Nanital | Naukuchaital | Sattal | Bhimtal

Nainital, known as the “Lake District of Uttarakhand”, is one of the most popular hill stations 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 that are far away and ignore the places that are nearby, thinking they can travel to these places 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. Landslides are very common in this month due to monsoon, which makes one journey lengthy and tiresome.

Inspired by the culture of living in villas/cottages/houses in the West, we booked our stay in a beautiful villa in Naukuchaital. It is better to stay here as it is less crowded than Nainital. Naukuchaital is just 18Km from Nanital.

We started early on Sat to avoid traffic and thought we would reach there by lunch as it takes 6-7 hrs from Delhi by road to reach Nainital. But to our bad luck, it took us double the time due to a 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 the long traveling.

Nainital

The next morning, we visited the famous spots of Nainital: Nani Lake and Naina Devi Temple. When we started, the weather was pleasant. By the afternoon, it started raining, but Nani Lake looked beautiful in the rain.

Naukuchaital

The next day, the last day, was the most exciting day for us. Early in the morning, we went to Naukuchaital Lake, which was just a min walk from the villa where we stayed. The lake has nine corners (as the name suggests), and the panoramic scenery is very rejuvenating for the 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.

Bhimtal

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.

Sattal

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

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

Suggested Itinerary – 3 Days

• Day 1: Nauchuaital
• Day 2: Nainital
• Day 3: Bhimtal and Sattal