They grow the same crop, they are three hours apart, and the photographs look identical. The weekends are not.
The short answer
Coorg if you want plenty to see without walking far, a wide choice of homestays, and a trip that works with children or parents along. Chikmagalur if you want to climb something and would rather the days were quieter.
Coorg
Madikeri is the base. Abbey Falls is eight km out, a short walk to a hanging bridge facing the fall. The Dubare elephant camp sits on the Kaveri, and mornings there are spent helping bathe and feed the elephants. Raja’s Seat is the sunset garden looking west over the valley. Half an hour off the Mysuru road is Namdroling Monastery at Bylakuppe — the Golden Temple of the Tibetan settlement, with chanting at 5 pm, which surprises most first-time visitors. Mandalpatti is the one effort: a jeep-only track above Madikeri that reaches 1,600 m for sunrise over the clouds.
What Coorg really has, though, is homestays. Staying on a working coffee estate is the point of going, and there are more of them here than anywhere else in Karnataka.
Chikmagalur
Higher, and built around walking. Mullayanagiri is Karnataka’s highest peak at 1,930 m, a stepped walk from the road head to a small Shiva shrine at the top. Baba Budangiri is the ridge of caves and the shrine beyond it, with Manikyadhara falls on the same road. Jhari — Buttermilk — Falls is a jeep ride down a rough track. Kemmangundi adds Hebbe Falls and Z Point, the ledge that faces the sunrise.
Fewer people, fewer properties, and a trip that rewards getting up early.
Getting there
From Bengaluru: Chikmagalur is about 240 km and five hours through Hassan; Coorg is 260 km and five to six hours through Mysuru. From Hyderabad both are overnight journeys of 12 to 13 hours, which is why the fixed-date departures leave on Friday night and are back by Monday morning. Neither has an airport or a station — Mangaluru is the nearest to both.
When to go
October to February is the window for both: clear mornings on Mullayanagiri, waterfalls still full after the rains, cold nights on the estates. March to May is warm in the valleys and pleasant on the estates, with the fewest people on the jeep tracks. June to September is the monsoon — green, cheap and wet, with the Mandalpatti and Kemmangundi tracks liable to close.
Or take both
Three hours apart means one trip can hold both, and that is how most longer plans run it: Coorg first for the falls and the elephants, then across the coffee belt for the peaks.
Coorg tour packages · Chikmagalur tour packages · Both in one trip
