A Long Weekend in Hampi and Badami

HampiBadami & templesCanyons & caves

Republic Day fell on a Thursday, so a long weekend was looking very tempting. We decided on Hampi and Badami. Four days should be enough, we thought. We certainly found plenty to do.

We travelled Thursday to Sunday. The two detailed parts are linked below.

A note on this archive story

From the travel archive, first published 3 Mar 2017. This is our experience at the time, not a current price or booking guide. Check opening hours, access, fares and services before making your own plans.

Our four-day Hampi and Badami route

A Thursday-to-Sunday Republic Day break gave us four days for Hampi and the Badami side of the trip. The appeal was seeing two different settings in one holiday, but the heat and the amount of ground to cover made timing more important than our optimistic list of stops.

Part 1: Hampi and Sandur

Start with the Hampi chapter for the first half of the journey. Our late, roughly 10 am start was a lesson even in winter: there is a difference between having a whole day on paper and using its comfortable hours well.

Part 2: Badami, Pattadakal and Aihole

We started earlier for Badami after learning our lesson in Hampi. Pattadakal and Aihole followed, then a sunset plan at Tungabhadra that did not quite work out.

Two things we got wrong: leaving at around 10 for Hampi after a tiring previous day, and assuming we could fit the Tungabhadra sunset in on the way back from Badami. The first meant walking in the heat. A wrong turn ruined the second.

So yes, four days worked for this trip, but we would start earlier and keep some extra time now. The full stories are in the two parts below, including the places we did not manage to cover.

This January republic day was falling on Thursday which meant if you suddenly get a mysterious disease on Friday you can have a long weekend at you hand. And so it was planned that we should try and cover both Hampi and Badami in these days. Hampi is all weather Hot place and so November till January is the best time to go there.

But don't be surprised that even these days the place will be very hot so carry umbrella, hat and well tuned AC vehicle if you want to survive this place. having said that every inch of this place is worth and really lives up to the discomfort some of us might face in roaming here. Our trip started on Thursday morning and ended on Sunday.

For ease of planning, I have divided them into the following parts each of which could be done separately if you don't have a long weekend.

Part 1: Hampi and Sandur

Part 2: Badami and Hampi

What I would keep in mind

• Use the two detailed diary posts to decide what to keep and what to leave for another trip.