Kovalam (Malayalam:) is a beach town on the Arabian Sea in Thiruvananthapuram city, Kerala, India. It is located around 13km from the down town of Trivandrum. Kovalam means a grove of coconut trees and true to its name the village offers an endless sight of coconut trees. It is also known as the paradise of the south. Kovalam first received attention when the Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore constructed her beach resort, Halcyon Castle, here towards the end of the 1920s. Thereafter the place was brought to the public eye by her nephew the Maharaja of Travancore. The European guests of the then Travancore kingdom discovered the potentiality of Kovalam beach as a tourist destination in the 1930s. However, Kovalam shot into limelight in the early seventies with arrivals of the masses of hippies on their way to Ceylon in the Hippie Trail. This exodus started the transformation of a casual fishing village of Kerala into one of the most important tourist destinations...
