Indien

På fastlandet råder alkoholförbud. Men här på ön Diu flödar vinet, ölen och spriten. Inte så konstigt att den före detta portugisiska kolonin blivit ett populärt resmål för indier som vill släppa loss.

Nestled amid evergreen hills that line the southernmost edge of Karnataka is the luscious Kodagu (Coorg) region, gifted with emerald landscapes and hectares of plantations. A major centre for coffee and spice production, this rural expanse is also home to the Kodava people, who are divided into 1000 clans. The uneven terrain and cool climate make it a fantastic area for trekking, birdwatching or lazily ambling down little-trodden paths winding around carpeted hills. All in all, Kodagu is rejuvenation guaranteed.

Few places in India are at once so traveler friendly and enchanting as mountain-framed Leh. Dotted with stupas and whitewashed houses, the Old Town is dominated by a dagger of steep rocky ridge topped by an imposing Tibetan-style palace and fort. Beneath, the bustling bazaar area is draped in a thick veneer of tour agencies, souvenir shops and tandoori-pizza restaurants, but a web of lanes quickly fans out into a green suburban patchwork of irrigated barley fields. Here, gushing streams and narrow footpaths link traditionally styled Ladakhi garden homes that double as charming, inexpensive guesthouses. Leh’s a place that’s all too easy to fall in love with – but take things very easy on arrival as the altitude requires a few days' acclimatization before you can safely start enjoying the area's gamut of adventure activities.

Sometimes the Seven Sisters of the Northeast (the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura) hardly seem like India at all. The region's hundreds of tribes and subtribes are slowly ceding to modernity, but remain extremely diverse. Nagaland's former headhunters now go to church on Sundays. Many Arunachalis also attend church-like buildings on Sundays – to worship the sun and moon. Cloudy Himalayan valleys near the border of Tibet are dotted with colorful monasteries, echoing with Buddhist chants and clashing cymbals.

The magnificent ruins of Hampi dot an unearthly landscape that has captivated travelers for centuries. Heaps of giant boulders perch precariously over miles of undulating terrain, their rusty hues offset by jade-green palm groves, banana plantations and paddy fields. While it’s possible to see this World Heritage Site in a day or two, plan on lingering for a while.

Virginal Arunachal Pradesh appears as a giant patch of green on India’s map. The country's wildest and least explored state, Arunachal (literally, Land of Dawn-Lit Mountains) rises abruptly from the Assam plains as a mass of improbably steep and densely forested hills, culminating in snowcapped peaks along the Tibetan border. Arunachal lures travellers with the promise of adventurous journeys to remote mountain valleys and encounters with some of its 26 indigenous tribal peoples. Tourism infrastructure – such as hotels or even homestays – has yet to reach many areas; this is travel far beyond standard tourist trails.

Indiska staden Calcutta är en megametropol otroligt mycket att se och göra – här tipsar vi dig om hur du tar dig runt, var du ska bo, äta och fika.

Loket frustar otåligt. Så tar det sats och börjar skjuta sina rangliga trävagnar uppför de gröna sluttningarna i Blå bergen. Så värst fort går det inte. Men vad gör det? Det här är en sådan där tågresa som man inte vill ska ta slut.

Separating the Assam valley from the plains of Bangladesh, hilly Meghalaya (‘the abode of clouds’) is a cool, pine-fresh mountain state set on dramatic horseshoes of rocky cliffs. Cherrapunjee and Mawsynram are among the wettest places on Earth; most of the rain falls between June and September, creating very impressive waterfalls and carving out some of Asia’s longest caves.

Enthralling, historical Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital, is the gateway to India’s most flamboyant state.