There is a number circulating in Indian travel circles that is hard to ignore.
According to Skyscanner’s Travel Trends 2026 report, searches for Jorhat in Assam have risen by 493% among Indian travellers, making this quiet town in Upper Assam the country’s fastest-rising domestic destination. The figure is striking.
Jorhat is not usually spoken of in the same breath as India’s famous hill stations, beach towns, or heritage cities. It is better known for tea estates, a regional airport, and the unhurried rhythm of Assamese life. What, then, is drawing so many people here?
For many, the answer lies beyond Jorhat itself. The town opens the way to one of Assam’s most memorable journeys: the ferry from Nimati Ghat to Majuli across the Brahmaputra.
The ferry ride that changes the pace of travel
About 14 kilometres from Jorhat town, the road ends at Nimati Ghat, a busy riverfront terminal on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra.
The ghat (riverfront landing point) is alive at all hours with passengers, shared tempos, motorcycles being wheeled onto flat-bottomed boats, and the kind of organised chaos that characterises river life in Assam.
Government-operated ferries usually run from here between 8 am and 3 pm. Tickets cost around Rs 15 to Rs 30 per person, and the crossing to Kamalabari Ghat in Majuli takes roughly one to one and a half hours, depending on the river’s mood.
In Majuli’s Mishing villages, handlooms continue to weave intricate textiles that remain deeply tied to everyday life and identity. Photograph: (eSikkim Tourism)
That crossing, unhurried and vast, is an experience in itself. The Brahmaputra here is wide enough to make you forget about the edges of things. Fellow passengers share food, children watch over the railing, and the water carries the particular blue-grey of a river that knows it is among the mightiest in the world.
By the time you step off at Majuli’s bank, something in the pace of thought has already shifted.
An island shaped by faith, floods, and memory
Majuli is among the world’s largest inhabited river islands. Located within the Brahmaputra, it covers about 352 square kilometres today, though its landmass was once far larger. In the 1790s, Majuli spanned over 1,300 square kilometres.
Over time, the Brahmaputra’s shifting channels and severe erosion have steadily reduced its size. Several villages and Satras (cultural monastic institutions in Assam) that once stood on firm ground have either been relocated or lost to the river.
For nearly five centuries, Majuli has also been one of Assam’s most important cultural and spiritual centres. Its villages, monasteries, craft traditions, and river-linked way of life have existed far from mainstream tourism. Now, as more travellers look towards Jorhat, Majuli is beginning to receive wider attention.
Where culture still belongs to daily life
Majuli is home to several communities, but the Mishing people, one of the largest indigenous groups in Assam, have shaped much of the island’s daily texture.
Cycling through Majuli’s quiet roads offers travellers a closer look at the island’s monasteries, villages, and river-shaped way of life. Photograph: (Avathi Outdoors)
They live in chang ghars (traditional stilt houses), built of bamboo and wood, raised above the earth partly for practical reasons since the island floods every monsoon, and partly because this is simply how it has always been done.
Walk through a Mishing village, and you may see working handlooms on verandas, the clatter of shuttles threading Mishing textiles with geometric patterns, and an unhurried hospitality that is not performed for tourists because, for the most part, the tourists have not arrived in great numbers yet.
That quality of unmediated cultural encounter is precisely what the 35 percent of Indian travellers who now say they prioritise local, authentic experiences over tourist hotspots are searching for. In Majuli, it is not manufactured. The chang ghars are not a heritage reconstruction.
The weaving happens because the cloth is needed. The island’s very geography — the annual flooding that has steadily eroded its area and forced constant adaptation — has kept it resistant to the kind of commercialisation that hollows out more accessible destinations.
The monks who keep Majuli’s mask-making tradition alive
Another world within Majuli belongs to its Satras, cultural institutions that took root here in the 16th century and went on to shape the island’s artistic identity for generations.
Across the 16th and 17th centuries, 65 Satras were established on the island. Today, 22 active Satras remain. Many others have been lost to the Brahmaputra’s erosion or relocated to the mainland.
Nimati Ghat near Jorhat bustles with ferries, motorcycles, and passengers heading towards Majuli across the Brahmaputra. Photograph: (triplx)
Each Satra is a world of its own, with open courtyards, modest living quarters, performance spaces, and workshops where daily life and artistic practice continue side by side.
Among the most visited is Samaguri Satra (a Majuli institution known for mask-making), established in 1663 by Sri Sri Chakrapani, and now known as the living centre of Majuli’s mask-making tradition.
This craft, known as mukha shilpa (traditional mask-making), has been practised for centuries as part of Assam’s traditional performance culture. The masks are used in Ankiya Nat, one-act plays that draw from India’s classical epics and storytelling traditions.
Made from split bamboo frames, cloth, clay, and natural dyes, the masks range from palm-sized pieces to life-size creations. They bring to life characters such as Ravana and Garuda with remarkable expression and detail.
Hem Chandra Goswami, born in Majuli in 1958 and a recipient of the Padma Shri in 2023, is among the foremost living practitioners of this art. He has also established the Sukumar Kala Peeth (an art training centre) at Samaguri Satra to pass the tradition on to younger generations.
His masks have been exhibited in museums across India and in countries including the United States, France, Germany, and Israel. In March 2024, the Government of India awarded Majuli’s mukha shilpa and its manuscript painting tradition Geographical Indication tags, formally recognising both as protected expressions of Assam’s cultural heritage.
Visitors who arrive at Samaguri can watch the masks being made, speak with the artisans, and understand how craft, performance, and memory continue to shape life on the island.
A destination that rewards the slow traveller
The broader context for Jorhat’s surge in interest is a documented shift in how Indians are choosing to travel. The same report that flagged Jorhat’s search spike also found that 59% of Indian travellers plan to travel more in 2026 than they did the previous year, with a meaningful proportion gravitating toward secondary and emerging destinations rather than established circuits.
Agoda’s 2026 Travel Outlook Report, based on a survey of over 3,300 Asian travellers, described this tendency as an era of “inward wanderlust”, a desire to find depth and difference within India rather than always looking outward.
Majuli is almost perfectly suited to this mood. It asks for a minimum of two to three days to be experienced properly, which naturally selects for the kind of traveller who is not simply ticking boxes.
Accommodation on the island runs largely to eco-resorts, bamboo cottages, and homestays, with limited connectivity that most visitors retrospectively describe as a relief. Getting around requires renting a bicycle or a scooter, which means that the distance between two Satras is not a problem to be solved but a route to be enjoyed.
The island’s best season runs from October through March, when the skies clear, the monsoon flooding has receded, and the Raas Leela festival (a traditional performance festival) brings devotional dance-dramas and traditional boat races on the Brahmaputra to life.
What this moment means
The 493% search spike for Jorhat will, inevitably, translate into more visitors arriving at Nimati Ghat. That is not without its complications for an island that has always been fragile, both ecologically and culturally.
Soil erosion from the Brahmaputra remains a genuine and accelerating threat to Majuli’s landmass, with experts warning that the island could disappear entirely within decades if current patterns continue.
The mask-makers at Samaguri Satra are not just artisans; they are custodians of something that cannot be easily relocated or replicated.
What thoughtful travel to Majuli can offer, however, is genuine economic contribution to communities that have long existed outside mainstream tourism flows, support for the GI-tagged crafts that need a market to survive, and the kind of human attention that, when paid carefully, becomes a form of conservation in itself.
The ferry from Nimati Ghat has been crossing the Brahmaputra for generations. And at a time when many are choosing journeys closer to home, this crossing still offers the rare feeling of being transformed by travel.
