For me, hill stations are steeped in nostalgia. The scent of freshly washed pine after a light drizzle, the breeze carrying smoke from a Garhwali chulha, the soft brush of a mountain stray dog’s fur as it leans into you with unexpected affection. These are fragments of memory that linger. Even the simple observation of people walking with umbrellas, always prepared for clouds that slip into homes uninvited, feels like a reflection to surrender to.

It is paradoxical, perhaps, that I romanticise hill stations so deeply when I suffer mountain sickness. Yet I go anyway, daydreaming and  traveling (often in discomfort) because the journey is always worth it.

Some of my strongest connections to these landscapes have come not from travel alone but from books. These four works  have deepened my longing for journeys still to come.

If you ever come across a list about hill stations that doesn’t include Ruskin Bond, consider it incomplete. His words are inseparable from the hills themselves. I first read this book in the 11th grade and immediately felt a connection, one that has only grown stronger with time. Bond writes of the mountains with a sincerity and ease that can only come from lifelong love. His effortless appreciation for the hills lingers like the scent of pine after rain.

Set in Coorg, Mandanna’s novel paints the lush coffee plantations and rolling hills with both beauty and gravity. At its heart is the story of a first-generation woman whose life reflects the strength of many women from this landscape. Beyond the picturesque, the book delves into questions of social and political structures, exploring what it means to be a woman in a world shaped by both serenity and struggle.

This rare collection of short stories captures voices from British Raj India, offering both cultural insight and literary charm. The book feels like a relic, part treasure, part mirror, preserving the realities and pretenses of hill-station life during the colonial era. For those curious about the historical layers beneath India’s hill stations, Laverton’s firsthand accounts provide a richly textured experience.

Written between 1884 and 1887, these forty short stories first appeared in the Civil and Military Gazette. They reflect the lives of the British in India’s summer capitals—their loves, rivalries, bureaucracies, and private indulgences. Beyond the narratives themselves, what is striking is how these stories capture the colonial entanglement with hill stations, shaping their image as sites of escape and governance, and influencing the way they are remembered even today.