India Tiger Safari

Veeru (Singh) is a top notch tour leader. He's all you could ask for really - exceptionally knowledgeable about wildlife, constantly looking out for you and advocating for your needs and wishes, a good conversationalist, kind, proactive, and has your back. He organised a lovely cake for my birthday, and kitted me with a fabulous pagari, which I've brought home with me. On the night train, he swapped beds, then eventually lost his swapped bed (and seat), all to accommodate the needs of our group. Then he still led the tour the next day on barely any sleep. An absolute trooper. The tour was great, the drives and wildlife portions particularly. Drives can be somewhat guide and driver dependent - if you have good guides then you will get amazing sightings, and it helps if they are photographers themselves. Vamul at Bandavgarh was brilliant, very knowledgeable, skilled at positioning and with good craic with other drivers and park employees; Ashu and Deo made a great team at Kanha getting us the highlight tiger photo of the trip; Raju and Sarita at Kanha worked together brilliantly to get us a glimpse of a leopard, very special even if too fleeting for a photo. Ninja at Sariska was very eloquent, his training as a naturalist meaning that he was able to talk at length about different species we saw, primarily birds. Salman at Panna was kind, and had a good photographic eye. It's worth going on optional extra night drives. We had a thrilling nightime encounter with a tiger in the buffer of Bandavgarh, a sighting of a jungle cat, and even without sightings the experience of driving through a moonlit forest is exciting and beautiful. I didn't enjoy the temple and city sightseeing as much as others, though my partner loved it, so in that sense the tour as a whole represented a good compromise in our interests. Food was generally a good standard, though I did find myself unreasonably excited at finding pasta in the buffet at Bandhav Vilas. I do like curry, and had some great biryanis too, but I found spiced food for every meal sat a bit heavy with me after a few days. It should be noted that there are parts of this trip that autistic/neurodivergent people may struggle with. Some temples can be very loud; some spaces, like train stations and markets, very chaotic and crowded; the night train was a bad experience for me. I don't say this to dissuade, but to flag that you may struggle, especially if you don't have coping strategies in place (ear protection, stims, comfort items, grounding items/techniques). I was fortunate that my fellow tourists were very kind and understanding, and did lots to accommodate me even without asking. All in all, I'd recommend this trip to wildlife enthusiasts, and I'd particularly recommend Veeru as a guide. To see my photos from this trip, you can search for user "sasquatchphotog" on Flickr and look in the "Travel - India 2025" album.

The Explore! guide Veeru Singh was absolutely brilliant, able to cater for some people's specific dietary requirements, sort any probles swiftly and put people at ease so they could enjoy the trip. A keen birder he was also great at identifying the wildlife and pointing out wildlife and interesting things on the longer bus travels of the trip. He even gave up his own bed on the sleeper train to ensure a client with concerns about taking a top bunk was comfortable. The tiger sightings were good in Kanha and Bandhavgarh, with Sariska being more birds and other wildlife. There were also sloth bears, jungle cats and jackals alongside the spotted deer, swamp deer and samba deer, with even a couple of rarer black buck so every trip out saw something interesting. Sometimes there were more than 4 guests to a vehicle but this was manageable and everyone got good sightings. The food in the various stays was really good, tasty and plentiful. Wth the accomodation outside Delhi being of a very good standard. The Sariska accomodation was particularly nice with beautiful gardens.

A thoroughly enjoyable trip! If your sole purpose is to see tigers please bear in mind that they are elusive and sightings can be brief. However, we saw lots of other wildlife too. Accommodation, apart from the rather dated hotel in Delhi, was good. Tour Leader, Abhi, was great and tried to accommodate everyone's requests. Some guides in National Parks have limited communication skills but Jeep Drivers were very good. The Temples at Khajuraho are on a par with Angkor Wat although the site is smaller.

Our guide was an experienced birdwatcher since childhood.He was experienced in finding and naming all the wildlife.We were thrilled to have 14 tiger sightings seeing 10 individual tigers. The looking at temples and sites in Old and New Delhi was great. I think the Emerald hotel in Delhi is a bit run down,they need to wash their table clothes! Their staff are nice.All other accommodation was excellent. Be nice to have an option on the train to book lower bunk.A kind Indian man swapped with me,as guide explained I had hip replacements and difficulty getting on top bunk. A lovely holiday.

fantastic. A lot of early starts 'pay off ' with good wildlife encounters. but choose dates carefully if only after tigers. Myself I would have liked more energy spent on all wildlife but mostly the format of 2 hours full on looking for tigers and then 2 hours more general worked with 15 tiger sightings and sloth bears on the Ranthanbore extension. part of a leopard, great birdlife and a couple of sightings of a Jungle cat. mongoose, all the varied "deer". monkeys galore. All aided by our glorious leader Veeru. Good job. PS the non wildlife bits were great too and the best accommodation of any other tour. All comfortable with a family feel, Perfect. We would do it again.