Most people pick one hill station. That is the mistake.

Your driver meets you at Pantnagar airport or Kathgodam station. The road starts climbing almost immediately — ninety minutes of hairpin bends through oak and rhododendron to the lake. The moment Naini Lake appears in the bowl below the road is the moment the plains feel very far away.

Check in, then take the evening as Nainital intends: a slow rowing boat circuit of Naini Lake before dark, a look into the Naina Devi temple on the northern shore, and the Mall Road at lamp-lighting time. Dinner at one of the lakefront restaurants — ask for aloo ke gutke with bhang ki chutney, Kumaon's answer to every hunger.

The Nainital ropeway runs you to Snow View at 2,270 metres. Go before eight in the morning; the Nanda Devi range sits clear on the horizon, and the haze that builds by ten will erase it. The cable car takes four minutes and costs around ₹150 each way — check the current rate at the ticket counter before you queue.

The afternoon loops the lake district by car: Bhimtal with its mid-lake island aquarium, quiet Sattal where seven small lakes sit in sal forest, and Naukuchiatal of the nine corners. Back by four for a walk on Thandi Sadak, the shaded, traffic-free road on the south side of the lake. Skip the mall shops today — the Landour bakeries in Mussoorie do this better.

Two and a half hours of descent through pine and oak to Ramnagar, the market town on the edge of Jim Corbett National Park. On the way, stop at the Corbett Museum in Jim Corbett's own bungalow at Kaladhungi — it takes forty minutes and costs almost nothing, and it is more honest about the man than most plaques are.

Check into your riverside resort on the Kosi. The evening is the Garjia Devi temple — it sits on a rock mid-river, and in the cooler months the level is low enough to walk across. Tonight the driver briefs you on tomorrow's safari: permit papers, the gate, the wake-up time. Set your alarm for four-thirty.

Tea before five, and into an open Gypsy as the Bijrani or Jhirna gate opens at first light. The sal forest in the early morning is loud with langur alarm calls and dholes if you are lucky. Spotted deer, sambar and wild elephant are near-certainties. Tiger sightings happen here — the park has one of India's highest densities — but the forest will not be told what to do, and we never promise one. Three hours in, back by nine for a full breakfast.

The afternoon is yours. The resort pool, a guided walk along the Kosi bank with a naturalist, or simply the hammock. There is nothing to book, nothing to queue for, and that is the point of the second Corbett night.

The long drive day, and it earns its keep. Out through the Terai farmlands to Haridwar, arriving around noon. Lunch near the ghats, then an hour at Har Ki Pauri — the ghat where the Ganga leaves the mountains. The Ganga aarti at sunset here is one of those things the state simply does to you: lamps on the river, chanting across the water, and a crowd that is not performing for tourists but doing something it has done every evening for centuries. Attend even if ritual is not your instinct.

Then back in the car, through Dehradun city and up the thirty-two bends to Mussoorie. You arrive as the lights of the Doon valley switch on two thousand feet below your hotel window. That view, from a hill station hotel at night, is the best argument for ending the trip up here and not down there.

Kempty Falls first, before the bus-tour coaches arrive after nine. The falls drop about forty metres into a pool — impressive in monsoon, pleasant in spring, photogenic year-round. Then the Gun Hill ropeway for the Himalayan panorama; on a clear October morning the Gangotri group sits white on the horizon. The ride takes two minutes and costs under ₹150 each way.

The afternoon is the better Mussoorie: walk the flat Camel's Back Road loop, then up into the deodar lanes of Landour above the bazaar. The hundred-year-old Char Dukan circle has a bakery and a café that have not changed their recipes in living memory. The Mall Road, lit and crowded, closes the evening. If you have an extra morning here, the Top Tibba day hike — the highest ridge above town — gives you silence and Himalayan views in four hours.

Last mountain breakfast on the terrace, then the ninety-minute descent to Jolly Grant airport or Dehradun station. Hill roads are generous with their surprises — a slow truck, a landslip repair, a cattle crossing — so leave three hours of margin and use the extra time to pick up bal mithai from the Mussoorie bazaar before you leave. It travels well, and Kumaon customs inspectors at home will appreciate it.

If your flight is evening, the Rajaji Tiger Reserve viewpoint on the outskirts of Dehradun is worth an hour — wild elephant herds use the forest edge in the morning, and the entry is simple.