Stories That Remain

VOL 128 | OCTOBER 2026

Dear Travellers,

Travel leaves traces. A road disappears beneath another; a family home becomes a hotel; a landscape once considered remote enters the traveller's imagination. Yet behind these changes are people whose ideas and persistence have quietly redrawn the map. Much of that history remains unwritten.

Right Out of Place was conceived to preserve some of it. A RARE project, the book was unveiled at BRIDGES for Conscious Travel 2026 at The Imperial, New Delhi, on 16 September, looking back across two formative decades, from 1997 to 2017, in the evolution of independent hospitality across the subcontinent.

At its heart, however, is Shoba Rudra, Founder of RARE — the originator of the idea and the mind that gave the book its direction. It grew from her instinct to preserve not merely a collection of hotels, but the thinking, courage and convictions that shaped a generation of them. In many ways, these pages are an extension of her own way of seeing: that the most enduring hospitality is born from a deep fidelity to people, landscape and purpose.

Its 55 properties encompass heritage hotels, mountain retreats, wellness retreats, wilderness camps and wildlife lodges. They are remarkably different in character, yet share an instinct: to create something that belongs to its setting rather than merely occupy it.

The selection is deliberately not a history of RARE. Some properties remain within the collection; others have moved beyond it. What brings them together is their contribution to a larger story — of those who entered unfamiliar places, often without precedent or certainty, and gave them a new language of hospitality.

The principal research and writing was undertaken by Hashim Nadir Tyabji, naturalist, author and co-founder of Kaafila Luxury Camps. Through interviews, conversations, archival research and his own long acquaintance with these destinations, he has captured not simply the properties, but the minds behind them: their instincts, experiments, setbacks and resolve.

"This is a tribe that stubbornly mines for gold where others see only dust."

— Hashim Nadir Tyabji
Author, Right Out of Place

Mary-Anne Denison-Pender, whose association with the subcontinent's independent heritage hotels spans decades, contributes the foreword and international perspective. The book's design and visual language were created by NYUCT — Not Your Usual Cup of Tea.

"I write this in praise of all those brave, persevering souls mentioned herein who have dared to go out on a limb, dream and create. They are indeed iconic hotels and iconic hoteliers — long may they flourish in the burgeoning world of Indian hospitality!"

— Mary-Anne Denison-Pender
Foreword, Right Out of Place

I hope Right Out of Place will be read as more than an account of hotels. It is a record of how places acquire meaning, and of what can happen when hospitality begins with responsibility rather than convention. For those who will shape the industry ahead, these 55 accounts offer no prescription. They offer something more useful: evidence of what imagination, patience and a sense of purpose can achieve.

Many of these pioneers began when independent hospitality was still an act of faith. They went where few others were looking, and in doing so changed how the subcontinent could be encountered.

The first edition extends that spirit beyond its pages. Every copy purchased helps extend that spirit further: proceeds from the sale of the book will support Nepal Relief Fund, allowing a story born from the journeys of this region to give something back to Nepal at a time of need. To own a copy of Right Out of Place and support this cause, please order the book here.

The future of hospitality will inevitably change. The lesson of these accounts is enduring: know the place, honour its people, and build something that could belong nowhere else.

That is what these 55 journeys leave us with.

Piyasha Mitra
The Curious Chronicler

The Places between the Maps

Warangal · Tipeshwar · Tadoba · Ellora · Mumbai

There are landscapes in India that reveal themselves slowly — not through spectacle, but through the traces of lives lived there, forests patiently restored, old cultures still inhabiting the present. This journey follows that quieter India.

Begin at Uma Retreat in Warangal, one of RARE's newest additions, where gardens, water, trees and the surrounding countryside create a setting devoted to reflection and renewal. Set within the landscape rather than apart from it, Uma Retreat offers a gentle introduction to the slower rhythms of this part of Telangana.

As part of the RARE BRIDGES FAM, Vijaya Pratap, one of India's senior travel journalists, recently travelled to Uma Retreat, Warangal. Her visit offered an opportunity to experience the property in the context in which it is best understood — through its landscape, its sense of place and the slower rhythms of the region. We are delighted to share her reflections from the journey here

From here, the road leads west to Tipai - Wildlife Luxuries, another relatively new RARE address, set within 34 acres of regenerated woodland in the Tipeshwar landscape. Wildlife here is not an attraction placed upon the forest; the forest is the reason for being there.

Continue into Tadoba, staying at Svasara Jungle Lodge, where the wilderness assumes a more primal character, before turning towards Ellora and Dhyaana Farms, where agriculture, ancient rock-cut architecture and the cultural history of the Deccan begin to enter the narrative. The journey finally arrives in Mumbai at The Kin, bringing the route from forest and countryside into the contemporary city.

The route offers a sense of how these places can be linked through four principal gateways — Hyderabad, Nagpur, Aurangabad and Mumbai — rather than prescribing a single, fixed itinerary. It is an outline of possibilities, allowing the landscape, the properties and the stories between them to shape the journey.

Five RARE addresses, each with its own vocabulary. Together, they trace a passage through the many Indias that exist beyond the obvious, echoing the ideas at the heart of Right Out of Place — of places shaped by people, imagination and circumstance, and of journeys that become richer when we look beyond the established map.

To read these stories in full and own a copy of Right Out of Place, please order the book here