Nanital, known as “Lake District of Uttrakhand”, is one of the most popular hill station in India, especially for Northern India – it serves as a weekend gateway tourist destination.

I always wanted to visit this place for two reasons, one it is a beautiful place and second, it is near to Delhi. Generally, people tend to visit those places which are far off and ignore the places which are nearby thinking we can travel this place anytime. And nearby places always get ignored as taken for granted destinations.

We went there in August for 3 days, though not a good month to travel. Landslide is very common in this month due to monsoon, which makes one journey lengthy and tiresome.

Inspired by the culture of living in villas/cottages/house in the west, we booked our stay in a beautiful villa in Naukuchaital. It is better to stay at this place as it is less crowed compared to Nanital. Naukuchaital is just 18Km from Nanital.

We started early on Sat to avoid traffic and thought would reach their by lunch as it takes 6-7 hrs from Delhi by road to reach Nanital. But to our bad luck it took us double the time due to couple of landslides. So we reached our villa only by late evening. We couldn’t do anything that day, otherwise we had planned to visit the lake and Hanuman mandir – two famous spots in Naukuchaital. We had our dinner and went on to sleep as we all were very tired due to long travelling.

Next day, the last day, was the most exciting day for us. Early morning we went to Naukuchaital lake which just a min walk from our villa where we stayed. The lake has nine corners (as the name suggests) and the panoramic scenery is very rejuvenating for mind and eyes. Post breakfast we went to Hanuman Mandir which was again 5 min from our Villa. It is a beautiful spot to visit (even if one is not fond of visiting temples). One can visit this place as a beautiful spot.

We further went to Bhimtal, another glittering lake city. It is less crowded compared to both Nanital and Naukuchaital. It is famous for water sports. We enjoyed boating as the weather was awesome. And also tried our hands in water ball. One can definitely walk and run if one is able to stand inside the ball which is floating on the lake. It is surely an experience which one should try.

On the road

Bhimtal

Later in the day we went to Sattal – which is lesser explored tourist destination. Sattal  is a cluster of seven interconnected fresh water lakes. It is very peaceful, serene, unpolluted and uncrowded lake. We really enjoyed here by just sitting in  front of the lake.

Although our journey didn’t go as per our plan, but the last day of our trip compensated for not so great previous days. As the famous saying goes – All’s well that ends well.