Essence

The Shakti team of guides, chefs, porters, service & housekeeping, drivers & operations coordinators really are the essence of Shakti – their honest passion to ensure a great holiday experience is at the heart of everything Shakti does. With the majority of the team from the regions in which Shakti operates, the understanding of the delicate relationship with the local communities in which we work combined with an instinctive hospitality and warmth makes the Shakti team unique.

Traditionally a journey to the Himalayas is accompanied by uninspiring dining. Shakti has changed that with creative home-style cooking that has a strong focus on locally sourced & seasonal ingredients. Every dietary preference is catered to individually – and menus adapted over the course of a holiday between chef and guest. The menus have developed over time, with the input of our chefs, our founder, the wider team, and guests as well as friends of Shakti who have given their time to share with us family recipes that bring so much to a Shakti guest’s holiday. Its quite amazing what a Shakti chef can do with a small wood burning oven, some locally grown ingredients and a little imagination....

Shakti offers an entire journey; a fully inclusive, private & complete Himalayan holiday experience. Be it on foot & by car in Kumaon & Sikkim, or by foot, raft, bike and car in Ladakh, the journeys offer a holiday that has both a light footprint and an underlying style of sophisticated simplicity. Ranging from a 4 day village walk in Kumaon to a 10-plus night village and camping experience in Ladakh, this is neither simply a homestay or a hotel, nor a typical trek - but an immersive journey designed to be both active and rejuvenating - far away from the madding crowd.

Our focus from the beginning has been to work with and through the small communities in the regions in which we operate. The village houses are leased, not bought, ensuring that the owners maintain an income and sense of involvement, ensuring a much more sustainable future for all involved. A member of each family has a job with Shakti in perpetuity; home owners and the wider community now grow produce that is bought for use in the Shakti kitchens; the houses have been renovated using local textiles as well as labourers and craftsmen to carry out the work. A Shakti Village House is not a homestay - but the people of the village have come to feel a sense of pride for their involvement in Shakti and it is this that will ensure our sustainability for years to come.

Families, single travelers, parties of friends & couples from honeymooners to the retired will find in Shakti a holiday that caters to them. On this site we have presented itineraries to showcase ideas - but each of the journeys can be tailored, both prior to departure as much as during the holiday. Some may want their days to be much less arduous and culture orientated, others prefer something much more challenging. This flexibility allows the traveller to dictate their own pace, perhaps even push their boundaries - all in the knowledge that at the end of the day a deeply comfortable Shakti bed awaits.