12 Things To Do in Varkala: Kerala’s Cliffside Beach Town

Varkala is the beach bit of Kerala: a red laterite cliff with a ribbon of cafés and shops along the top, surf breaks below, and a yoga studio on every other rooftop. We spent a week here at the end of our two weeks in Kerala and came to love it.

Our first impression of Varkala wasn’t a good one. We arrived late on a Saturday evening into quiet Odayam, exhausted from a 7-hour journey. As we walked towards the cliffs to explore, quiet shores expanded into throngs of people, thumping music and neon lights. Our hearts sank. We scurried back to our guesthouse in Odayam and went to sleep wondering if we’d made a huge mistake spending half our holiday in Varkala.

By morning, the sun was shining and we were in a rooftop yoga class, followed by a leisurely iced coconut coffee. This became our morning ritual. When we reached the cliffs and beaches that afternoon, the Saturday crowds had dissipated and started packing their cards to head home, leaving behind sand, sea and just a handful of travellers.

It stayed like this for the rest of our week in Varkala, and with daily yoga, surf and no plans we felt more zen than ever. Turns out Varkala is a popular weekend party spot with young, domestic tourists who stay central on the cliffs but head back home for the working week. In between, the weekdays have a gentle and more relaxed feel.

This is our guide to the best things to do in Varkala, with prices from our November trip, where we based ourselves and all our favourite spots.

Where We Based Ourselves in Varkala

Varkala has three areas: North Cliff is the famous bit, with the cliff path, the restaurants and the shops. South Cliff is a few minutes further on and much calmer. Odayam, where we stayed, is the next beach north, a ten-minute walk from the cliff.

Our base was Utopia Varkala, a laid-back guesthouse overlooking rice paddies in Odayam, run by a Czech mother and daughter who have lived in India for years. After the very attentive service at Windermere in Munnar it took a day or two to adjust to the relaxed pace, but by the end of the week we were completely sold. There’s rooftop yoga every other day, homemade breakfasts that lean Western and healthy (smoothie bowls, fruit, chia pudding), and the beach is ten minutes on foot. Our where to stay in Varkala guide compares Odayam with the North and South Cliffs and has the other places we’d book.

We’d recommend Odayam or South Cliff over North Cliff itself. On weekdays the cliff is a pleasant, if touristy, place to walk. At the weekend it turns into neon lights and loud music, and we’d rather sleep somewhere quieter.

The Best Things to Do in Varkala

1. Walk the North Cliff (on a Weekday)

The cliff path is Varkala’s main event: a kilometre or so of red cliff with the Arabian Sea on one side and a run of cafés, juice bars, tailors and shops on the other, with steps down to Papanasam Beach below. Walk it in the morning or at sunset on a weekday and it’s lovely. We arrived on a Saturday night, in unseasonable rain, and our first evening was crowds, speakers and neon. Once the weekend visitors had gone home on Sunday night, it was a different town.

2. Learn to Surf with Moon Waves Surf

We surfed most days. Varkala is a good place for beginner and intermediate surfing: the waves aren’t clean like Bali, but they’re consistently powerful enough that you get plenty of goes at standing up. There are riptides, so go with a school. We booked through Moon Waves Surf, who picked us up from Utopia’s drive, and our instructor Rohith got us both standing and turning within the week. Lessons were ₹1,500 (about £13) each.

When we were there the best surf beach, Edava, was closed because of a dispute between surfers and local fishermen, so we surfed the beginner waves at Varkala Beach. Ask your school what’s open, and be aware that the best breaks can be on a different beach each day so you may move around.

3. Rooftop Yoga at Utopia

Yoga is to Varkala what surfing is to Taghazout, and we alternated the two: surf one morning, yoga the next. Utopia runs a 90-minute class on its rooftop every other day, overlooking the rice paddies, with a teacher who leaned into the wisdom-and-inner-peace side of things rather than just the stretching. Most guesthouses and the cliff studios run drop-in classes if you’re not staying somewhere with its own.

4. Have an Ayurvedic Massage at Gramam Living

After a few mornings of surfing, our shoulders needed it. Gramam Living on the cliff is the high-end option and it was excellent: a 30-minute couples massage, oily in the Ayurvedic way, for ₹1,800 (about £14) each. There are cheaper places all along the cliff, but this is the one we’d go back to because the ambience was so good.

