Coastal Karnataka can be encapsulated in one phrase hidden but not-so hidden blue water white sand beach of India.
This entire trip was planned on a whim when Akhil was taking a 2 week break between two jobs. His main purpose on this trip was to unwind so I decided to go with it. We ensured to stick to only the west coast of India within the Karnataka state. While we were planning this trip, there was a cricket worldcup happening so we wanted to ensure to be in a city on the important match days.
We started our trip from Goa because it was the nearest airport. From Goa we travelled to Gokarna than to Murudeshwar than to Udupi and ending our trip in Mangalore. In total, excluding 2 match days, this was a 9 days trip.
Coastal Karnataka Blog Article Links
| Coastal Karnataka Travel Guide | Udupi Travel Guide |
| Gokarna Travel Guide | Mangalore Travel Guide |
| Murudeshwar Travel Guide | Kayaking in Udupi |
| Article Content |
| Karnataka Travel Guide article blog links |
| 9 days itinerary for Coastal Karnataka |
| When to travel to Coastal Karnataka |
| How to travel to & within Coastal Karnataka |
| Trip budget for two people |
9 days itinerary for Coastal Karnataka
| # Day | Stuff we did | Alternate option |
| 01 | Landed in Goa & travelled to Gokarna by rented car within 4 hours. Rested for the day after long journey. Enjoyed the lush green road on the way to Gokarna with some stops of random lotus ponds by the highway. Checked into the hostel on Kudle hilltop. After some rest, straight descended from hilltop to the Kudle beach to enjoy a swim during the sunset. | |
| 02 & 03 | Had breakfast at Pai Hotel (not Pai restaurant). Explored & enjoyed Om beach in morning. Afternoon we spent exploring the town of Gokarna in by lanes on our motorbike. Took some rest in hotel & in evening explored Ganapathy temple & Mahabaleshwar temple (read note below). Explored the small holy town of Gokarna, as the temples are the main attraction here. For Indians, definitely explore the old civilisational heritage town while you hear the temple prayer bells around, taste the temple prasad, and smell the incense aroma. | |
| 04 | Started for Murudeshwar at about 8am in rented car & reached by 10:30am. Checked into a heritage home. Immediately left darshan at Murudeshwar temple and Rajgopuram. Had lunch at Naveen Beach restaurant by the Arabian Sea. After some needed nap at the home, at evening left on motorbike to explore empty beach on our way to Alvekodi beach. Spent lovely evening at Matadahitlu beach of read, swim & chill. Had dinner at the heritage home. | If only looking for adventure, I would like to chuck the Om beach & other hyped beach of Gokarna & instead taken a scuba diving time at Netrani island, which is closer to Murudeshwar. Unfortunately we learnt about scuba after I reached Murudeshwar which meant we had no time for it. |
| 05 | On our way to Udupi, visited Marvanthe beach & spent 30mins there. Started for Udupi at 9am in car & reached by 10am. Checked into our homestay with a private beach. Enjoyed the afternoon basking on the private beach under the coconut trees. Had lunch at Malpe lunch home. Went for kayaking at Saligram, about 23kms from Maple. Dinner at homestay. | |
| 06 | Early morning swam at the beach. Breakfast at the Homestay. Enjoyed quiet morning by the beach. Lunch at Nemo at Malpe beach. Visited Thonsepar or St. Mary’s island. Dinner at homestay. | |
| 07 | Early morning swam at the beach. Visited Malpe port fish market, where we bought fish with our homestay owner. Visited Delta beach backwaters & enjoyed a local meal. Sawm in the backwaters & retreated in evening to homestay. Enjoyed fresh fish meal at the homestay. | |
| 08 | Enjoyed morning swim at the beach followed by breakfast at the homestay. Started for Mangalore at 1pm & reached by 2:15ish pm. Checked into our heritage home in Surathkal (20kms from main city). Enjoyed our day by the beach of our homestay. Grabed dinner in city at Janatha Deluxe in Padumudi. | Looking back, I would have love to add 1 more in Udupi to explore the old jain temples or just more chill by the beach (yes, they are so lovely) & kept only 2 days for Mangalore, since cities arent as fun as small towns. |
| 09 | Breakfast at Venu Tiffin room (closer to our heritage home in Surathkal). They serve amazing iddiapam & pineapple sheera. Explored 3 key temples – Gokarnanath temple, Mangaladevi temple and Kadri Manjunath temple. Lunch at New Tajmahal cafe. Enjoyed the evening by the beach of our homestay. | |
| 10 | Breakfast at Venu tiffin room. Spent quiet morning at the beach by the homestay. Post lunch flew back to Mumbai in evening. Bought some food souveniers like Banana halwa, Fanas halwa, and Fanas papad. |
When to travel to Coastal Karnataka
Monsoon (June to September) and winter (November to February) is the ideal time to travel in Coastal Karnataka. However, the coastal India has a special charm during monsoon between mid-May to September. While the monsoon limits the water activities you can do, but definitely allows to see the unique flora & fauna it has to offer.
How to travel to & within Coastal Karnataka
FLIGHT – Karnataka has Bangalore and Mangalore are the major airports of Karnataka with extensive domestic & international flights connectivity. For coastal Karnataka, Mangalore and Goa (Dabolim) are major airports with extensive domestic & international flights connectivity.
TRAIN – For coastal Karnataka, there are many trains for Gokarna & Mangalore. There is a new Vande Bharat train starting from Oct 2023 and check the updated list of Vande Bharat trains on gov portal or wikipedia.
ROAD – NH66 is the national highway connecting entire Coastal Karnataka route.
Inter-State – This entire coastal Karnataka route is perfect for road trip as the distance between most of the cities is on average 100kms. Both of us don’t drive car in long distance (coz we are lazy) so we opted for rental cars from makemytrip or easemytrip.
Within city – Since we didn’t have our own car during the journey, we rented motorbike for traveling within cities. Also personally we prefer exploring cities on walk or cycle or motorbike as it allows full visibility of city, unlike car. Also motorbikes are convenient while exploring towns in the by lanes & easy to find parking spot. Motors bikes are also usually available everywhere in India and easy to rent out at thrifty price.
Trip budget for two people
Our budget was mainly high due to the rental car and a self-driven car would have reduced the trip cost by approx 20%. Food was relatively inexpensive as we ate at the local restaurants to taste the local cuisine.
| Expense Type | Cost for two people (INR) |
| Flight | 23000 |
| Travel – Car rental | 13000 |
| Travel – Motorbike rental | 5000 |
| Stay | 47700 |
| Food | 10000 |
| Total | 98700 (approx 10000 per night) |
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