India Wildlife Reserves Hotels & Resorts

Tracking tigers in Bandhavgarh National Park is like living out your every jungle fantasy. Bandhavgarh, like all of India’s national parks, is divided up into different zones only one of which you can explore on each outing.

On a full day safari though you can explore all four zones which is a little more expensive but fantastic. The star attraction is the park’s Bengal tigers of which researchers still only know around 8% of their behavioural patterns. Among the huge array of fauna, there are also leopard, sloth bears, four species of deer and a multitude of bird life. The topography is riveting; tall sal trees, sloping hills, vast grassland and thick forest. Each animal sighting is as unique as the next but there’s nothing more special than seeing the distinctive stripes of your first tiger sighting.

There are many walks that you can take from Samode Safari Lodge but one of the most popular is a walk to the local village. It will help you understand the dynamics of the neighbouring tribe - its history, culture and lifestyle. You’ll get to learn about the different hierarchies within the community and the fascinating way they’ve built their village.

Some of the houses, constructed out of clay, cow dung and sand, must be a thousand years old yet are scientifically way ahead of their time. You’ll see how they still use original wooden beams even after all these years, how the roof doubles up as storage and how its dome like structure allows for air circulation. They’re the perfect examples of an eco-friendly house. The village visit is at its most picturesque when the sun is about to set and, in the distance, you can see hundreds of cows steered by a herder crossing the grassland on their way home as their hooves kick up dust into the sky.

Enjoy a bicycle ride along the grassy perimeters of Bandhavgarh National Park. Pedalling through you’ll see a forest alive with the noise and flitting of many, many birds. The rural track trails through sal trees. You won’t enter the park itself but occasionally you might still spot some of its wildlife.

People have seen sloth bears trundling across the way as well as grazing spotted deer. If you’re lucky you may see a flying squirrel gliding from tree to tree - easily mistaken for a bird. If you want to stay out for longer, you can make a detour to the neighbouring village for an insight into the traditional local culture.

While the Bengal tiger remains India’s most famous yet elusive of creatures, Kanha’s reputation for sightings surpasses many expectations. As one of India’s oldest tiger reserves, people from all over the world are drawn to the vast meadows and forests of sal trees in the hope of spotting these majestic animals. Despite its large size, its well-honed infrastructure allows visitors to explore the various portions of the park without huge crowds and in sustainable ways.

The star attraction here is undoubtedly the sustained population of over 110 tigers, a figure expected to rise in the near future. Even in the tamer buffer areas, the number of these wonderful creatures has increased. This means the possibility of sightings is high and makes the night drives, which are usually done in these outer perimeters, especially exciting. All game drives are led by guides who are drawn to Kanha for their shared love of nature. They take visitors through the forest’s entirety explaining the various ecosystems as well as the role in which humans play. The villages that were once there have been relocated outside of the park but the stories of how people lived alongside tigers, sloth bears, wild dogs and jackals continue to live on.

This one-hour guided walk follows part of a nature trail covering around 58 acres of land in the forested buffer areas of the Kanha reserve and gives you a different perspective of the jungle. An expert knowledge of the forest is imperative to these walks. The guides will explain and introduce you to the many practices designed to help conserve the land.

There are huge sal trees, prevalent to the area, that make up this moist deciduous forest. Then there’s the vast grasslands for which Kanha is famous where you may see barasingha deer grazing in the golden light. Treading through the jungle you might also spot chital deer, muntjac, foxes and some of the 150 species of birds whose natural habitat has been rigorously preserved. The excursions are created by trained forest guides, many of whom have been born and bred in the region. They understand every type of residential creature whether that’s tigers, sloth bears or sambar deer, as well as all the different parts of the park from the forested core to the wild outer perimeters.

There’s abundant wildlife in Pench National Park. Of course, being a tiger reserve, Bengal tigers are the star attractions, but there are other incredible animals such as leopard, jackal and wild dog. During morning and afternoon safaris you will be driving through the park in an open-top 4x4.

Being just a five-minute drive to Pench National Park’s Turia Gate is very convenient for game drives. The morning safari starts at dawn and lasts for around five hours while the afternoon drive is shorter at around three-and-a-half hours. You can also do a night-time safari in the park’s periphery buffer zone, also known as the ‘wolf safari,’ due to the amount of wolf sightings.

​Driving through the meadows in an open-top 4x4, the animals you see might be completely different to the ones you encounter when you cross into bamboo terrain. That’s how diverse the landscape is. During the summer you can see a multitude of creatures congregating around the water sources. If you go to the backwaters during this time, you’ll see hundreds of deer at the edges of the riverbanks. There’s chital (spotted deer), sambar and muntjac deer. Gaur is another fascinating creature in the area, the largest species of wild cattle.