The moment I reached Kasauli, my lungs reacted before my mind did.
I took one long breath and felt something I hadn’t felt in months—clarity. No dust, no fumes, no chemical tang of pollution. Just cold, pine-scented mountain air that tasted almost sweet. After choking through another grey winter in Delhi, Kasauli didn’t just feel scenic. It felt therapeutic.
This tiny Himachali cantonment moves at a different rhythm. Days unspool lazily. People smile, not out of courtesy, but because life isn’t constantly pressing against them. Dogs nap on cobbled lanes warmed by sunlight. Even the mist seems unhurried as it drifts across rooftops.
I wandered the Mall Road my first evening with no agenda: old colonial homes, cosy cafés, shops selling fruit wines and jams, the faint smell of woodsmoke. I ended up with hot bun samosa and jalebi—crispy, sweet, impossibly comforting. The vendor spoke like we were old friends. In Kasauli, everyone feels familiar within minutes.
Nature as refuge
The next morning, I walked the Gilbert Trail—a narrow, forested path where silence has depth. Pine needles cushioned every step. The air was icy and pure enough to sting. And every few turns, the woodland opened to vistas that could stop time: precipitous valleys, Himalayan layers in blues and silvers, clouds hanging like slow-moving ships.
Far below, birds swooped through the light. Above, a hawk traced circles in the sky. I sat on a rock and listened: no horns, no sirens, no construction—just wind rustling through deodars. My breathing slowed. My mind emptied. For a few minutes, I felt like a human being again.
Later at Monkey Point, the highest spot in Kasauli, the cities lay glittering in the distance—far enough to look pretty, near enough to remind me exactly what I had escaped.
The great escape
The real surprise came in the conversations. I kept meeting people who weren’t here for a holiday—they were here for their sanity.
A couple from Gurugram told me they were building a house nearby. Their children kept falling sick every winter. “We realised the city was poisoning us,” the mother said, only half-joking. A designer from Noida said his allergies vanished within weeks of moving here. A tech entrepreneur shifted his entire remote team to the hills. “My creativity came back,” he told me. “Turns out I just needed air.”
This long-term migration is real. Kasauli isn’t becoming a resort town—it’s becoming a refuge.
Evenings that reset the soul
On my last night, I walked to Sunset Point. The sky changed colours like a runway model – from molten to apricot, lavender, rose, salmon pink…Locals and travellers sat in silence, watching the sun dissolve behind the mountains. No one posed for selfies. No one rushed away. You don’t hurry a sunset here. You surrender to it.
When darkness fell, the stars appeared—bright, sharp, visible. In cities, stars are folklore. In Kasauli, they are overhead every night, reminding you that the world is bigger, calmer, older than your inbox.
Leaving, but not really
The next morning, I took one last walk behind the retreat. The ground was moist with dew. The air smelled of pine and earth. Light filtered through the forest like liquid gold. Somewhere, a woodpecker tapped rhythmically.
I stood still and breathed deeply. Kasauli hadn’t entertained me—it had healed me. Driving down the hill, I rolled the windows open and let the wind fill the car. The cities shimmered below, waiting. But they no longer felt like the centre of my world.
Once you have remembered how it feels to breathe, it becomes impossible to live any other way.