India Tiger Safari

We had such a good holiday, it was wonderful seeing tigers in their natural environment and visiting the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal at the end of the holidays was a special experience. There were only 6 of us in our group and our fellow travellers were lovely friendly people and we all got on well. Our trip started a day later than usual because of Diwali so we didn't get the chance to do an optional game drive (we'd have done a 16th drive just to maximise any tiger sightings) as Bandhavgarh park is closed on Wednesday afternoon so our 15th drive was on the Thursday morning before leaving for the train. And, again because of the day's delay, we went to the Taj at sunrise rather than at sunset and were treated to a beautiful blue sky and lovely light. We saw tigers on our very first game drive, a mother and her cubs were resting on rocks at a bit of a distance but easily spottable once we got our "eye" in. We saw a glimpse of a stripey back on drive 2 but then nothing tiger-wise until drive 8 when a magnificent male briefly stepped out in front of our jeep before melting back into the bush. We saw a leopard in the far distance on drive 14 and then on drive 15 at the very last minute we had a tiger dash past all the waiting jeeps into the bush. The other jeep with our fellow travellers had a wonderful tiger sighting in Bandhavgarh (the jeeps did different zones) and, I must admit, it's hard not to be envious when others have an experience that you don't. We were happy for them but.....

It was absolutely brilliant from the start to the finish ,it was the most wonderfull holiday I have ever had full marks to exodus.

Exceptionally well organised trip with a good standard of accomodation throughout. The focus on maximising the chance of seeing tigers in three different parks meant there was a good balance between spending time wildlife viewing, seeing a variety of habitats and having a cultural experience of India. There was a much higher density/abundance of other wildlife than I had expected which was also a real pleasure to see.

Would recommend this to anyone

A truly excellent trip, from start to finish. For any wildlife fanatic seeing tiger in the wild is a must - awe-inspiring and majestic.

An excellent trip which I would recommend. Don't guarantee seeing Tigers however. We had done 9 safaris in both Pench and Kahna and hadn't seen a Tiger although we saw a Sloth Bear in Kahna, which is supposed to be rarer than Tigers. The group of four in our jeep were beginning to think we would never see one. Vijay our tour guide kept saying we would. So off we went in Bandhavgarh and believe it or not on our first Safari we saw 11 different Tigers. Out of the six Safaris there was only one afternoon when we didn't see one and overall we had well over 20 sightings. Absolutely brilliant. The trip by Train from Katni to Agra was much better than I expected. Katni station was manic with people, cows on the lines and a dog. What an experience, loved it. It was good to see the Taj Mahal again but would have been better if we had had gone at sunset rather than in the afternoon heat. There was a little scaffolding up but it didn't distract. However I wasn't blown away by my visit this time as i was 19yrs ago.

Brilliant trip, everything we wanted and more. Lots of tigers and other wildlife, an enthusiastic and knowledgable guide, great accomodation and great food. And despite being wildelife focused we felt we got a taste of life in India too.

We thought we should start by explaining why we would score this trip a 4 rather than a 5; 1. On the game drives seating is allocated so you have no say on who you share a drive with (other than your partner) or what zone you visit. As a result, the groups often go to different zones and there didn’t seem to be any rationale as to who was doing what and when. 2. There is some seat rotation however we found this to be extremely limited, therefore out of our 10 fellow travellers we didn’t spend any game drive time with 6 of them. 3. Because of point 1 and 2 we had the understandable issue of some people experiencing better spotting (especially tigers) than others. Our group seemed to have the least sightings and were happy for the others but a tad jealous. That said we had a great group, who were very respectful and with our encouragement were happy to share their experiences and photos, which we loved. 4. Vijay joins a jeep on each game drive and due to the need for a local guide, regardless of whether Vijay is with you or not, when he joins your drive the 3 in the back tend to have an uncomfortable time (this seemed to be the overall view of the group). Although Vijay rotates which Jeep he joins, for us, we had a group of 3 jeeps meaning that for a 1/3rd of the time we had 5 in the jeep not the advertised 4. 5. As with all of these trips there are a few travel days, which was absolutely fine, however the opportunity to mix up the groups up wasn’t taken. 6. As a consequence of the above points we had limited quality time with 6 of our 10 fellow travellers, which was a shame. Putting the above points aside, we wouldn’t want to give the impression that we didn’t have a great time because we did. In the end we saw 16 tigers which was far more than we thought we would. The majority of these came in the last few drives and we were really pleased we took the option of the additional drive, during which we saw 3 tigers, 2 of which were mating. We also saw a huge array of other wildlife although we didn’t see a leopard. The hotels were perfectly fine, although we would agree the food option as a tad repetitive. Loved the train journey and what really adds to this trip is the visit the Taj Mahal which is a true wonder of the modern world.

As with any wildlife holiday there are no guarantees, but the viewings that we did have were fantastic. Tigers, leopards, sloth bears and much more.

A very cohesive group with an exceptional leader. The quest for the tiger was disappointing as we only had a very brief glimpse after 17 game drives! However there was other ,less glamorous wildlife, and the group was good fun.