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Khetala Kumaon Homestay is situated in the heartland of the Kali Kumaon Geo-Cultural Sub-Region of the Himalayan State of Uttarakhand. Broadly speaking, it is located in the Manas Khand Region, in the border district of Champawat, Uttarakhand.

Khetala Kumaon Homestay, adjacent to Village Joshura in the Holi-Piplati Gram Panchayat (in Block Pati of district Champawat) is a perfect getaway spot (an exclusive and authentic rural retreat) to rest and relax for the sustainable ecotourism enthusiasts. It also doubles up as a centrally located gateway to the cultural hotspot of the Kali Kumaon Region (of Manas Khand), equidistant to the region’s temple tourism locations.

Why was Khetala Kumaon conceptualized and redeveloped / repurposed (to what object) as a Homestay

The unique location of Khetala compelled us to reconceptualize and repurpose our ancestral home as Khetala Kumaon Homestay for debuting our native village Joshura on Uttarakhand State’s rural ecotourism/staycation map. Our underlying motivation is to use this Homestay as an authentic site for our guests to witness and experience the unique cultural heritage of our Pahadi communities in their native setting that happens to be our ancestral village.

Rural ecotourism has been identified as the express vehicle for modernizing, revitalizing and up-/re-skilling the village communities of Uttarakhand by policy experts and activists within and outside the Government and therefore Tourism promotion has been coupled with specially designed schemes introduced by the State Govt. to incentivize and generate a drive among the youth towards self-employment in tourism and allied sectors.

The nascent rural ecotourism and cultural tourism sector is positively attracting precious private human capital (reverse migration of talented youth), thereby justifying the increasing spend in material resources (infrastructure development by the State in roads and highways, helipads, hospitals, electricity, drinking water, schools, banking etc.) to redevelop these areas and attract financial investment (private capital investment incentivized by State subsidies) towards modernization of the public infrastructure and building community wealth required by a 21st century thriving service economy (such as tourism, education, medical services etc.) in the hilly hinterland, thereby purposely resetting and revitalizing the lofty mountains and high river valleys as the dynamic, youthful and ticking cultural heartland of Uttarakhand’s identity.

Before this positive value creation cycle, the Himalayas were getting trapped in the vicious loop of a hollowing, hopeless and increasingly desolate rural economy hurt by the outmigration of youth in search for getting education, learning vocational skills, getting well-paying jobs and other opportunities available in the more economically developed cities of the plains. This phenomenon, especially over the last few generations also created a geriatric pool of our elders in the hills, despondently witnessing the breach of their village communities and agricultural fields by the wildlife and the unchecked spread of forests.

Some 5,14,000 acres of formerly cultivated land in the hills and valleys of Uttarakhand has become uncultivated and fallow, in the last two and a half decades. As a result, the formerly rich and challenging agronomy, the basis of rural culture and family life for millennia, has suffered terribly. With the influx of interest generated by the incentives and resources as part of the Government’s policy, there has been a pan-social cultural movement to utilize this moment in history as a bedrock for redefining and rebuilding the State’s economy as well as celebrating the enduring culture and legacy of the mountainous State in all its forms, from its legendary past to the stories of reform and resilience in the modern era.

Historically, every cultural challenge has required an adequate social response for a culture to survive and thrive as it overcomes the natural and artificial (civilizational) dynamics of an eventual socio-political decay.

Our micro-level (or nano?) redevelopment plan for Khetala Kumaon Homestay therefore identified the structural (socioeconomic) logic and fiscal incentives behind the Government’s policy to revitalize the rural economy with private partnership. The effort has demanded severe reallocation of our meagre financial resources and an enduring vocational commitment to this purpose. We chose to participate in this epochal drive to reset, redefine and restart the off-beat grassroots economy in our ancestral locale with our native intelligence, fertile imagination and lots of hope for the betterment of our society.

Khetala Kumaon as a concept and as a material fact symbolizes the psychic drive and active material efforts required (and hardships endured) to revisit, unlock, redevelop, repurpose and re-represent the dormant value hidden in the cultural and ecological heritage of our ancestral mountainous hinterland.

Khetala Kumaon represents the challenges and fiscal risks that underwrite any enduring and everlasting commitment towards a slow and real transformation. It is a positive effort driven by hope to refresh and reset the cultural habitat turning to wilderness. It is a deeply emotional as well as an intellectual-rational, intergenerational collective response to the challenges posed by rapid cultural flux. It is one among the innumerable grassroots-led and Government promoted initiatives and products being developed in a much broader whole-of-society effort on a war-footing to preserve a cultural way of life for posterity.

Who should be motivated to Stay at Khetala Kumaon

We hope to inspire our guests with modern but rustic hospitality in our rural Homestay. We hope that they witness the raw energy of Divine Nature, recognize the hardships of the mountain village communities within the modern confines of our relatively comfortable Home Stay.

Rural Ecotourism at Khetala Kumaon offers our guests a unique opportunity to witness and relish both the romance and resonance of nostalgia in the abundantly raw Nature as well as a vantage point to observe and appreciate the harsh realities of rural hilly lifestyle.

We have imagined that our guests would recharge and refresh their reserves of energy with a great help from Nature and the Divinities of our Devbhumi.

As they would’ve also glimpsed and experienced the challenges of traditional living in the 21st century, we would wish that they return to their busy and equally challenging but modally different city lives with an energised will to respond to their own challenges in life with a fresher perspective, an open mind and lots of dynamism they had hopefully unlocked from within, during their rural retreat at Khetala.

Therefore, we hope that the form and function of the Home Stay that we offer at Khetala aligns with our guests’ travel priorities on multiple levels. The privacy and exclusivity of Khetala not only gives a platform for leisurely rest and recreation with family and friends, but it’s also an opportunity for a psychological reset, for triggering a true transformation, self-discovery and learning, for experiencing rural nostalgia and the romance of ecotourism, for research and writing, documentary and film making, for undertaking cultural tourism (pilgrimages) and rural exploration in a calm and tranquil, culturally rich region of Kumaon.

Khetala Kumaon is a perfect place as a private retreat. It is our commitment to preserve and promote this blissful sojourn into the heart of the cultural heritage of Kali Kumaon region that from time immemorial has had a place in the Pauranic settings.

When to Stay at Khetala - All Seasons Open