Munnar Tour Packages

Every year for the Nilgiri tahr's calving season. The park's official site gives the closure as 1 February to 1 April, and its notice lists the closed period as February to March. Outside it, tickets are sold online on the park's own site and at a counter in Munnar. If seeing the tahr matters, come in December or January, or from April; the closure does not affect the tea estates.

From Kochi, about 130 km: the Idukki district administration puts it at about four and a half hours, and our routes allow about four, through spice plantations and past waterfalls. From Madurai it is about 153 km, five to six hours over the Western Ghats on the South India route. Much of the way is a winding hill road, which some travellers, children especially, find makes them carsick, so we allow for stops.

Almost certainly not. The neelakurinji, a shrub of these hills, flowers in a mass only once every twelve years and turns the slopes blue. Munnar's last great flowering, on the Rajamala hills in Eravikulam, was in 2018, and Kerala Tourism expects the next in 2030. Smaller, isolated flowerings are reported in some years in between, so ask us before your dates if it matters to you.

Yes. On the Kerala Backwaters Tour — 7 days, the morning of day 3 is spent at a working tea estate and the tea museum, which shows the machinery, photographs and objects of Munnar's early plantations; it stands on the Nallathanni estate. The Ayurveda and South India routes also include a tea estate visit on their full day in Munnar, and your local guide on the Backwaters tour walks you through it.

Top Station is about 32 km from Munnar, at around 1,700 metres, the highest point on the Munnar–Kodaikanal road, and its viewpoint looks out over the plains of Tamil Nadu. It is not on our standard itineraries, so it suits a third night, when the drive there and back does not crowd the tea estate and Eravikulam. In the monsoon months mist often hides the view.

Not on a normal visit. Anamudi, at 2,695 metres the highest peak in South India, stands inside Eravikulam National Park, and treks to the summit are allowed only with permission from the forest and wildlife authorities at Eravikulam; the park penalises unauthorised trekking. If walking matters to you, tell us, and a specialist will plan estate walks around your stay instead.

The Kerala Ayurveda Retreat — 10 days. After two nights in Munnar it drives south on day 4 to Thekkady, about 110 km away, for three nights beside the Periyar Tiger Reserve, starting with a consultation with the resort's physician. The Backwaters tour and the South India tour go straight down to Alleppey instead; Thekkady can be added to them in a tailor-made quote.