Himachal Pradesh Complete Guide 2026: Shimla, Manali, Spiti, Dharamshala
Browse more guides: India travel | Asia destinations Himachal Pradesh Complete Guide 2026: Shimla, Manali, Spiti, Dharamshala TL;DR I spent six weeks crossing Himachal Pradesh from the colonial hill stations of the southern foothills to the trans-Himalayan cold desert of Spiti, and the state genuinely earns the Lonely Planet line about "ten thousand places worth seeing." Across 55,673 square kilometres and 7.5 million people, Himachal compresses more terrain variety than any other Indian state I have visited. You move from apple orchards at 1,500 metres to glacial lakes at 4,250 metres in a single day. My five anchor regions for 2026: Shimla for the British summer-capital architecture and the UNESCO Kalka-Shimla Toy Train; Manali and the Kullu Valley for snow sports, Hadimba Temple of 1553, and Rohtang Pass at 3,978 metres; Dharamshala and McLeod Ganj for the Dalai Lama's exile community since 1959 and the Triund trek; Spiti Valley for the Key and Tabo monasteries p...