Kovalam Kovalam (Malayalam:കോവളം) is a beach town on the Arabian Sea in Thiruvananthapuram city, Kerala, India. It is located around 13 km from the down town of Trivandrum. History Kovalam first received attention when the Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore constructed her beach resort, Halcyon Castle, here towards the end of the 1920s. Thereafter the place was brought to the public eye by her nephew the Maharaja of Travancore.[1] The European guests of the then Travancore kingdom discovered the potentiality of Kovalam beach as a tourist destination in the 1930s. However, Kovalam shot into limelight in the early seventies with arrivals of the masses of hippies. This exodus started the transformation of a casual fishing village of Kerala into one of the most important tourist destinations in all India.[2] Tourist facilities There are a large number of beach resorts in and around Kovalam. The sea port of Vizhinjam is about 3 km away and famous fo...