Fourteen hairpin bends carry you up from the plains of Vellore district into a hill station locals have long nicknamed the poor man's Ooty, and the climb alone sets the tone for what follows. Yelagiri sits in the Eastern Ghats at around 1,110 metres, small enough to circle in a day yet packed with enough variety that most lists of things to do in Yelagiri run longer than expected. Weekend travellers from Bangalore and Chennai come here for lake walks, hill treks and a paragliding run, without the crowds or the drive time a bigger hill station would demand. Places to visit in Yelagiri span a lake, a temple hill, a waterfall trek and one of Asia's larger telescopes, all packed into a stretch of hills you can cover without much planning.

Start at Punganur Lake, where pedal boats drift across a small reservoir that doubles as the town's favourite sunset point. From its banks, a roughly 3 km trail climbs Swamimalai Hills, Yelagiri's highest point, rewarding the walk with a view over the entire valley, and the same hill hosts tandem paragliding runs that launch from Ramakrishna Mutt through most of the year. A separate hike of about 5 km leads to Jalagamparai Waterfalls, where the Attaru river drops off the hillside in a spray that's at its fullest just after the monsoon. For something calmer, climb to Velavan Temple for hilltop views over Yelagiri, wander the rose garden and musical fountain inside the 12-acre Nature Park, or look through one of Asia's largest telescopes at the Vainu Bappu Observatory nearby.

What makes Yelagiri worth the drive is less about ticking off any single sight and more the pace of the place itself: cool hill air that never turns as sharp as Ooty's, tea and coffee plantations rolling past the roadside, and a town small enough that you're never far from your next stop. October to March brings the clearest weather for trekking and paragliding, while the Yelagiri Summer Festival each May fills the town with local dance, art and food stalls. Sterling Yelagiri, a 90-room property with a pool and spa, keeps this entire hill station within easy reach, and a plate of mutton biryani or Karuveppilai kozhi roast at its in-house restaurant, Anthurium, makes for a fitting end to a day spent between the lake, the hills and the waterfall trail.