Originally Posted by jpatokal
Thanks for the ideas! I think my biggest problem is going to be Christmas: plan A was to visit Goa, but the flights and hotels are (unsurprisingly) pretty much booked up. Any ideas for an unconventional but memorable short trip around then? It would probably just be me and a friend.
Depends really. If you are up for cold weather, you can go to beautiful places like: Dalhousie, Kullu, Dehradoon, and many more hill stations in the state of Himachal Pradesh. The trip from Delhi shouldn't take a lot of time (at least for HP). For Dalhousie, you are probably looking at a 3-4 day trip.
Warm weather, you might want to check out places like Munnar, Cochin in Kerala. Or you can go see the southernmost tip of India, ala Kanyakumari. Munnar is a very nice place to check out. My brother and my sister-in-law went there after their marriage and they really really enjoyed it. Also, you can go check out Pondicherry (I believe it's been renamed now). But that's another place similar to Goa with nice beaches. Great place.
Also, Rajasthan is also an option. Go check out Mt. Abu, Jaipur, Udaipur. Very nice cities.
There are other options too. You can go to Mumbai, but doubt there is much to do around christmas time.