If you love travelling, your social media feeds are sure to be filled with videos and reels of offbeat travel locations, information on unexplored places, home stays, plantation stays, resorts, eateries and the like. An extension of this love of travel is the newfound desire of people to put down roots in the hills. They are increasingly investing in property in hill stations, particularly those close to Tier-2 cities. In Tamil Nadu, Yercaud, Kodaikanal and Coonoor are hot favourites.
“I would say 80% of Yercaud is unspoilt, unlike Ooty or Kodaikanal. That’s why I decided to put up a place there for people to relax and rejuvenate themselves,” says Deepa Palaniappan, who runs Shambala Plantation Stay in Yercaud. She continues, “Yercaud is also very accessible from Salem, Bangalore and Chennai. It’s almost magical to see how the weather changes during the 45-minute drive from Salem to Yercaud.
While at her Plantation Stay, Deepa encourages guests to simply commune with Nature, rather than engaging in fixed activities. “They can go back feeling refreshed,” she says.
“The trend of travelling boomed after the pandemic. Considering the predominantly hot weather in India, hill stations are an escape,” says Madurai-based architect Sumanth Ram, who designs homestays and resorts in hill stations. He adds that investments in hill stations are increasing by the day.
“Everybody wants to get away from the crowd, unlike the situation some 10 years back, when people preferred popular tourist destinations. Now they want to explore some wild and offbeat places where they can have privacy. That’s why the home stay business is picking up more than some established resorts,” Sumanth explains.
“People prefer to buy around 20 cents of land. The price ranges from Rs 45 lakh to Rs 2 crore. Generally, people from Bangalore prefer to buy properties in Yercaud. The demand for property here is at its peak now,” says Udayappan A, a real estate agent in the hill station.
According to him, people are also eyeing properties in Kotagiri and Coonoor. There are a lot of coffee plantations and home stays coming up in Wayanad (Kerala), Chikmagalur and Coorg (Karnataka). “I would say it has become a status symbol to own a property in hill stations,” sums up Udayappan.
