Group tours usually end with a polite goodbye. Not this one. Yathra Kudumbam is a travel collective of more than 300 people who all met as strangers on budget tours run by Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, and who now plan their own adventures together.
The story starts with KSRTC's Budget Tourism Cell, the state carrier's arm for cheap group trips to temples, monuments, hill stations and heritage sites across Kerala and beyond. Regular passengers — many of them senior citizens — kept crossing paths on these trips, and the shared itineraries turned into genuine friendship. Eventually they wanted to go beyond the standard BTC route list, especially to spots tucked away in forest areas, so they formed their own group.
The set-up is simple and clever. Members pick the destination themselves rather than following a fixed programme, then BTC arranges and books a KSRTC bus for them. The trips are guided by Sajith S, a conductor at KSRTC's Thiruvananthapuram city depot and a former BTC coordinator, and Thomas TC, a veteran of budget tours who also works as a level 10 Google Local Guide.
Since forming, the group has run more than ten outings, from single-day escapes to two- and three-day itineraries. The maiden trip went to Bonacaud, the trekking base camp for Agasthyarkoodam, with its waterfalls and tea estates. Since then they have covered Malarikkal in Kottayam, famous for its pink water lilies, plus Attayar, Kumbhavurutty, the Mankayam-Meenmutti-Ponmudi stretch, the Achankovil river and Kalleli Appooppankavu. They also travelled to Aranmula for the vallasadya, the ritual feast at Sree Parthasarathy Temple, and gathered 60-strong at riverside Mayamkadavu near Amboori for Onam — cultural shows, games, a country boat ride, a sadya and a campfire, with the moon rising over the Puralimala Hills as the closing act.
The calendar keeps filling. A day trip to Podiyakkala, a scenic tribal hamlet inside Peppara wildlife sanctuary, plus the 900-acre Braemore Estate, is set for September 12, and a two-day outing to Chokramudi on September 25 coincides with the Neelakkurinji bloom — the rare flowering that turns hillsides purple roughly once every twelve years. Longer trips are planned for October. Anyone keen to join can call 9447148504 or 9072727254.
Why does this matter to travellers? Because it shows how affordable Kerala really is if you plug into local systems. KSRTC's budget tours are famously cheap, and this club model — pick a spot, hire the bus through BTC — means small groups can reach quiet places like forest hamlets and estate country that big operators skip. It is also a gentle reminder that some of the best trip inspiration comes from fellow passengers, not brochures. If you are a solo traveller or retiree visiting Thiruvananthapuram, hopping on a BTC day trip could be the easiest way to see Agasthyarkoodam's foothills or Ponmudi without hiring a car.
For the members themselves, the payoff is social as much as scenic — the group even counts Rosario, once personal secretary to former President APJ Abdul Kalam, among its travellers. Camaraderie, it turns out, is the real destination.
