Indien

When travelers talk of staying in Dharamsala, McLeod Ganj is usually where they actually mean. A couple of miles north of Dharamsala proper (or six miles 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 spiritual vibe and the plethora of good cafes where you're never far from an interesting conversation.

Once dubbed the ‘Temple City’, Bhubaneswar is a worthwhile pit stop for a day or two. This will allow you to take in the old city’s holy centre, which surrounds the ceremonial tank called Bindu Sagar. Thousands of medieval stone temples once stood here; around 50 currently remain. Temples aside, there are a couple of worthwhile museums, an ancient cave complex and the most varied dining scene in Odisha, along with a smattering of decent hotels.

Explore beyond the city center in Mumbai and you'll uncover furious energy, unique bazaars, hidden temples, hipster enclaves and India's premier restaurants and nightlife.

Aurangabad laid low through most of the tumultuous history of medieval India and only hit the spotlight when the last Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, made the city his capital from 1653 to 1707. With the emperor’s death came the city’s rapid decline, but the brief period of glory saw the building of some fascinating monuments, including Bibi-qa-Maqbara, a Taj Mahal replica, and these continue to draw a steady trickle of visitors. Alongside other historic relics, such as a group of ancient Buddhist caves, these Mughal relics make Aurangabad a good choice for a weekend excursion from Mumbai. But the real reason for traipsing here is because the town is an excellent base for exploring the World Heritage Sites of Ellora and Ajanta.

Mighty Mehrangarh, the muscular fort that towers over the Blue City of Jodhpur, is a magnificent spectacle and an architectural masterpiece. Around Mehrangarh’s base, the old city, a jumble of Brahmin-blue cubes, stretches out to the 6-mile-long (10km), 16th-century city wall. The Blue City really is blue! Inside is a tangle of winding, glittering, medieval streets, which never seem to lead where you expect them to, scented by incense, roses and sewers, with shops and bazaars selling everything from trumpets and temple decorations to snuff and saris.

Bihar is the birthplace of Buddhism – indeed its very name derives from vihara, the Sanskrit word for Buddhist monastery. Thousands of pilgrims from around the world throng its many places of religious significance. Most extraordinary among these spots is Bodhgaya, the site of Buddha's enlightenment, where getting caught up in the spiritual atmosphere is a major draw for travelers. In tribal Jharkhand, holy Parasnath Hill is a revered Jain pilgrimage site, and joining devotees on the hike to the top is a surreal highlight. That apart, the forests of Betla (Palamau) National Park promise a date with elephants and leopards, and maybe even the odd tiger.

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala's capital – still usually referred to by its colonial-era name, Trivandrum – is a relatively compact but energetic city spread across low-lying hills and is an easygoing introduction to urban life down south. Most travelers merely springboard from here to the nearby beaches of Kovalam and Varkala, but Trivandrum (once capital of the princely state of Travancore) has enough good food and intriguing sights – including a zoo, a Travancore palace and a cluster of Victorian museums in glorious neo-Keralan buildings – to justify a stay.

Stretching 600km along the Brahmaputra River Valley, with a spur down to the hilly southeast, Assam is the largest and most accessible of the Northeast States. Well known for its national parks abounding in rhinoceroses, elephants, deer and primates (with respectable tiger numbers too), it welcomes visitors with a subtly flavoured cuisine and a hospitable population with a vibrant artistic heritage. The archetypal Assamese landscape is a golden-green panorama of rice fields and manicured tea estates, framed by the blue mountains of Arunachal Pradesh in the north and the highlands of Meghalaya and Nagaland to the south. The birthplace of Indian tea, Assam has more than 3000 sq km of land carpeted in bright-green tea gardens, and visits to these estates are high on many travellers' itineraries.

Located on the banks of the holy Godavari River, Nashik (or Nasik) gets its name from the episode in the Ramayana where Lakshmana, Rama’s brother, hacked off the nasika (nose) of Ravana’s sister. Today this large provincial city’s old quarter has some intriguing wooden architecture, interesting temples that reference the Hindu epic and some huge bathing ghats. The city is noticeably cleaner, better maintained and greener than many Indian cities of its size.

There are few states more quintessentially Indian than Uttar Pradesh. The subcontinent's historic and religious roots – Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and secular – intertwine in this land of sacred rivers and vast plains, manifesting in sights of profound importance.