5. Sunset Beers at Black Beach

Kerala has strict alcohol rules and beer isn’t on most menus, so finding somewhere that serves a cold one with the sunset felt like a treat. Black Beach, at the northern end of the cliff where the sand turns dark, has a couple of laid-back spots that do. It’s quieter than the main stretch and the sunsets are as good as anywhere in Varkala.

6. Go Souvenir Shopping on the Cliff

I did all of my souvenir shopping for the whole trip in Varkala. The shops along the cliff and around Black Beach are a good mix of cotton bags, block-printed fabric, throws and the usual harem trousers, and prices are fair if you’re polite about it. I came home with cloth bags for my family and a throw for our bed.

7. Swim at Odayam Beach

Odayam was our closest beach and the quietest of the ones we visited. It’s a short curve of sand with a handful of guesthouses behind it and almost nobody on it. We ate at one of the beach restaurants once and wouldn’t rush back, but for a swim and a sit it was our daily default.

8. Eat Idli at Tickety Boo

Tickety Boo was our favourite place to eat in Varkala. It’s a no-frills idli and dosa place where mains start at ₹80 (under £1) and a chai is ₹10. You eat with your hands, tearing off idli and dipping it in sambar and chutney. The staff are deaf, and ordering by pointing and smiling worked great.

9. Head to Café Sarwaa on South Cliff

Café Sarwaa is a Varkala institution and the queue tells you so. It’s worth it, for the views off the South Cliff as much as the food. The vegetarian momos were my favourite thing on the menu, and I could eat them every day. This is a great cafe for lunch and to stay a little while to read. We walked along the full stretch of coastline back to Odayam from here, which is quite a long walk.

10. Coconut Iced Lattes at Vedaa by Aum

Vedaa by Aum, the café just before Odayam Beach, was by far our favourite daily stop. The coconut iced latte is too good and we had one almost every day. The food is fresh and mostly vegetarian: try the uttapam and the paratha plate. If you’re staying in Odayam this will become your kitchen.

11. Walk Round to South Cliff

Carry on past the end of the main cliff and the path drops down to South Cliff, which feels like a different town: fewer shops, a few homestays in the greenery and a near-empty stretch of beach. Soul & Surf, the surf-and-yoga retreat that has since closed down, had a clifftop garden here where we ate one lunchtime and spent the afternoon in a hammock.

If we came back to Varkala, we’d like to stay this end and thought Villa Akasa looked like a wonderful option.

12. Take a Backwaters Trip

Plenty of people do a backwaters day trip from Varkala, usually to the Kappil backwaters just north or down to Munroe Island. We’d already done our from a homestay in Kumarakom, with a sunrise canoe leaving from outside our room, and we’d recommend doing it that way if your route allows. Our where to stay in Kumarakom guide and our Kerala houseboat post explain why. If you’re only travelling around this southern end of Kerala, Munroe Island works well.

How Long to Spend in Varkala

We stayed a week and never ran out of things to do, mostly because we weren’t trying to do much. Surf, yoga, a long breakfast, a swim, a walk along the cliff, sunset. If you’re on a tighter Kerala itinerary, three or four nights is enough to enjoy Varkala and we’d recommend trying to time it for midweek.

Best Time to Visit Varkala

We visited Varkala in November, right at the start of the season, and had a mix of sunny days and a couple of wet ones. December to February is the driest and busiest stretch. Many of the cliff restaurants and shops shut over the monsoon from June to September, when the sea is rough and much of Varkala packs up, so don’t plan a surf week then. Whatever month you come, aim to arrive for mostly weekdays unless you want to be partying on the weekend.

How to Get to Varkala

Varkala has its own railway station (Varkala Sivagiri), on the main line between Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, which makes it one of the easier Kerala stops to reach by train. From Kochi (Ernakulam) it’s around four hours. From Kottayam, the gateway to Kumarakom, around three.

We did it the hard way. We took a private transfer directly from Munnar to Varkala, which took seven and a half hours on winding roads and cost £70 plus a tip. We’d strongly suggest breaking that journey, either with two nights in Kumarakom on the way or with a couple of nights at Windermere River House, the riverside retreat roughly midway where we stopped to break the drive and wished we’d stayed.

For flights, we flew into Kochi and out of Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum, TRV), which is about an hour’s drive south of Varkala and meant no backtracking at the end of the trip. From the UK both airports are usually one stop via the Gulf, and flying out of Trivandrum rather than back up to Kochi was the best logistical decision we made in Kerala. Our full two-week Kerala itinerary shows how Varkala fits with Kochi, Munnar and the backwaters.

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