Safari in India

from intense urbanisations to vast untamed wildernesses

India is the seventh largest country in the world and the second most populous, with a remarkable 1.4 billion people, almost one in five of all humanity.

The country contains some vast and intense urban areas, with two great cities having over ten million people and almost fifty cities with over one million people. Almost all of these places contain impressive historic monuments, impressive modern developments and a huge amount of local colour, but most are also rather hectic and challenging to explore.

Conversely India also contains some wonderful mountain wildernesses, a very extensive network of national parks, enormous swathes of beautiful countryside and endless tropical beaches. It is in these areas that international visitors tend to spend the most time.

Very few people travel to India only once. The place is huge and the range of landscapes and experiences is truly incredible. It’s very easy to understand how some travellers end up choosing to come back here every other year for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps the most iconic Indian experience is to tour the incredibly atmospheric fortified towns and cities of Rajasthan, starting in Delhi, taking in the famous Taj Mahal in Agra and then choosing between Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur or any number of smaller and more remote towns.

A trip like that can include a significant safari element, with the famous tiger reserve of Ranthambore. But if you prefer to skip the historic part and focus more on the wildlife, then you can instead head for the network of national parks in the central province of Madhya Pradesh, the renowned setting for The Jungle Book.

Perhaps the most dramatic and exciting part of India is the Ladakh province, hidden away in the high Himalayas to the northwest. Visit during the Apr-Oct warm season to visit Buddhist temples and walk between gorgeous mountain villages. Visit during the Nov-Mar winter to go in search of elusive snow leopards.

Another really alluring area is Assam, in the far northeast, where the prestigious Kaziranga National Park is home to rhinos, elephants and tigers. This is also a great area for cool small-boat river cruises.

Beaches are arguably India’s weaker link. The famous west coast hippy hangout of Goa has some impressive stretches of sand, whilst further south, the province of Kerala has more tropical beaches and some really interesting hinterland. But both areas suffer from a shortage of really alluring accommodation options. No surprise that the allure of the Maldives is too much for many people to resist.

These few short paragraphs have outlined perhaps four or five trips. But India goes on and on. So far we’ve added around fifty places of interest and we could easily double that. Sometimes it feels like you can zoom into an area anywhere on the map of India and find yet another mind-blowing temple, fortress or national park. The excitement never ends.

Of course India is also an incredible melting pot of peoples, religions and cultures. You can meet with Buddhist monks in remote mountain monasteries, bearded holy men in the holy city of Varanasi, busy merchants in every market, wandering snake-charmers, British-educated tea plantation owners, slick businessmen, Bollywood producers, dedicated young naturalists, friendly villagers and an endless procession of diligent, honest and helpful people.

The best time to visit India is generally considered to be during the Nov-Mar cool dry season.

The converse Apr-Oct period is the hot, humid and very wet monsoon season, which most people consider to be a really unpleasant and inconvenient time to travel.

Despite the large size of the country, the climate is surprisingly consistent across the various regions and this statement is true for most areas.

The first major exception is for tiger safari, where sightings become more prolific as the heat builds through April and May.

The second major exception are the areas at elevated altitudes in the Himalayas (Ladakh, Shimla, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Darjeeling and Bhutan). These areas are usually best visited during the Apr-Oct monsoon season, since the warmer weather brings relief from the severe chill and snows of the dry season.

Combining locations in the Himalayas with the rest of India can therefore be somewhat complicated, but is usually best done during the Mar-Apr and Oct-Nov shoulder seasons.

In contradiction to these rules, the snow leopard season in Ladakh runs Nov-Mar, when the extreme cold of the winter season drives the cats down into the more accessible valleys.

With each season there are other more detailed factors to consider, such as the timing of various festivals, the flow of visitor traffic and the variability of lodge prices month to month.

Getting around

International flights

India has several international flight hubs, but the majority of our guests arrive and depart through three main hubs …

Delhi is the main port of entry for northern India, for visits to Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, plus the mountain areas of Ladakh, Uttarakhand and Shimla. It is also the start point for many of the best luxury train routes.

Mumbai (Bombay) is the main port on the west coast and is the jumping off place for the beaches of the west coast at Goa and the lesser-visited but fabulous sites of Maharashtra and Gujarat. It’s also a start point for luxury train routes.

Kolkata (Calcutta) lies over on the eastern side of the country and is the natural start point for explorations of the much lesser-visited areas of Darjeeling and Assam.

Internal flights

India has a remarkable network of internal flights, with a vast range of direct routes and remarkably low prices. This provides a great deal of flexibility to trip planning, enabling us to put together a vast range of interesting and unusual trip combinations.

Train connections

The railway network in India is even more impressive, with lines running to so many apparently insignificant and inaccessible locations. Even some of the remote Himalayan areas (Shimla and Darjeeling) are connected by means of special toy train routes.

When it comes to including regular train services into trips, we tend to do this in the company of a guide. It can be a great fun experience, but it can also be rather complicated and confusing, especially given the language barriers, so best to have a friendly face alongside. We like to include a train ride in an itinerary if we can, it certainly adds a certain something. And on some routes it is the quickest and easiest way to get from A to B.

India is one of the great locations for luxury live-aboard train trips. Itineraries of four to seven nights are operated out of both Delhi and Mumbai, mainly focusing on the great fortified towns of Rajasthan, but with some notable routes heading into the more remote areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat. There is no doubt that this is a fine way to travel, very hassle-free, stylish and comfortable. The only downside is that these trips are inherently a bit mainstream and touristy, but still worth considering.

Road connections

Travelling by road in India can also be a little bit complicated. In the cities the traffic can be extraordinary, whilst out in the countryside and the wild areas the quality of the roads can be variable and other road users (including cows and elephants) can be quite unpredictable.

For us there is no question about recommending self-drive anywhere in India.

Instead we like to provide an experienced driver-guide, who can not only get you from place to place, but can also accompany you around the various historic sites and other places of interest. Sometimes we simply use a driver, other times we use a driver and a guide, whatever works best for the particular itinerary.

Some areas, notably Rajasthan, are largely best done by road, as a private-guided overland safari, exploring this way and that along the route. In other areas we include road transfers to simply connect between places.

Walking and trekking

Up in the Himalaya areas we offer a range of multiple day walks and treks.

The most popular of these take the form of gentle (even optional) strolls from one mountain village to the next, overnighting in comfortable traditional houses. This is a superb way to really get under the skin of a place and spend quality time with local people.

More extreme trekking, where you spend more time in the high mountains, often with bivouac camping along the way, is not something we tend to be asked for very often here in India.

Boat cruises

In the Assam region, in the far northeast of the country, there are some really attractive options for small boat live-aboard cruises on the Brahmaputra River, usually over 4-10 nights, including explorations of the renowned Kaziranga National Park.
Where to stay

The usual way to go about choosing where to stay during your trip is to start by selecting the locations you would like to visit, then looking at the various options in each area.

tigers, leopards and lions in a single trip