Maharastra Homestays: Review of Aryan Farms | Exotic Homestay | Dapoli

Aryan Farms, Exotic Homestay

Aryan Farms is part of Exotic Homestay property and is located in the scenic town of Dapoli in the Konkan region of Maharashtra. Located about four hours drive away from Mumbai and Pune, it's a perfect weekend getaway destination, away from the hectic city life.

The farm is located in the hills, but gorgeous beaches are also close by. For all seafood lovers, Dapoli is a dream destination. I will be sharing much more about Dapoli soon, but take my word for it now :)

Planning for the trip

Like most of our plans, this was also made at the last minute (about five days before the travel date). Since time for booking was limited, we decided quickly both on the destination as well as the place to stay. As for me, I agreed on Dapoli even before I did any internet search on the town. In fact, it was only after we reached Dapoli that I realised that the beach was so close-by! Yes...its rather unbelievable!

I also realise that I do a lot of this last minute planning trip and all of these turn out to be really enriching experiences. My advice to most travelers is this:
Plan less...
Explore the moments more...
None of the moments will ever come back again...

Almost Disaster

There was more drama in store before we actually started the trip. Just a day before we left, I got a call from Exotic Homestay informing me that the booking was cancelled due to lack ofelectricity and so they will refund the money to me in 30 days. It took me a while to respond as I was suddenly super depressed and dejected.

Not to give up hope, I decided to write a strongly worded mail to the organization mentioning how my plan was destroyed by them, and how they could expect a review on my popular (vanity, of course) travel blog. By evening I got a call back from them, and our reservation was confirmed once again :)

The road trip...

Finally there...

Anyway, after a rather eventful five hour road-trip we were happy to reach the Aryan Farm around noon. Not exactly very tired, we did want to take rest for a while and were very pleasantly surprised by the gorgeous location. The roads are not great, but as you drive towards your destination, you do realise that you are getting away from city life (even town life) and the feeling is really good. There is no sound at all, but of the birds chirping away happily, away from sight...

Buddha welcoming us to the farm :)

The design of the homestay is very simple and earthy. Currently there are only six rooms, and during our stay there we were the only guests around. This also meant that we had the entire place to ourselves and we were quite happy about it.

When you are all you see is nature - lots of trees, lots of wood. The cottages/ huts are also designed to merge with nature and it's actually done very well.

Overall feedback on the place

The rooms (or huts) are actually very inviting. They are clean, well equipped (including TV which we never switched on) and the balcony has quite a green view. Well there is nothing much to see, except a lot of trees, squirrels and many different birds.

Walk in the morning...

The standard cottages from outside

The more expensive Russian cottages

There is no concept of room service (which I like) and you are expected to come out in the open for meals. The dining area is under the trees and its rather nice to sit there, talk and slowly savor a meal. There was also a swimming pool, but it wasn't functional.

The next morning we also went around walking away from the farm. There is a small village close by and it was an amazing place to take pictures. The light was brilliant, cows were smiling and our desire to explore intense.

The manager at the farm was quite helpful as well and gave us most of the travel tips we needed. There was barely any internet, so we had to depend on his advice to make our plans. It suited me well, because we ended up seeing some pretty spectacular things in this trip.

So will I recommed this place to anyone?
Oh! Yes! Absolutely :)

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Practical Information

Cost: Rs 3000/ night for simple cottage and Rs 4,500 for Russian cottages (made of wood)
Distance: About 5 km from Dapoli
Food: Simple, yet good
Safety: Safe for families to come and spend a weekend, very polite staff
Things to do around: A LOT!
Overall rating: 3.5/5

How to book?

We used www.bookings.com to make the booking. However, you can't pay the money online. Once booking is done, Exotic Homestays will get in touch with you and you will need to transfer the money in their account after which you will get a confirmation mail with address and phone number.

How to reach?

There are multiple ways of reaching Dapoli from Pune. We followed advice of Google Map and actually took the ghats which looked short of map but the road quality was bad, however the views were gorgeous. I recommend taking the Mahabaleshwar ghat route or Mulshi ghat route. Both of these are slightly longer but the roads re great and drive is fun!