a few months of runway, you are in exactly the right position.
Below is where we would send you, starting with Kerala, which is where December weather does its finest work.
Why December is India's best travel month
India's northeast monsoon finishes retreating from the south by early December, taking the humidity with it. What is left across most of the country is dry days, cool nights and clear skies. In the north you get crisp winter mornings. Along the west coast the sea is calm. In the south the landscape is still green from months of rain, but you are no longer travelling through it in a downpour.
For Kerala specifically, December sits in the sweet spot: daytime temperatures around 28 to 32°C on the coast, nights that actually cool down, and hill stations cold enough to want a jacket. The paddy fields and tea slopes are at their greenest, because the rain that fed them has only recently stopped.
Kerala in December: the backwaters of Alleppey
If you do one thing in Kerala in December, make it a night on a kettuvallam in Alleppey. These converted rice barges move at walking pace through a network of canals, lagoons and village waterways, and December is when the experience is at its best: no rain on the deck, no haze on the horizon, and evenings cool enough to sit outside comfortably after dinner.
What makes it worth the money is not the boat so much as what passes by it. Children heading home from school along the bunds, women washing clothes at the water's edge, fishermen working Chinese-style dip nets, church bells and temple drums carrying across the water. You are moving through a working landscape, not a staged one. Our houseboat packages cover everything from single-night cruises to multi-day routes, and there is a fuller breakdown in our guide to Alleppey.
One practical note: December is the single busiest month for Alleppey houseboats, and the week between Christmas and New Year is busier still. Premium boats for those dates are commonly gone by October.
Munnar and the tea country
Head inland and up, and Kerala changes completely. Munnar sits around 1,600 metres in the Western Ghats, and in December the mornings there drop to single digits. You wake to mist sitting in the valleys, burning off by mid-morning to reveal tea slopes running to the horizon in every direction.
This is the coldest Kerala gets, and it is a genuine novelty for anyone who associates the state with tropical heat. Bring a proper jacket, because visitors routinely do not and regret it. The estates around Munnar are open to walk through, the tea museum explains how the industry took hold here, and the drive up alone is worth the trip. More detail in our Munnar tea plantation guide.
December is also a good month for Eravikulam National Park nearby, home to the Nilgiri tahr. Worth checking ahead, though: the park closes for roughly two months during the tahr calving season in late winter, and exact dates shift year to year.
Wild elephants at Anakulam
About 40 kilometres from Munnar, near Mankulam, wild elephants walk out of the forest most evenings to drink from a mineral-rich stretch of river. No fences, no mahouts, no feeding schedule. They have been coming to this same bend since at least 1912.
December suits Anakulam well, because the forest tracks in are far easier to manage once the rains have stopped, and clear evenings make for better viewing. Sightings usually start after 6 pm and visitors watch from a roped boundary around 45 to 50 metres back. We have written about it at length in The Elephants of Anakulam. It is free to visit and needs no permit.
Thekkady, Wayanad and Kerala's wildlife
December is prime wildlife season across Kerala's reserves, for a simple reason: water. With the monsoon over, animals concentrate around the remaining lakes and rivers, which makes them far easier to find.
Periyar Tiger Reserve at Thekkady is the best known, where boat safaris on the lake put you level with elephants, sambar and gaur coming down to drink. Bamboo rafting and guided forest walks with former poachers turned trackers are the more rewarding way to see it. Further north, Wayanad offers a quieter, greener version, with Chembra Peak, Edakkal Caves and Banasura Sagar within easy reach of each other.
Kovalam, Varkala and the Kerala coast
December is when Kerala's beaches actually work. The Arabian Sea is calm, the humidity has dropped, and the sun is warm rather than punishing. Kovalam's crescent beaches sit below a working lighthouse you can climb. Varkala is the more striking of the two, with a line of red laterite cliffs running above the sand and a path of cafés along the top.
Both are well set up for Ayurvedic treatment, which is a serious part of the Kerala offering rather than a spa add-on. Many visitors build a week of treatment into a longer trip. If a coastal stretch appeals as part of a wider route, our Kerala tour packages combine beaches with backwaters and hill country.
Fort Kochi
Kochi is where Kerala's layers are easiest to see in a single afternoon: Portuguese, Dutch, British and Jewish histories sitting within a few streets of each other. Fort Kochi is best walked, taking in St Francis Church, the Dutch Palace at Mattancherry, Jew Town's antique shops and the Paradesi Synagogue.
The cantilevered Chinese fishing nets along the waterfront are the image everyone knows, and December's clear evenings are the right time to see them working against a sunset. Kochi has also grown into a genuine contemporary arts city, and it is worth checking what is on while you are there. It makes a natural first or last stop, since the international airport is close by.
Beyond Kerala: the rest of India in December
Kerala is our home ground, but December opens up most of the country, and a longer trip can reasonably combine two regions.
Rajasthan is at its most comfortable now. Days sit in the low twenties, which makes Jaipur, Udaipur and Jaisalmer walkable in a way they simply are not for most of the year. Nights get genuinely cold in the desert, so pack accordingly.
Goa is in full peak season, dry and busy, with the north loud and social and the south considerably quieter. Book early or pay for it.
The Andaman Islands offer clear water and good diving visibility in December, and it is one of the better months for the crossing to Havelock.
The Rann of Kutch in Gujarat turns into a white salt desert once the water dries, and the winter festival season around it runs through these months. Full moon nights on the salt flats are the reason to go.
For anyone actively wanting cold, the Himalayan foothills deliver. Shimla, Manali and Auli see snow in December, with Auli in particular drawing skiers. Weather closes roads at short notice, so keep the itinerary loose.
Practical notes for a December trip
Book earlier than feels necessary. December is peak season nationwide, and the last two weeks of the month are the peak of the peak. Houseboats, hill resorts and domestic flights around Christmas and New Year are routinely sold out months ahead, and prices climb steeply as availability thins.
Pack for two climates if you are combining coast and hills. Coastal Kerala calls for light cotton. Munnar in December morning fog calls for a fleece or jacket, and most visitors underestimate this.
Allow more travel time than the map suggests. Kerala's roads are winding and the distances are deceptive, especially the climb up to Munnar. A route that looks like two hours can take four.
If your dates are flexible, the first three weeks of December give you nearly identical weather to the holiday fortnight at a noticeably lower price, with far fewer people at every stop.
Where to start
For a first visit with around a week to spend, the route that works most reliably is Kochi to Munnar to Thekkady to Alleppey, finishing with a night on the water before flying home. It covers coast, hills, wildlife and backwaters without any single day being spent entirely in a car.
If you would rather have it built around what you actually want to see, tell us what you have in mind and we will put a Kerala itinerary together for your dates. December fills early, so the sooner those dates are fixed, the more of the good options are still open.
