Places of Interest (Tamil Nadu)

Tamil Nadu is a vast state. There are a large number of places of interest in Tamil Nadu each famous for one thing or the other. There is a mix of religiously important places, historically iconic cities and monuments, beautiful natural landscapes and big industrial centres. We have discussed how to plan your itinerary to cover these places in this post. The eastern part has sea beaches and coastal beauties. The Central and Western parts have hill stations and wonderous terrains. Beautiful temples are dotted all over the state. Since, it was ruled by some major dynasties in the past, Tamil Nadu has a cultural reminiscence of each in a different part of it.

Tourist map of Tamil Nadu with our route and places of interest

The above map lists out the cities we visited (marked by red dots) and explored and the route that we took (marked with black line) for our road trip. This was a trip of 7 days excluding arrival and departure. More on our itinerary here. Let us explore some of the important cities and the places of interest in and around those cities.

  • Mahabalipuram

    Around 40km from Chennai, you will come to the first stop on your itinerary. Mahabalipuram, the ancient city is a heritage site in itself. It is also called Mammallapuram after the Pallava king who was called Mammalla (meaning the Great Warrior). You have to pay an entry toll (or, entry… Read More

  • Puducherry

    Puducherry or Pondicherry is a Union Territory. Although it does not come under Tamil Nadu, we included this place because it lies on the way from Mahabalipuram to Thanjavur. It is a good idea to cover Pondicherry while on a trip across Tamil Nadu. So, we included it in our… Read More

  • Thanjavur

    On our way from Puducherry to Thanjavur, our next stop was Gangaikonda Cholapuram. Gangaikonda Cholapuram is about 120km which takes 2-2.5 hours. The temples are shut between 1-4 PM. So we had lunch in the restaurant near the temple. The restaurant was big with Family AC chambers serving only meals… Read More

  • Rameshwaram

    Rameshwaram is around 5 to 5.5 hrs drive from Thanjavur. Since we had planned in such a way that we arrive at Rameshwaram in the late evening, we had a two night stay at Rameshwaram. Rameshwaram is an ancient holy city of India. Originally a fishermen village, Rameshwaram is on… Read More

  • Madurai

    Madurai is another ancient temple city in the state of Tamil Nadu. It took us about 3-3.5hours from Rameshwaram. Both Hindu dynasties and Muslim dynasties ruled Madurai at different times. There is clear influence of both religions in the food, culture and life of the city. The city houses the… Read More

  • Coimbatore

    Our next and last stop was Isha Yoga Centre, Coimbatore. The centre is 40km away from the city centre, just at the foothills of the Velliangiri hills. Isha Yoga Centre is the headquarters of the Isha Foundation founded by Sadguru. The centre is open for visitors of two kinds- stay… Read More

  • Kanyakumari

    Kanyakumari is about 6-7 hours journey from Rameshwaram. You may take an overnight bus to reach here. It is the Southernmost point of India. You may also take a train to Nagercoil to reach Kanyakumari which is around 21 km from there. We had visited Kanyakumari from our Kerala trip.… Read More