Best Places in India to See Tigers – Our top picks from 28 years of visiting
Published on: July 15, 2021
Best places to see tigers in India – you may be suprised at our choices
India is blessed to be in a ‘golden period’ of tiger safari tourism; with more and more tiger reserves being run in a more professional manner and the number of tiger sightings increasing year on year. Here at Wildlife Trails we are lovers of all wildlife and like to encourage you to visit some of the Indian national parks which are a little bit more ‘off the beaten track’. However, we recognise the passion that tigers ignite in your soul and one of the most common questions we receive from clients organising their India wildlife holiday is ‘Where is the best place to see tigers in India’ So, as regular visitors to India’s best tiger reserves since 1997, we thought it only right to showcase our Top 5 tiger reserves in India and the best places to spot tigers on our India wildlife holidays
Ranthambhore tiger safari – don’t believe the bad press, this park delivers!
So, what do you want for your all time iconic photograph of a tiger? What about a female and male tiger ‘fighting’ after mating right by the largest lake in Ranthambhore and with a gorgeous 10th century fort in the background – will that do? It’s interesting that Ranthambhore seems to get a lot of bad press – both offline and online – but for me, having seem my first tiger there in 97, it will always be a special place. Maybe those with negative views only visited for a short time and were not blessed with a tiger sighting, or their tour operator put them in one of those awful, noisy canters – Wildlife Trails clients only ever travel in jeeps! Either way, you can be sure they did not get the real Ranthambhore experience and that is a real shame. This is park that currently has female tigers with cubs in nearly every one of the 10 zones. When you consider a lot of visitors only consider visiting zones 1-5 – because that is what they read on Trip Advisor – they are missing out on seeing the whole beauty of this stunning wildlife sanctuary on the border of western Rajasthan and eastern Madhya Pradesh
What makes Ranthambhore so special?
There are several national parks in India which give you the chance to get up close and personal with the mighty Bengal Tiger. The current ‘Big 3’ are Bandhavgarh, Tadoba and Ranthambhore, but positions can change over the years due to a variety of factors. What Ranthambhore has, which the other parks do not, is a rich historic legacy of ancient forts, temples and lakeside palaces, which have become home to a beautifully striped feline. As lovers of Ranthambhore, how we all dream of capturing that iconic photograph of a tiger sitting in the gateway of a place as it suveyed it’s kingdom. Most of us will fail in this quest but we will rejoice knowing that wild tigers still roam in this spectacular wildlife oasis.
Check out our highly rated 9 day Ranthambhore tiger safari to see this stunning tiger reserve for yourself.
Allans Top Tips
Don’t get sucked into the narrative that only Zones 1-5 are worth visiting, as that is far from the truth and it will also cause you stress if your ground agents are not able to get all your jeep safaris in these zones – which is likely if you are booking late. Zones 6-10 are very different and beautiful in their own right and even the journeys to their entrance gates can offer a visually stunning view of rural India. For example, the mountains of red chilli’s you see as you drive towards zones 9&10. Definitly worth a photo stop if you are travelling in the month of Feburary.
Bandhavgarh tiger safari – where the descendants of Charger and Sita still roam
Home to some of the greatest tiger ‘legends’ of all time, this is a park that National Geographic made famous, with their incredible photos of iconic tigers such as Sita and Charger; who created a veritable tiger dynasty, who were to fascinate visitors to Bandhavgarh tiger reserve in the early 2000’s. It was not just Bandhavgarh that was famous around the world, a part of Bandhavgarh called the ‘Tala Zone’ was known my all serious wildlife photographer, as ‘the place’ to photograph tigers. At that time it had nearly double the density of tigers of any other tiger reserve in India and I have to say it also have a pretty scary number of jeeps ‘rumbling’ around the same roads!
However, Bandhavgarh did fall on some hard times in the last few years and has only just started to come back to it’s very best. I will not use this blog to talk about the problems, as they are complex and varied. What I can say is that this is a park in the hotter months (April to June) that can produce an extraordinary number of tiger sightings and many Wildlife Trails clients who visited in April/May 2018 came back with double digit tiger encounters, from an average of 8-10 game drives inside the park.
Why is Bandhavgarh tiger reserve so iconic?
Large male tigers, and indeed some female tigers, have a real swagger about them and you can see this straight away when you encounter them on the jungle roads of Bandhavgarh national park. The strong genes of past legends like Charger and B2 still run through the current tiger population, despite the many challenges they face from human persecution. These tigers have become acustomed to 5 decades of tourist vehicles passing through the park each day and have no fear of them. This is incredible for photographers as you get much more time to spend in their presence and get a real insight into their daily life; as they hunt, scent mark, mate and in the case of female tigers, care for their young cubs.
One of our most interesting tiger safari combinations is Panna and Bandhavgarh with a stop at the famous temples of Khajuraho en route.
Allan’s Top Tips
Try to include at least one buffer zone jeep safari and one night time buffer safari during your stay at Bandhavgarh. Most of Wildlife Trails clients spend 3 or 4 nights at the park and so it is easy to do the buffer zone safari on the Wednesday afternoon, which is when all Madhya Pradesh parks close the core areas of the tiger reserves.
Kanha tiger safari – why we always choose Mukki gate for our clients
Wildlife Trails has always attracted clients, who although their ambition may be to see a wild tiger, are more interested in the quality of the sighting, rather than the quantity. So, to be specific, there are tiger reserves in India which are a little quieter than the BIG 3 of Ranthambhore, Bandhavgarh and Tadoba; especially if you avoid the holiday periods and take your tiger safari at one of the less busy entrance gates. So to be clear, many of the tiger reserves in India have multiple gates through which you can enter and for Kanha national park, these are the Mikki Gate and Kisli Gate.
