An ecotourism experience rooted in handloom, nature and the living traditions of Malnad.
Gandhi Pravasa is an ecotourism initiative rooted in the work of Charaka, a weaver's collective that has, for over two decades, sustained handloom traditions and rural livelihoods across seven districts of Karnataka. Here, on the campus in Heggodu, visitors don't observe, they participate. You weave. You dye. You walk the forest. You eat what the land produces. You sit with theatre at Ninasam. You leave with a different understanding of what making things means.
Sit at the loom. Understand natural dyes. Learn the block print. Weave a few centimetres of something that took years to master.
Ninasam, one of India's most respected theatre centres, is here. Performances, workshops, and conversations with artists are part of the Gandhi Pravasa experience.
Guided walks through the Malnad landscape. Birdwatching in the Western Ghats corridor. Learning to read a forest the way the people who live beside it do.
Seasonal, local food prepared with ingredients from the farm and region. No compromise on taste, no compromise on the land.
Jog Falls and the rivers of Shivamogga are a short journey from the campus. Water, stone, and forest, for those who want to move through the landscape as much as look at it.
Gandhi Pravasa is a base, not a boundary. The region around Heggodu is full of places worth knowing.
Charaka supports over 700 weavers and rural workers across 7 districts. When you visit Gandhi Pravasa, you are part of that story.