Shimla is an excellent base for day trips and longer excursions into Himachal Pradesh. Kufri (16 km east, 2,622 metres) offers skiing in winter and good views toward the high Himalayan peaks. Chail (45 km), built by the Maharaja of Patiala after the British banned him from Shimla, contains the highest cricket ground in the world at 2,444 metres.
Narkanda (65 km northeast) sits at 2,700 metres in an apple-growing area with good winter skiing and autumn foliage that rivals anything in the Indian mountains. Rampur (125 km northeast) is the gateway to the Kinnaur Valley and the first overnight stop on the spectacular road to Spiti.
For those with more time, the Shimla-Kinnaur-Spiti circuit is one of the great Himalayan road journeys — several days of increasingly dramatic scenery as the road follows the Sutlej River gorge into the rain shadow zone of the high Himalayas.