Best hotels in Kovalam

On a cliff above the Arabian Sea, a short hop from Kovalam, Niraamaya Surya Samudra was doing the boutique-resort thing decades before the label existed. Its cottages aren't reproductions: they're actual tharavads, rescued from villages across Kerala and rebuilt here on a headland thick with coconut palms. Below them, a swimming pool has been carved clean out of a single granite outcrop, its edge dissolving into open water. An Ayurvedic spa staffed by resident physicians, three distinct places to eat, and sunsets that turn the whole cliff mango-orange make the modern case. Clifftop hotels are two-a-penny in Kerala now. This one taught them how.