Best Budget Hotels in Kerala (Kochi)

Another CGH Earth masterwork, Spice Village is built as a tribal settlement using the architectural vocabulary of the Mannan tribes of the Cardamom Hills — thatched cottages of bamboo and grass set in a spice garden where cardamom, nutmeg, and black pepper grow wild. The Periyar Tiger Reserve borders the property; elephants occasionally visit the garden at night.

• Eco-Luxury
• Wildlife
• Thekkady
• Nature

Perched above a working tea estate with views across rolling green hills to distant waterfalls, Fragrant Nature is the finest contemporary hotel in Munnar — cool rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, a terrace restaurant serving Kerala hill cuisine, and an infinity pool that appears to pour directly into the valley below. Morning yoga with mist rising over the tea bushes is the hotel's most celebrated offering.

• Tea Estate
• Views
• Munnar
• Couples

A CGH Earth property accessible only by boat, Coconut Lagoon is the definitive Kerala heritage experience — 40 traditional tharavad mansions relocated from elsewhere in Kerala and rebuilt on this backwater estate, their original carved timber frames and antique furnishings creating a museum of vernacular architecture that you can actually sleep in. The bird-watching from the treetop platforms is exceptional.

• Heritage
• Backwaters
• Eco
• Nature

A working cardamom estate converted into Munnar's most charming planter's bungalow retreat — wooden colonial architecture, open fireplaces for cool hill evenings, and a cook who sources every ingredient from the estate or the valley below. The silence at night, broken only by the calls of Malabar whistling thrushes, is in itself a compelling reason to stay.

• Boutique
• Plantation
• Munnar
• Quiet

Kochi's most design-forward boutique hotel occupies a converted 1950s bank vault in the Princess Street heritage zone — six unique rooms within the original steel-doored safety deposit rooms, now fitted with contemporary art and precision-chosen antiques. The building's original cashier counters serve as the breakfast bar; the sense of inhabiting architectural history is complete and rather wonderful.

• Design
• Boutique
• Fort Kochi
• Art

Set within a private forest above the Chinnar River, The Tall Trees is Munnar's most architecturally distinctive property — individual wooden chalets on stilts among the trees, accessed by suspension bridges and walkways. The evening bonfire, forest-sourced dinner, and the sound of the river below provide an immersive hill-station experience in spectacularly private surroundings.

• Forest Retreat
• Architecture
• Munnar
• Couples