Live in India for a season — in a furnished home of your own, with an India-based team handling the lease, the paperwork and everyday life. The same money you already spend, spent on a different kind of day.
A winter at home is not free. The heating, the rent or the rates, the car sitting on the drive, the weekly shop, the standing orders you stopped noticing years ago — it is all already paid for, invisibly. The only real question is what that same money could buy somewhere else.
Your pension, your savings, your income. Nothing about what comes in changes. You are not selling anything, letting anything go or committing to anything permanent.
Where it goes. A furnished flat with a terrace. Someone to cook three days a week if you’d like one. A driver on the days you want one. Fruit bought the morning you eat it. Time, in quantities you had forgotten were possible.
Before you commit to anything, we put it on paper: your current monthly outgoings set against a realistic monthly budget for the particular place you are considering. Written down, itemised, yours to take away.
We don’t publish a price list, because the honest answer depends on the city, the flat, and how you like to live. Ask, and we’ll put real numbers in front of you.
No brochure figures. No “from” prices. A comparison built for your situation.A long stay only works if it stops feeling like travel. That means a front door of your own, a kitchen you use, a neighbourhood you are known in, and a lease that someone has read properly on your behalf.
One or two bedrooms, a kitchen, a balcony. The common choice for couples and solo guests.
More space, outdoor room, somewhere for family to come and stay a while.
Housekeeping and a front desk, for anyone who would rather not run a household.
A residential lane rather than a tourist street — the shops, the walk, the neighbours.
Rishikesh, on the Ganges
Finding somewhere to sleep is the easy part. It is the lease, the registration, the utilities and the Tuesday the water heater fails that decide whether six months is a pleasure or a problem.
Not a list of everywhere in India. A short list of places where we have a home to show you, a person on the ground, and somebody who can be at your door the same day.
Dry, bright winters and the best weather in India between November and February. Courtyard houses, painted walls, markets that have run for centuries, and craft you can spend six months learning rather than six minutes photographing.
Green, slow and easy to live in, with the strongest healthcare in the country and a coast that cooks better than most of it. Humidity and monsoon make the choice of building and month matter more here than anywhere else.
The easiest landing in India for a first long stay: an established international community, Portuguese-era houses, cafes that know how to make a flat white, and the sea at the end of the lane. Noisy in season if you choose the wrong lane — so we choose carefully.
Cool air, tea slopes, colonial bungalows with fireplaces, and a mountain railway instead of a motorway. A gentler climate than the plains for anyone who finds Indian heat hard going, with Mysuru and Bengaluru within reach.
You stop ticking things off. You go back to the same stall because the man there now expects you. You learn thirty words and then another thirty. You have ordinary Tuesdays in an extraordinary place — which, in the end, is the whole point of going.
The winter is long, the heating bill is not small, and the diary is finally your own. This is the group this programme was built for.
Not a holiday and not a move. Six months to find out what you are like when nothing is scheduled.
Between jobs, after a sale, before whatever comes next. A season somewhere else is a good place to decide.
Textiles, architecture, food, music, yoga, languages, birds. Interests that reward months and are wasted on a fortnight.
We would rather lose an enquiry than have you discover any of this after you have packed.
An Indian tourist visa restricts your stay to 180 days in a calendar year, counting e‑visas and paper visas together. A nine‑month or year‑long stay is not available on one. Anyone promising you a year on a tourist visa has not read the rules.
If your stay will pass 180 days, registration with the FRRO must be completed before that date. The old grace period after the fact no longer applies, and late registration is now granted only in limited circumstances.
India does not have a digital nomad visa, and business activity — including remote work for an employer at home — is not permitted on a tourist visa. If you intend to work while you are here, that is a different visa and a conversation to have with a professional before you book anything.
Indian tax residency is decided by days present, whatever your reason for being here. It is one more reason the six‑month shape of this programme is deliberate rather than accidental.
You will need international health cover that holds up for a stay of this length, and a plan for prescriptions. We will tell you where the good hospitals are. We are not able to arrange your cover for you.
Buildings, neighbourhoods, seasons and cities differ enormously, and a flat that suits one person is wrong for the next. We will give you an honest assessment of a property rather than a sales pitch for it.
Visa eligibility, permitted duration, registration and any restriction on working or volunteering must be confirmed before you travel. We will put you in touch with an appropriate professional; we do not give visa advice ourselves, and all approvals rest with the relevant authorities.
You do not need to know the city, the budget or the dates. Start with the shape of the thing and we will do the rest. Our first piece of work is the written cost comparison — your outgoings now against a realistic monthly budget there — so you can decide with numbers in front of you.
On a tourist visa, 180 days in a calendar year is the limit, and registration with the FRRO must be completed before you reach it. That is why this programme is built as a single winter rather than an open-ended stay. Your eligibility depends on your nationality and your visa category, and must be confirmed before you travel.
There is no single answer, which is why there is no price list on this page. Rent in a hill town and rent in central Jaipur are different propositions, and so is living simply versus living with a cook and a driver. Tell us where and how, and our first piece of work is a written comparison of your current monthly outgoings against a realistic budget there.
No. Shorter stays work the same way, and many guests begin with a month to see how it feels. Landlords generally prefer longer leases and price them accordingly, which we will explain when we show you the terms.
Not on a tourist visa. India does not have a digital nomad visa, and business activity is not permitted on a tourist visa. If your stay depends on working, speak to an immigration professional about the correct category before you make any plans.
You will have one named person in India, not a call centre, and the same company that arranges private journeys across the country stands behind the arrangement. Landlord disputes, repairs, a hospital visit at an awkward hour — that is what the support is for.
Yes, and most people do. A week in Rajasthan, a fortnight in the Himalaya, a month on the coast — arranged around you, with your own front door to come back to rather than another hotel.