Goa, India

Goa International Airport at Dabolim is 30km from most resort areas. Before checking into your beach hotel, make a detour to Old Goa — the former Portuguese capital, 9km east of Panaji, which contains the greatest concentration of baroque churches in Asia. The Basilica of Bom Jesus (1605) contains the incorrupt body of St. Francis Xavier in a silver casket in a jasper tomb — one of Catholicism's most important relics. The Se Cathedral, the largest church in India, has an extraordinary gilded interior and the Golden Bell, the finest in Asia. These churches are UNESCO World Heritage Sites and genuinely magnificent: Baroque architecture transplanted to the tropics, with the jungle pressing up against the white-painted facades. Check into your resort and find a beach-facing table at sunset for your first feni (Goa's local cashew or coconut spirit, the correct introduction) with fresh lime.

A morning at one of Goa's spice plantations (Sahakari Spice Farm or Tropical Spice Plantation near Ponda) is one of the territory's essential experiences: a guided walk through coconut palms, areca nut trees, pepper vines, cardamom, vanilla orchids, and cinnamon to see the full spice range that made Goa so valuable to the Portuguese. An Ayurvedic elephant bath is usually included, and the three-course Goan lunch served on banana leaves after the tour is always extraordinary. Afternoon in Panjim (Panaji) — Goa's capital, a pleasant riverside town with a beautifully preserved Latin Quarter (Fontainhas) of Portuguese-era houses painted in yellow, ochre, and terracotta, with cast-iron balconies and tiled facades. The Mahalaxmi Art Complex and the old Secretariat building. Evening boat cruise on the Mandovi River with Goan music.

North Goa's beaches are livelier and more developed than the south, with the famous beach party scene of Anjuna and the dramatic red laterite cliffs of Vagator. The Anjuna Wednesday Flea Market is one of India's most celebrated markets: 2,000 stalls of Rajasthani textiles, Tibetan jewelry, Kashmiri shawls, Goan spices, and artisan clothing in a beachside palm grove. The hilltop Chapora Fort above Vagator beach (made famous by the Bollywood film Dil Chahta Hai) has the best panoramic view of the north Goa coastline. The beaches of Vagator and Little Vagator — curved bays below the red laterite cliffs — are significantly less crowded and more dramatic than the main Calangute and Baga beaches. Dinner at Thalassa Greek restaurant on Vagator Hill — improbably excellent Greek food with Arabian Sea sunset views.

Drive south from Panjim to South Goa — a completely different atmosphere from the developed north: quieter, less built-up, and with some of the most beautiful beaches in India. Palolem Beach is a perfect crescent of white sand in a sheltered bay between two headlands — palm-thatched beach huts at the back, calm turquoise water, and a series of islands visible offshore. The beach is home to a colony of spinner dolphins that can often be seen in the morning from shore. Agonda Beach, 10km north of Palolem, is even quieter — a long empty strand backed by jungle where Olive Ridley sea turtles nest between November and March. Cola Beach, accessible by a short walk through the jungle from a parking area, has a freshwater lagoon separated from the Arabian Sea by a sandbar — one of the most dramatic beach formations in India. Lunch at one of the Palolem beach hut restaurants: catch of the day grilled with recheado masala.

Dudhsagar Falls ("Sea of Milk") on the Goa-Karnataka border is India's fifth tallest waterfall — a four-tiered cascade of white water dropping 310 meters from the Western Ghats, visible from the Goa-Bangalore railway line where the train passes on an old Portuguese viaduct directly beside the falls. Jeep tours run daily from Mollem National Park in the Goan interior; the jeep ride through the forest to the falls takes 30 minutes on forest tracks. Swimming in the plunge pool at the base of the falls, surrounded by tropical forest, is an extraordinary experience. The route passes through the Mollem National Park where gaur (Indian bison), sambar deer, and occasionally leopard are seen. Return via the Ponda temple complex — Goa's most important Hindu temples, built after the Portuguese expelled Hindu worship from coastal areas, cluster in a small area around Ponda with richly decorated interiors.

A morning cooking class in a Goan home or at one of the established cooking schools is one of the most enjoyable experiences in Goa — the cuisine is unlike any other in India, combining coconut milk, tamarind, vinegar, and a specific blend of spices (the recheado paste, the xacuti masala) with fish, pork, and rice preparations that reflect both Indian and Portuguese influences. Make prawn balchao (a spicy pickle-preserved prawn dish that keeps for months), chicken cafreal (Portuguese-influenced green herb marinade), and bebinca (the 7-layer Goan coconut milk cake that requires extraordinary patience to prepare). The afternoon belongs to the beach — sunbed, cocktail, Arabian Sea. An evening shack dinner with fresh pomfret and kingfish grilled over coals, Kingfisher beer, and a Goan sunset as unhurried as any in the world.

Goa International Airport (GOI) is 30-60 minutes from most beach areas depending on traffic. A final morning might include one more swim, a last kingfish curry at a beach shack, or a browse through the local cashew nut vendors — Goan cashews are the finest in India, roasted in clay pots over wood fire and sold everywhere. Take home Goa sausages (chouriço, the Portuguese-influenced pork sausage cured in vinegar and spices), a bottle of Port wine from Goa's own production, and a bag of the recheado masala paste that will recreate Goan evenings in your own kitchen. Goa is one of those places that attracts repeat visitors because it manages to be simultaneously Indian and entirely unlike the rest of India — and the combination is impossible to resist.