Where to stay in Munnar makes all the difference to how much you enjoy this beautiful tea country stop in Kerala itinerary. Munnar town itself is a scruffy, traffic-filled junction. The reason you’ve come, the rolling tea estates and the cloud forest above them, starts a few kilometres outside of the town. That’s where the good places to stay are.
We spent three nights at Windermere Estate, a working cardamom farm on a hill above town, and it’s the most special place we’ve ever stayed. This guide covers our favourite places to stay in Munnar, the riverside house we wished we’d slept in on the way, and a handful of other estate and forest stays that give you the same magic of Munnar.
Munnar at a Glance: Our Top Picks
- Where we stayed, and the one we’d book again: Windermere Estate
- Best view (we ate here): Blackberry Hills
- Best stopover between Kochi and Munnar (we visited): Windermere River House
- Best for a remote, luxury splurge: SpiceTree Munnar
- Best big hotel with a pool, for families: The Panoramic Getaway
- Best on a budget near town: Tea Garden Riverside
Why We’d Stay Outside Munnar Town
Munnar town is where the buses, the jeeps and the tour groups meet, and it has none of the calm you came up to the tea fields for. Every place on this list sits outside of Munnar town, in the mountains and the tea fields, the cardamom or the forest.
The trade-off is that you’ll need a tuk-tuk or a driver to get around, which turned out to be no trouble at all: Windermere arranged ours every day, and the ride down into town took about ten minutes. Pick somewhere that does meals and can organise guides and transport, and the town becomes somewhere you pass through rather than somewhere you’re stuck.
Where We Stayed: Windermere Estate
Windermere Estate is a working cardamom plantation on the Pothamedu side of Munnar, a short drive above town, with a handful of rooms and cottages scattered across the hillside, a pool, and views over tea and forest that change with the cloud. We booked two nights, extended to a third as soon as we could, and would have stayed longer if we could have.
What made it was the team. Our host checked in on our plans every day, suggested what to do with the weather we had, and organised everything: the local guide for the Seven Hills tea-estate hike, the tuk-tuks, and everything else. The estate’s naturalist, Medha Hebbar, took us birdwatching and on a walk through the cardamom plantation, and her passion for wildlife was infectious. Sunbirds, Asia’s answer to the hummingbird, and the giant Malabar squirrel were our favourite sightings around the estate.
Breakfast and afternoon tea are included. Dinner is extra, and the home-cooked Indian food made with a Western palate in mind, light and clean, was great. We paid ₹32,332 for the first two nights and ₹16,166 for the third, which works out at around £140 a night. It’s not cheap by Kerala standards, but it was worth every rupee.
Book here: Windermere Estate
Blackberry Hills: The Best View in Munnar
We went for dinner at Blackberry Hills and the view from the restaurant, down a valley of tea with the hills stacking up behind, is extraordinary. The resort itself has yoga and an Ayurvedic spa, and rooms with the same outlook. The food was oilier than we’d have liked, though not bad.
Book here: Blackberry Hills
SpiceTree Munnar: Remote Luxury in Chinnakanal
SpiceTree is a splurge: a small luxury resort at Chinnakanal, about 24km from Munnar town, with an outdoor pool, a spa and rooms looking across the Anayirangal reservoir and the tea beyond. It’s the kind of place you go to for two or three nights and don’t leave much.
Book here: SpiceTree Munnar
The Panoramic Getaway: Pools and Views for Families
The Panoramic Getaway is a hotel rather than a hideaway: two rooftop heated pools (one for adults, one for families), two restaurants and a spa, with the valley views the name promises. It’s the easiest option on this list if you’re travelling with kids or want hotel-style facilities, and it’s very well reviewed.
Book here: The Panoramic Getaway
Tea Garden Riverside: The Budget Pick
Tea Garden Riverside is the one we’d recommend if the estate stays are out of budget. It’s a simple hotel beside the river a couple of kilometres from the Tea Museum, close enough to town to walk in, with rooms that often come in at around £20 a night.
Book here: Tea Garden Riverside
The Stopover We Wish We’d Stayed At: Windermere River House
Windermere River House is Windermere’s sister property at Neriyamangalam, roughly midway between Kochi and Munnar on the river, and we stopped there to break the long drive down to Varkala.
It is one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen: plush bedrooms, a garden full of fruit trees and butterflies, peacocks wandering about, and the river right there below the terrace. We only had a few hours and we talked about it for the rest of the trip. If you’re driving up from Kochi, a night here before Munnar turns a tiring transfer into a wonderful, serene part of the holiday.
Book here: Windermere River House
How to Get to Munnar
Munnar is around four hours from Kochi airport by road, the last stretch of it winding and slow, and there’s no railway. We arranged a driver through our Kochi hotel, which is standard, and would suggest either leaving Kochi early or breaking the journey at Windermere River House. Leaving Munnar, don’t do what we did and drive seven and a half hours straight to Varkala. Instead, spend two nights in Kumarakom on the way. Our Kerala itinerary shows how it fits together.
How Many Nights in Munnar?
Three nights is perfect for Munnar. That gives you a full day for the Seven Hills hike, a morning for the tea factory and birdwatching, and a spare half-day for weather, which you will need: we didn’t finish the Chokramudi hike due to cloud and rain. If you have more time, there’s plenty more to do in the area. Our things to do in Munnar guide covers the hike, the tea factory and more activities.
Munnar was the stop that surprised us most in Kerala, and almost all of that comes down to where we slept. Stay up in the tea or the cardamom, let a good host plan your days around the weather, and if you can only afford one splurge on the whole trip, make it Windermere.