Why a home, not a hotel
Why I do it this way
The two loves
Two things have held me above all else — the road, and this place. The years of travelling were my great romance, and I'd trade none of them; yet every journey, somehow, only ever led me home to this one hillside. I left it in 1992. It's never once left me — and I've found my way back, every year since.
The decision
So I didn't build a hotel. I opened my family's home — to hand you both loves at once: the journey here, and the place at the end of it, lived exactly the way I live it. Not somewhere to check into. Somewhere to see, with me, through my own eyes.
The invitation
This house is simply how we pass it on. Come — and feel what these hills, and the long going to them, can quietly do to you.
Not cheap. Not rough. Quite the opposite.
A home opened with love is easy to picture as humble or make-do. This is not that. 34+ years and counting of travelling across continents — every fine stay I've slept in, every detail that ever made a place feel truly cared-for — has gone into this house. World-class comforts, spotless and thoroughly modern, wrapped inside a 100+ year-old village home. The soul is pahadi; the standards are everywhere I have ever been.
Come stay with us
You don't book our home. You're invited in.
Kunja Village Homestay is a family home, not a hotel. There's no “Book Now” button and no public booking — a stay here is something you're invited to, or you earn. It's what keeps the house quiet, personal, and full of people who truly want to be part of it.
Both paths are open and neither is hard. Come as a friend of the house, or earn your way in through MNEGI, INUK, or a friend already inside — then one message is all it takes.
And everything here is on us — invited by the house, you're never charged even a single buck for any of it.
What we stand for
The things we won't trade away
Slow by design
We keep the pace of the hills — no rush and no schedule to keep. Long mornings, slow chai by the fire, and time that finally feels like your own again, the way a holiday should.
Honest, not polished
We'd rather be real than perfect. The mud road, the washroom across the courtyard, the honest rough edges — we keep them all, because that's the simple truth of a real pahadi home.
Hosted by the whole village
You're not looked after by staff in uniform, but by a family — and a whole village that quietly folds you in, feeds you, and treats you as one of its own from the very first day.
Light on the land
Home-grown food, local hands, and very little wasted. We try to live gently here — the slow, careful way these hills have always asked the people who call them home to live.
Never for money
We don't take payment. We keep a ritual.
This place is never sold — not to strangers, and not even to you. We'll never charge you for a stay. We've been lucky enough, and grateful enough, to build it another way. So in place of money, we simply keep the old ritual the village has always kept — the way a guest is welcomed in, and blessed on the way out.
- 1
Arrive with something small
However you come, bring a little something for the house — anything at all. It's shared with everyone, the way a guest's gift always has been, the world over.
- 2
It goes round the homes
It doesn't stay with us — we carry it round the homes nearby. Word travels that you've arrived, and back come milk, curd, fruit and vegetables to look after the family.
- 3
We greet you warm
Here, a guest is a blessing. We meet you with a hot cup of chai and, in season, a glass of buransh — Uttarakhand's own crimson rhododendron welcome drink.
- 4
You eat with us, and well
Every meal is on us — home-cooked, plentiful, and never charged for. We don't keep a guest hungry; feeding you well is simply how it has always been.
- 5
A teeka, rice and a coconut
On your way out, a red teeka and a few grains of rice to your forehead, a dry coconut — the shriphal, 'god's fruit' — in your hands: a blessing for a safe road and a sure return.
- 6
You bless the village back
In return, you press a little something into the hands of those you pass — the children, the elders, whoever's around. Not a payment. A blessing, passed on.
Invited? You're welcome with a full heart — none of this is ever required.
It's the only 'price' we will ever ask. We mean to keep it this way for generations to come, and hope the next generation carries the momentum forward with the same values it holds now.
How a stay is earned