Kovalam

Kovalam is also one of the oldest tourist enclaves in India, a well known part of the tourist circuit since the 1930s. Kovalam shot into the limelight in the early 1970s with the arrival of masses of hippies. That started the transformation of a casual fishing village of Kerala into one of the most important tourist destinations in all India - the Kovalam beach. Once the capital of the Ay dynasty, Kovalam was brought to the public eye by the queen of Travancore, Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bai, who decided to build a palace for herself at a rock top near the beach, as her private residence better known as Haylcon Castle. Later, in 1936, the next queen, HH Karthika Thirunal choose this palace for her honeymoon with her newly wed husband, prince GV Raja. It was prince G.V. Raja who found immense tourist potentiality of the region and decided promote the region among state guests, by inviting Thomas Cook & Sons- UK to develop the region.