Walking Wanderer

Planning a trip is one of the most important thing. Many people say that trips should be unplanned and raw but for me they should be planned, at least a little.

In my last few emails many people asked me to suggest the best itenary for a weekend trip to Kasol or How to plan a weekend trip to Kasol. So I decided to write one.

Kasol is one of my first love in life. When I first visited this place I was amazed and stunned by the beauty of this beautiful village situated along Parvati river. I stayed there for a week exploring the culture, stories of hot water spring. For me all these things were totally new because this was the first time I heard about the rave party or Malana cream.

How to Plan weekend trip to Kasol

I believe that if you are a nature lover and want to explore Kasol or Parvati valley in detail than you should plan at least 7 days trip to Kasol but still if time is less and you only have a weekend than I will tell you how to efficiently utilize your 3 days in the valley.

• Most of the people start their journey from Delhi or Chandigarh so I will start from Delhi. First of all the best way to initiate the trip from Delhi is to take a Volvo from Kashmiri gate to Manali on Friday night so that your complete trip can be scheduled properly.
• 12 hours is the minimum time that a Volvo bus takes to reach Bhuntar, a place in Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh.
• Remember that bus is from Delhi to Manali so you need to land up at place called Bhuntar which comes 50km before Manali.
• Bhuntar is a small town from where the highways separate to Parvati valley and Manali. Here in Bhuntar you can have a breakfast or tea before heading to Kasol or Parvati valley.
• As per schedule on Saturday morning you are in Bhuntar, Now from Bhuntar you can either take a local transport bus to Manikaran which runs after regular interval one after another from 9am on-wards.
• Or the far better option is to rent a bike from Bhuntar so that you are free to commute in the valley making your trip entirely in your hand without waiting for the buses. As parvati valley is a collection of villages so it becomes difficult sometimes to commute in local buses because then you may have to wait for hours for buses.
• After two hours drive you will reach Kasol, Which will be like 12 in the noon on Saturday you will be in Kasol. Now on that same day you can plan a trek to Malana village. After the orders of local deity of Malana, tourist is only allowed to visit the place but no staying place is granted to the people. So you can do the local sightseeing of the culture, explore the village etc.
• After that you can return back to Kasol and have a night stay for the Saturday night.
• Try to visit the local cafe’s, try the local cuisine, enjoy the music along the Parvati river.
• Next day try to get up early i.e is on Sunday and head toward Manikaran. Here you can visit the Gurudwara and local Shiva temple.
• After that you can head toward Barsheni >> Tosh and start your trek to Kheerganga. The trek to kheerganga is around 13 Km long binding some picturesque beauty.
• After reaching Kheerganga you can camp there for the night and enjoy your beautiful life in the midst of most beautiful valley in the world.
• On Monday morning you can trek back and head back to whatever destination you want.

The Major advantage of this proposed itenary would be that you would be able to explore Kheerganga as well as Malana Village in a short period of time.

And the major disadvantage of this proposed itenary would that you have to sacrifice your Monday in returning back to your destination.

Read: How to make a trip to Leh Ladakh- Ultimate guide

Distance Chart for Parvati valley

1. Delhi to Bhuntar = 488km( Great condition highway)
2. Bhuntar to Kasol = 31Km (Fair condition of road)
3. Kasol to Manikaran = 4.5Km (fair condition of road)
4. Manikaran to Barsheni = 8Km (fair condition of road)
5. Barsheni to Tosh = 7.6Km (Very Bad condition )
6. Kasol to Tosh = 22km
   

I hope this plan of itinerary for Kasol/Parvati valley will be useful for travelers planning their journey at least for the first time. I will look forward for any queries or doubts or valuable suggestions and inputs you have and would love to discuss about your custom plan as well in comments section.