Uttara Kannada is a large district with more than seventy per cent of its area under forest, twenty-four beaches, and very little in the way of towns with hospitals and banks in them. Karwar has all of that, which is why it works as a base even though several of the places below are more famous than it is.
- NH-66 runs south from Karwar down the coast and is the spine of all of this.
- Inland trips cross the Ghats and take longer than the distance suggests — allow for ghat roads, not highway speeds.
- Between June and September the falls are at their best and the coast is at its worst. Pick one.
The coast, going south
Gokarna is the obvious one: a temple town with the Mahabaleshwara Atmalinga shrine and a string of beaches — Om, Kudle, Half Moon, Paradise — reached on foot along the cliffs or by boat. It is an easy day from Karwar and a very different place from it. Mirjan Fort, a laterite fort with four gates and water-filled moats built by Chennabhairadevi, the queen the pepper traders called the Queen of Pepper, sits just off the highway a little further on. Beyond that, Murudeshwara and its enormous seaside Shiva statue and twenty-storey gopura.
Inland, into the Ghats
Yana is two black karst spires standing out of forest, reached by a walk of about half an hour from the trailhead — shoes, water, and leeches after rain. The waterfalls are scattered through the same country: Magod on the Bedti river in Yellapur taluk, Sathodi near the Kallaramane ghat, Unchalli, Vibhooti near Yana in Ankola taluk, Apsarakonda by the sea at Honnavar. Sirsi and its Marikamba temple and Banavasi, the oldest town in Karnataka and the Kadamba capital, are further in again — better as an overnight than as a day out of Karwar.
Up the Kali
The river that comes out at Karwar rises near Bidi village in the Ghats and runs 184 km to the sea, and it has been dammed repeatedly on the way — Supa at Ganeshgudi, Kadra and Kodsalli. Dandeli and the Kali Tiger Reserve are up that river: rafting when the water is released, jeep safaris, hornbills, and the black panther everyone hopes for and few see. It is a long day from Karwar and a better two.
And over the border
Panaji is 96 km — closer than most of the district. If you are basing yourself in Karwar to keep the cost down and want a day of Goa, that is an entirely reasonable way to use the position. Note it works both ways: Dabolim, about 90 km, is the airport most visitors to Karwar actually fly into.