This was once a calm fishing village, clustered around its crescent beaches with towering coconut palms standing sentinel in the background. Today, it is one of Kerala's most developed beach destinations. The popular Lighthouse Beach, is flanked by hotels and restaurants stretching back into the hillside from the shore.
To the north is the Hawa Beach is usually crowded with day trippers heading straight from the taxi and bus stands to the sand. Just 15 kilometers from Trivandrum City, Kovalam remains a convenient and immensely popular place for fun by the sea. Kovalam first received attention when the Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore constructed her beach resort, the Halcyon Castle, here towards the end of the 1920s.
Kovalam was yet again brought to the limelight 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, way back in the 1930s. In the early 1970s it became a favorite haunt of the hippies, transforming this casual fishing village of Kerala into a significant tourist destination.