Best Places in India to See Tigers – Our top picks from 28 years of visiting

Best place in India to see Tigers – Top 5 Tiger Reserves in India.

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 ‘off the beaten track’.

Leopard Safari in India or Sri Lanka – Best Parks to Visit?

Sadly when we first visited Sri Lanka back in 2002, the civil war that had torn the country apart for decades was still very much ongoing and national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in the North of the island were very much off-limits. While travelling around Sri Lanka I spoke directly with naturalists and leopard researchers who told be about the ‘golden days’ of Wilpattu national park; when it was the ‘go to’ place for seeing the biggest leopards in Asia.

Snow Leopard Tours in Ladakh

It’s minus 20 degrees Celsius outside and I slip on my fleece lined North Face slippers and venture out. I am greeted by a Tolkienesque type scene outside our simple Ladakh homestay. A half-circle of mountains surrounds us and snow envelopes the hill sides like newly washed linen.

My First Ever Tiger Safari in India!

Running tiger. Photo taken on a tiger safari in Bandhavgarh national park by Dieter Gutmann

Rewind to January 1997. I was 26 years old. My ‘round the world trip ticket ‘had been paid for, I was flying out to Nepal to attempt the Everest Base Camp Trek before flying on to Thailand to start my Padi diving course on the beautiful Island of Koh Samui; after that Lao, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Bali and a working visa in Australia.