Taj Madikeri Resort & Spa, Coorg

Character and identity

Set on 180 acres at the edge of Coorg's UNESCO-listed wildlife sanctuaries in Karnataka's Western Ghats, this is a rainforest hideaway of 63 stand-alone cottages and villas scattered across just 30 of those acres, the rest left wild. The open-air cliffside lobby opens onto a 180-degree sweep of misty forest, and the architecture, mustard-amber walls in clay-based pigment, recycled village roof tiles, leans deliberately low-impact. Four restaurants run from millet-led healthy cooking at Ferntree to a Kodagu thali at Nellaki, and the 30,000-square-foot J Wellness Circle anchors an unhurried, naturalist-inflected service register.

Who's it for

Bottom line

The headline here is the setting and the seriousness with which the property treats it: not a single tree felled in construction, hundreds of endemic species on the grounds, and a spa and kitchen built around that ethos rather than bolted onto it. Book a luxury pool villa for the retractable roof, or a deluxe cottage with fireplace for monsoon season, when the rainforest is at its most cinematic.