When we first started promoting tiger safaris to Kanha national park back in 2000, there was only a few lodges built on the Mukki side of the sanctuary and therefore the visitor traffic was much less. So, we decided we would only send our guests to wildlife lodges near Mukki and ensure that they had the best possible wildlife experience. At that time, you might only see tiger on half of your game drives, but the sightings wee often long, intimate and without the crowds of other vehicles. This is where visiting and knowing the individual attributes of each park is so important when selling India wildlife holidays and tiger safaris.
Why we fell in love with Kanha tiger reserve in the late 90’s
The first time I personally heard about Kanha national park was during my 1 month stay in Ranthambhore during February 1997. A wonderful Indian gentleman from Ahmedabad enjoying tiger safaris with his nephew waxed lyrial about this wonderful tiger reserve in the heart of India that would give me the best tiger safari in India. It would be two more years before I finally travelled there in search of tigers and other wildlife. At that time it was known as a good place for Wild Dogs (Dhole) as well as Indian Bison (Gaur).
He was indeed correct that the stunning meadows and beautiful scenery meant that each tiger sighting was even more visually stunning. It was also the first time we had the pleasure of staying at the family run Kanha Jungle Lodge, where ourselves and our guests would return time and time again, such was the welcome from Taron and Dimple. Such fond memories of the many talks over the evening fire and lesuirely breakfasts inside the park.
If you want to enjoy a tiger safari in Kanha national park this is the right trip for you.
Allan’s Top Tips
Use Jabalpur airport from Delhi as a hub to explore both Kanha and Bandhavgarh national parks in the on India wildlife holiday. These two tiger reserves are such a great combination, as Bandhavgarh is incredible for tigers in the hotter months, but sometimes can get crowded. Whereas the Mukki side of Kanha which we have discussed earlier has completely different forests and meadows, and it’s about the quality of a tiger encounter here, not how many you see.
Corbett tiger safari – who is the King here, the tiger or the elephant?
As well as the incredible history of one of the first parks to become a Project Tiger reserve and it’s association with Jim Corbet – hunter turned photographer and conservationist – you have one of the most beautiful wildlife sanctuaries in India, nestling along a beautiful valley, just before the Himalayan foothills. Travel from March onwards and you will witness the elephants migrating down from the forested hills to the grasslands and riverbed and have the chance to see both tigers and wild elephants in the same park.
Many of India’s national parks and tiger reserves have colonial buildings from around the 1930’s. These simple, but often beautifully located ‘forest bungalow’s were used by hunting parties. or forest officials to stay in during their visits. We have been lucky enough to stay in both the Dhikala and Sarpduli bungalows – on one occasion as a family – and it bring a whole new level of wildlife experience to your India tiger safari. To actually hear the jungle at night and then be in the prime position to start your jeep safari in the morning is an opportunity not to be missed.
Why your must travel March or later on your Corbett tiger safari
Corbett national parks protected area is huge. An area of over 500sqkm and an elevation range between 400 to 1200M. During the winter months there is plenty of water throughout the lush landscape of hills, riverine belts, marshy depressions and grasslands. The Wild Asian Elephants prefer to stay in the hills during the winter months from November to February and it is generally not until March that they will venture down into the lower elevations and grasslands.
Not only does this give you a chance of an iconic photo of both tigers and elephants in the same shot you can also have the privilage of witnessing a herds of elephants crossing the famous Ramgaga river, especially if you are staying inside the park at the Dhikala bungalows.
So for those of you who love tigers, elephants and birds, then this 7 day Corbet tiger safari will cover all bases.
Allan’s Top Tips
You absolutely must stay a minimum of 2 nights inside Corbett national park and ideally this should be in one of the ‘old school’ Dhikala bungalows, with the views over the impressive Ramgaga river. A visit to Corbett without a stay inside the park and those early morning tiger safaris through the meadows around Dhikala, would not be a true Corbett experience in our eyes. We have been in love with the park since our first visit there in 1999.
Tadoba tiger safari – the legend of Maya lives on despite her passing.
It’s hard for people not to get emotionally connected with the wild tigers they have the privilege to see during their India wildlife tour. In addition, with the explosion of social media in recent years, once visitors return home, they can often keep up with the exploits of tigers through the eyes of Indian wildlife guides. So, it is no wonder that many people prefer tigers to have names – rather than boring letters and numbers – and then to a degree humanise their behaviours. Therefore it is no wonder that we end up with ‘Superstar Tigers’ and at the moment there is no bigger start than Maya in Tadoba. We were lucky enough to see her in May 2017, as she mated with the huge Matkasur near waterhole 97 and for sure she is a very special tigress.
So, if we ask the question why so many wildlife photographers are flocking to Tadoba now, it is not simply a question for tiger numbers or density. Both Kaziranga and Kanha have large tiger populations, but they are no know as ‘the best place to photograph tigers’; so what is the X factor they are looking for? It is simply the fact that some tiger are incredibly comfortable around jeeps and humans and if that happens to be a female tiger, then you also know that when she has cubs – as Maya does at the moment – she will continue to be comfortable with the jeeps and allow photographers to have some lifetime shots. Unfortunately this can result in some photographers being too casual and getting too close and in my opinion this needs to be managed by the park authorities themselves, with fines and suspensions from the park; but that is a whole other blog.
Sadly, Maya passed away in November 2023 but her offspring still roam the bamboo forests of Tadoba national park and it remains one of the Top 3 places to see tigers in India.
Allan’s Top Tips
Why not get away from the crowds and stay in accommodation at one of the less well known entrance gates at Tadoba. We have this amazing 6 day Tadoba tiger safari entering from the Moharli gate, which has fewer wildlife lodges than the other major gates, but is home to several resident tiger families and beautiful primary forest unique to this part of the national park.
