The Coastal Karnataka Road Trip: Gokarna to Mangaluru

The Karavali — the narrow coastal plain where the Western Ghats fall away to the Arabian Sea — is one of the most rewarding drives in south India. National Highway 66, the old west-coast road (once numbered NH-17) that runs the length of the coast from Maharashtra down towards Kanyakumari, threads the whole of it, linking fishing harbours, temple towns and a near-continuous line of beaches. This story follows the best of that coast north to south across three districts — Uttara Kannada, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada — from the pilgrim beaches of Gokarna down to the port city of Mangaluru, with the sea almost always in view on your right.

Gokarna: temples and the beach trail

Gokarna is the natural place to begin — a Kanara pilgrimage town that doubles as a beach base. At its heart is the Mahabaleshwara Temple, a Dravidian granite shrine enshrining the Atmalinga, so revered that Gokarna is called a "Dakshina Kashi", the Kashi of the south. In front of the town runs the broad Gokarna Beach, used by pilgrims for ritual bathing; it is also the start of the cliff trail that leads south over the headlands to the quieter coves. That trail links the laid-back crescent of Kudle Beach to Om Beach, whose twin curves trace the shape of the Om symbol and which is the usual hub for a beach stay, with shacks, boat rides and water sports. Give Gokarna a full day; if you have an extra morning, drive out to Mirjan Fort near Kumta, a laterite ruin of high bastions and stepped wells tied to the 16th-century pepper-trading queen Chennabhairadevi.

Murudeshwara and Bhatkal: the giant Shiva

About 75 km south of Gokarna, the highway reaches one of the coast's landmark sights. On a headland at Murudeshwara, washed by the Arabian Sea on three sides, stands the Murudeshwara Temple, crowned by a seated statue of Shiva about 37 m (roughly 123 ft) high — among the tallest Shiva statues in the world — beside a 20-storey gopura, the Raja Gopura, with a lift up to a viewing level. Dedicated to Shiva and linked to the same Atmalinga legend as Gokarna, it is at its most striking at sunset, when the light falls on the statue and the sea behind it. Murudeshwara has its own station on the Konkan railway, in the Bhatkal taluk, so it is easy to reach by train as well as by road, and it makes a good overnight or lunch stop as you move south.

Maravanthe and the Udupi coast

Below Bhatkal you cross into Udupi district, and the drive reaches its most photogenic stretch at Maravanthe Beach, near Kundapura, where NH-66 runs along a narrow strip of land with the open sea breaking on one side and the calm Souparnika river, backed by the Kodachadri hills, on the other — a rare sea-road-river arrangement that is spectacular at sunset. Further south, the town of Udupi is both a beach base and a great pilgrimage centre. Its harbour beach at Malpe Beach is the boarding point for boats out to St Mary's Islands, a cluster of islets famous for their columnar basalt — hexagonal rock pillars formed by an ancient lava flow and declared a National Geological Monument. In the town centre, on Car Street, the 13th-century Sri Krishna Matha, founded by the philosopher Madhvacharya, is the seat of the eight mathas and the birthplace of Udupi vegetarian cuisine; the deity is uniquely worshipped through a silver, nine-holed window. If you have a spare half-day, the temple town of Kollur Mookambika Temple sits about 80 km inland in the Ghats foothills, on the Souparnika, and doubles as the base for the Kodachadri trek.

Mangaluru: journey's end

About 60 km on, the coast ends at Mangaluru, the Tulu-Nadu port city where the Netravati and Gurupura rivers meet the sea. Its best-managed beach, Panambur Beach, lies just north beside the New Mangalore Port, a wide sandy stretch with lifeguards, camel and boat rides and an annual kite festival — swim only in the flagged, patrolled zones, as the currents are strong. In the city itself, the Kadri Manjunath Temple on Kadri hill is famous for its 10th–11th-century bronze idols and a stepped tank fed by nine springs, while the St Aloysius Chapel is covered wall-to-ceiling in vivid frescoes painted by the Italian Jesuit Antonio Moscheni in 1899–1900, often likened to a miniature Sistine Chapel. The brightly painted Kudroli Gokarnath Temple, consecrated in 1912 at the initiative of the reformer Narayana Guru, comes into its own during the city's grand Dasara. If you have time, drive out to the Kateel Durgaparameshwari Temple, set on an islet in the Nandini river north of the city, or catch a sunset across the estuary at Tannirbhavi Beach, reached by a short ferry from Sultan Battery.

Eating along the coast

The food is a good enough reason to make the drive slowly. Udupi is the home of a whole vegetarian tradition — the crisp dosas, idlis and rice-and-sambar meals that carried the town's name across India — and eating a plate near the Krishna Matha is part of the point of stopping there. As you move south into Dakshina Kannada the cooking turns coastal and non-vegetarian: Mangalorean seafood, cooked with coconut, red chilli and kokum, from ghee-roast preparations to fish curries and neer dosa. Between the two you pass through miles of coconut groves, cashew country and roadside stalls, so it is worth arriving hungry.

This coast also connects easily to the rest of Karnataka's west. From Gokarna you can dig deeper into the town's temple-and-beach walks with our guide:things-to-do-in-gokarna, and if you would rather turn inland from the highway into the Western Ghats, the guide:malnad-waterfalls-of-karnataka picks up the rivers that feed this coast where they still tumble through the forest. Either way, the Karavali rewards an unhurried pace — the sea is never far, and the next temple town or beach is usually just down the road.