Best Destinations To Visit This Summer With Your Family

This holiday season, go birding, try spotting tigers or visit a tea plantation in the hills. Here are five great ideas for a memorable family vacation. 

- Gustasp and Jeroo Irani

PANGOT FOR THE BIRDS

Deep forests of oak, deodar and pine rustled around us and the mist swirled into the valley like the robes of whirling dervishes. We were at the Jungle Lore Birding Lodge in the Himalayan hamlet of Pangot, 15 km away from Nainital.

After a night of full-stop seclusion, we rose to a blushpink sky and the sun rising over the serrated edges of the mountains in the distance.

Our first birding excursion, together with a family of three, was amply rewarding. We walked past a sleepy village where a clutch of women filled gleaming pots with water at a well. Terraced fields unfurled like green carpets across the hills even as we plunged into a forest, vibrant with shades

of green, rust and gold. We heard the laughing thrush, its teasing whistle was followed by a fugitive glimpse. Our guide pointed out many of the 250 species that can be spotted in the woods around Pangot…a drongo flitted above us and a spotted owl perched on a branch, melancholy and still.

The Himalayan griffon, lammergeier, rufous-bellied woodpecker, blue-winged minla and many more…. Another day was spent birding at Cheena Peak and near the Kilburry Forest where we spotted large hawks, Eurasian cuckoos and the blue-throated barbet.

In that soft dawn, the chorus of calls in the green depths of the forest soon became a symphony without end.

NAVIGATOR

GETTING THERE

By Air The nearest airport is at Pantnagar (75 km).

By Rail The nearest railhead is Kathgodam (50 km) or Haldwani (48 km). From either, take a taxi to Pangot.

By Road Drive from Delhi via Kathgodam and Nainital (304 km); it’s eight-and-a-half hours. Drive from Delhi via Ramnagar (Corbett National Park) and Kaladhungi; it’s a seven-and-a-half hours' drive.