Ponda is the inland Goa that beach holidays often miss. The town itself is busy and workaday, but the villages around it hold some of Goa's most important Hindu temples, old shrines moved here during Portuguese rule, spice plantations, and the small but worthwhile Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats foothills.
This is the cultural counterweight to the coast. Instead of shacks and surf, Ponda gives you temple courtyards, deepastambha lamp towers, plantation lunches on banana leaves, and a better sense of how much of Goa's Hindu life survived away from the old Portuguese core. The sights are scattered, so a hired car or taxi makes the day much easier than trying to join them by bus.
Use Ponda as a focused day from Panaji, Margao, or the beach towns. The strongest route combines Shri Shantadurga Temple, Shri Mangueshi Temple, a spice farm, and either Safa Masjid or Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary.