Kerala Tourism Unveils Yaanam 2025: Travel, Tales and Trails

Kerala Tourism is gearing up to organize Yaanam 2025, a three-day affair happening from October 17 to 19 at the Ranga Kala Kendram on Varkala Cliff. Marked as India’s inaugural travel literary festival, which is an initiative that evolved from the creative vision of author Sabin Iqbal. Yaanam is all set to bring together travelers, writers, artists, photographers, and documentary filmmakers, as well as the creators to share and reflect on their journeys through talks, screenings, workshops, curated trails, and cultural experiences. The event will be programmed by author Nirmala Govindarajan, following Sabin’s conceptualization, both carrying a legacy of travel and narrative tradition.

Significance of the Yaanam 2025

The officials in Kerala have observed a dramatic uptick in terms of its tourism, both domestic and international, since the lifting of COVID restrictions. With the location of Yaanam in Varkala. Kerala is attempting to elevate its status and facilitate future development. The allocation of ₹25 crores indicates Kerala’s serious statement of intent and demonstrates a long-term business vision relating to infrastructure, branding, and support for ecotourism.
If talking about the curatorship and vision perspective, Sabin Iqbal and Nirmala Govindarajan's distinctive roles are purposeful. Both have a background in travel writing and have a flair for creating narrative experiences around travel environments. Their selection as curator and programmer indicates that the Yaanam festival 2025 will be more experiential and less performative. Visitors can expect experiences that integrate narrative with movement, photography and mindfulness travel practices.
Indeed, the intention is to go beyond panels, to allow the landscape, trails and voices around you to be part of the narrative. That is very much what distinguishes Yaanam from most other traditional literary festivals.

A Star-Studded Yaanam Festival Lineup

Here are a few of the big names that will be attending the festival, representing Yaanam’s multidisciplinary and diverse focus that includes literature, music, journalism, travel, photography, and storytelling.

Shehan Karunatilaka: Booker Prize-winning author
Prakash Sontakke: Grammy Award-winning musician
Pallavi Aiyar: Journalist and author
Andrew Fidel Fernando: Journalist and travel writer
Nathalie Handal: Poet and writer
Tenzin Tsundue: Poet, writer, activist
Sudeep Chakravarti: Author and storyteller
Asha Thadani: Writer and curator
Piya Bahadur: Travel story-teller who will share her all-woman biking adventure
Priya Ganapathy: Journalist and travel writer
Anurag Mallick: Travel journalist and storyteller
Karen Anand: Culinary expert, author
Kritika Goel: Travel vlogger and digital storyteller

What Sets Yaaman Festival Apart?

Yaanam 2025 is more than a festival: it is Kerala's conscious initiative to reimagine how travel will be told, created, and experienced. By weaving storytelling into place, amplifying local landscapes as narrative canvases, and inviting voices from different disciplines, Yaanam holds a potential to become a significant annual festival for India's travel & culture space. If it comes to fruition in the strategies of execution, curation, and audience reach, Yaanam might end up creating a new category for travel literary festivals, where the destination comes into play as a co-author itself. With respect to Varkala, this may help to provide lasting recognition, not simply as a beach town, but as a storytelling place.