Three classic excursions run from Mandi.
Rewalsar Lake — Tso Pema — is the standout. Twenty-five kilometres south, an hour by taxi, the lake is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs and has all three communities living around it. The hike to the Padmasambhava caves above the village is the natural half-day extension.
Prashar Lake sits at 2,730 metres, fifty kilometres north of Mandi. The pagoda-roofed Prashar Rishi temple stands on the edge of an emerald-green high-altitude lake with a floating island that drifts position from year to year. The road up is rough — four hours each way in a jeep — but the view at the top is one of the finest in central Himachal.
Janjehli, sixty-five kilometres east through the Karsog valley, is a small hill village set among apple orchards at 2,200 metres. It is the trailhead for walks up to the Shikari Devi temple at 3,400 metres, one of the highest temples in Himachal.
For a longer trip from Mandi, Manali is four hours north and Shimla five hours south, both reachable by direct bus.