About HORIZONS
Crafting Extraordinary
Journeys Across South India
Rooted in nearly three decades of local expertise, HORIZONS creates tailor-made journeys through Kerala and the timeless landscapes of South India.
About HORIZONS
Travel is personal.
We believe it should stay that way.
Most tour operators count their guests in the thousands. We prefer to know ours by name.
HORIZONS is a brand of Scenic Escapes India Private Limited — a specialist tour operator with more than twenty-eight years behind it, designing and running tailor-made journeys across India and its neighbouring countries: Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
Our heart, and our deepest knowledge, lies in the south: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Goa.
The India We Know
One country.
Countless worlds.
India is not one place. It is many, set side by side, and it changes every few hundred kilometres — the language, the food, the shape of the temples, the way people take their tea.
The south is our home ground. Kerala, where the backwaters lie still in the early morning and the palms lean out over the water. Tamil Nadu, with granite temples a thousand years old that are still full of people, still lit, still in use. Karnataka, with its coffee hills and the ruined city at Hampi scattered among the boulders. And Goa, and the sea.
We know when the mist settles on the tea gardens at Munnar and when it lifts. We know which hill road is worth the extra hour. We know where the elephants come down to drink at Periyar, which market in Madurai to walk through at dawn, and where to sleep on a boat and wake to nothing at all but water and birds.
01
Kerala
Backwaters, palms, quiet mornings and the landscapes we call home.
02
Tamil Nadu
Ancient granite temples that remain living, breathing places.
03
Karnataka
Coffee hills, dramatic landscapes and the ruins of Hampi.
04
Goa
The sea, the coast and another side of southern India.
There is a great deal of India.
We would like to show you the quiet parts of it.
WHERE WE COME FROM
The backwaters are home.
Our founder, Surjith Somasundaram, lives in Alumkadavu, near Karunagappally — the village where the Kettuvallam houseboat was born.
In the 1990s, Mr Babu Varghese of Tourindia took the old rice barges that once carried cargo through these backwaters and converted the first of them into a houseboat.
It was a novel idea at the time. It went on to become the golden feather of Kerala tourism, and it gave the world the image it now associates with God's Own Country.
Our founder worked alongside Mr Varghese for his entire early career before starting this company.
So the backwaters are not a product we learned to sell.
They are where we are from.
What We Take Care Of
Everything between
arrival and departure.
From the first transfer to the final morning, we take care of the details that allow you to simply be present in the journey.
Hotels, heritage properties and homestays
Private transport and experienced drivers
Kettuvallam houseboats and backwater cruises
Guides, permits and internal travel
Ecotourism and sustainable tourism experiences — chosen because they are genuinely worth your time, not because they are easy to book
Long-standing relationships with hotels across the region mean we can often secure rates that are not available to the public.
That saving goes to you.
Why We Stay Small
By choice.
Staying small is how we come to know most of our guests by their first name. It is how we can spend a week shaping one itinerary around one family's interests instead of sending fifty groups down the same road.
And it is why, when something shifts mid-journey — a delayed flight, a change of plan, a temple festival worth rearranging a day for — there is someone at the other end of the phone who already knows your trip and can put it right.
What We Are Aiming At
We are not interested in being adequate.
We are interested in being remembered — in designing a journey you will still be describing to people years from now.
Our Policy & Hallmark
Welcome a tourist,
and send back a friend.
It has worked for twenty-eight years. Most of our guests come to us because someone they trust travelled with us first.
Meet The Founder
Surjith
Somasundaram
Travel Professional
28 Years in Tourism & Hospitality
Mr Surjith Somasundaram is a travel professional with twenty-eight years in tourism and hospitality — driven by curiosity, a willingness to experiment, and the conviction that tourism should be a living, creative craft rather than a fixed menu of packages.
He has spent nearly three decades learning this part of the world in detail: which backwater route is quiet in March, which small hotel is worth the detour, which guide will make a temple come alive rather than simply list its dates.
That knowledge is what you are really booking when you travel with HORIZONS.
HORIZONS
Come with curiosity.
Leave with a story.
We would be glad to have you travel with us.