Walking around a small village and apple orchards | Villages of Manali

Whenever you are traveling to a new place, don’t visit the most famous places you have searched on google or saw on instagram because those places are very crowded and there you will find nothing else but annoying shopkeepers and the tourists who are travelling just to show off.

It is my personal experience, I used to go to the places thinking that I will explore the new culture and lifestyle of the people living there. But I ended up in places where I could not find anything which is new because of the commercialization of that particular place. It is because all the tourist visit the same places and it is an easy and profitable market. So those places remain full and crowded all the time. Plus, you will get everything on a very high price.

So, in my opinion, it is much better to explore all by yourself and explore the places the small villages nearby to the town or city where no common tourist reaches. The benefits of doing this is, you will find peaceful places which will be cleaner and you will get to interact with the locals, maybe some of them will invite you to stay or have Lunch/Dinner with you. Then you will be able to see the proper culture and lifestyle to that place.

I am living in Manali for last 4 years and I keep exploring all the small routes and I have found so many beautiful villages on the way. I used to live in a single room in the opposite mountain and I used to see the beautiful villages every morning, thinking about going through those villages some day.

Recently, I got a chance to hike from those villages. I tool my female dog along. She also enjoyed her first hike.

Here you can see in these pictures how clean and untouched these places are. Away from all the selfie addict tourists. You should try it too and I am pretty sure you will thank me 😉

Namaste! 🙏🏼