When I was in college we used to be on the lookout for home-stays in different tourist locations in India that offered bed and breakfast – a hot homemade breakfast though a simple one, in addition to the security and homeliness of living with a family. I have always found home-stays to generally give a good balance of privacy and homeliness. The cold informality and plastic smiles that one is greeted with in the best of hotels are generally replaced with warm smiles and well-intentioned concern on part of the owner, especially if those seeking home-stay accommodation are students or foreigners.
The success of home-stays that started out as personal ventures of certain families who had a large house and extra rooms to spare with a penchant for hospitality, has now led to professional home-stays managed by big business houses that deal with timeshare India holidays.
Even today when we decide to go on vacation, the first preference we give is to home-stays, and only if they are not available, do we go for hotel accommodation.
Home-stays are still quite economical as compared to the starred hotels. Most home-stays provide breakfast as the bed-and breakfast concept in the West. During our holiday last year at Kochi in Kerala we stayed with a Malayali family. They were an affable couple who took meticulous care to serve a simple but very wholesome breakfast of piping hot idlis along with omelets for the non-vegetarians along with the mandatory bread butter, jam and cheese. The dosas, utappams, vadas were optional and made their appearance every other day. Make My Trip
The best part of this home-stay was that the breakfast started with coconut water that was given in place of the regular fruit juice which in most hotels is a normal part of breakfast. I felt that this was a refreshing change. India Travel Packages
The hosts made discreet inquiries if we needed help, If not we were left to our own devices through the day. On request they made excellent arrangements for day long tours for us when we took the rice boat tour of the backwaters at Alleppey, and did a day long sightseeing of Kochi tour visiting the ancient Synagogue and the Mattancherry palace.
This home-stay also made arrangements for lunch and dinner every day on prior request at a reasonable additional charge per person. The best part was that the hosts invariably ate with us and ensured that our plates were never left empty. The evening dinner around a campfire on the lawns of the house some distance from the sea always was a time when each of the guests recollected humorous and thrilling anecdotes that happened in each one’s life. This added a family picnic touch to our stay at the home-stay. The feeling we got that we were their personal guests and not really staying in a home-stay. India Trips
This is just one of our experiences at various home-stays in India Tours. Most experiences have been nearly as positive, hence my first preference is always to look for good home-stays and if they are not available, only then think of booking my family in a hotel.
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