Discovering Kerala for 2-4 weeks

I'm really facinated with the southern part of our country and at the same time I haven't visited any...the closest city I have been that connects south is Hyderabad. I have a work from home so I'll work and travel at the same time.  What I would want to do is cover Kerala - Can you help me with - which are the best cities to cover, and best time to visit - I cannot do Feb(there's a family wedding) and March (due to Ramadan,fasting,Eid) I think 8-10 Cities should do it. I also want to visit KanyaKumari and last road of India and then back to my hometown (Lucknow,UP) and I'll be honest I'm nervous..I dunno ...haven't done a solo trip. Need an itinerary in terms of location so I can start and work my way down instead of jumbling up the locations. I see these packages on MMT for 8-10 days costing about 1lakh but seems really steep.