Can anyone help? Trying to decide on which park to visit to maximize the probability of tiger sightings: Pench or Kanha or Bandhavgarh or Panna?

Husband and I will be there in February 2008, and will have time for only one park (four nights).

And, any lodge recommendations? The level is not that important -- we'll happily do either simple or higher-end as long as the safari experience is good.

Thank you very much for any advice!

I just found the official Project Tiger website: http://projecttiger.nic.in/index.asp

I only know about Bandhavgar which is supposed to have the world's largest density of tigers.

http://projecttiger.nic.in/bandhavgarh.htm

By the way, this past Sunday 60 Minutes repeated its great segment on tigers in India.

I would highly recommend Bandhavgarh. We saw tigers on two out of three days, plus the park itself is beautiful. If your lodge provides it, I suggest you go on the hike to the top of the hill in the park. It was quite memorable for us. I'm truly jealous!

waynehazle - Thank you for pointing me to the Project Tiger website. Now I want to visit more than one reserve. Unfortunately, I missed the 60 Minutes this past Sunday (and every Sunday ... we live in Germany).

Pennywise3 - Thank you for the recommendation. Did you feel it was too crowded at each sighting (as mentioned sometimes because of the high number of visitors and 4X4s at Bandhavgarh)? And, would you mind telling me which lodge you stayed at? I gather that you had a positive experience there?

I saw tigers in the Sunderbahns (sp?) Park. There are tigers all though here, but since it was like thousands of tidal islands, a boat was absolutely essential. It was very difficult to get to, and was the single most hottest place I've ever been. It was literally too hot to move from 10am-8pm.

I'm not sure why, but the park was absolutely empty when we were there. I think we may have seen one other jeep in passing, but when we saw the tigers we were completely on our own. We stayed at the Nature Heritage Lodge which was quite good. The food was fantastic. Do pack warmly though, the early morning safaris are colder than one would think. They only had electricity for a couple of hours a day which may make some people unhappy, but it didn't bother us at all.

If you absolutely want to see and photograph a tiger, then the absolute best place is Bandhavgarh, hands down. It is a beautiful park as well. The two downsides to the park are that it tends to get crowded (you end up seeing tigers with a lot of other jeeps) and the variety of wildlife isn't as good as other parks. I visit tiger parks in India all the time, and my strategy is to see and photograph with other jeeps (get the sighting out of my system) and then start going to other less crowded parts of the park - the chances of a sighting are less, but the excitment and experience of seeing it as the only jeep is fantastic. BTW - was in Bandhavgarh in late April this year and saw 10 - www.shahkala.com/bandhavgarh3.shtml
Look into Anant Van or Jungle Mantra as places to stay.

Kanha is also very good for tigers - its a much bigger park than Bandhavgarh - it also gets quite crowded and I use the same strategies there to avoid the crowds. The advantages that Kanha has is that it has a larger variety of wildlife than Bandhavgarh (they have Gaur and Barisingha, and a better chance of seeing wild dog, leopard, or bear). Royal Tiger Resort was good when I went, but the management has changed - so not sure now.

Panna has very few tigers and sightings are few and far between. It is still a very beautiful park with great landscape and no crowds. If you choose to go to Bandhavgarh, then a good itinerary is to fly from Delhi to Khajuraho, spend 1 night/2 drives at Panna, and then drive to Bandhavgarh. Ken River Lodge is the place to stay.

Pench is also a great park, with incredible forest and few crowds (though weekends are bad). Pench is your best chance to see leopard - they are spotted often. There is a family of 5 tigers that has been spotted a lot lately - but in general it is not the best place to see one. There is good variety of wildlife and interesting terrain. Pench Jungle Camp is the place to stay there - bit expensive - but great tents and a good naturalist.

You should also consider Corbett - in my opinion the most beautiful park in India. There is great variety of wildlife, decent chance of tiger sightings, the opportuntiy to stay inside the park and overall a great experience. Tigers aren't guaranteed, but not uncommon and the fact that they have elephants is a major bonus. If you go, go with tigerland safaris - they can set up a trip where you stay at multiple different places throughout the park and get many different experiences.

Couple things to keep in mind:

For best sightings, the best time of the year is April and May. It's hot as hell, but the water holes are few, the grass is much lower, and the animals are more concentrated. February is good, but not the best.

Avoid the weekends as much as possible.

Whereever you stay, ask about the jeeps that they use, and how many people are allowed in each jeep. Any more than 4 guests is not comfortable and definitely not good for photography.

If you want some really spectacular accomodations at the above mentioned parks, check out the new CC Africa & Taj partnership in India.

They were a little out of our way for our trip (we'll be at Ranthambhore instead) but look awesome.

There are now two CC Africa/Taj resorts - one in Bandhavgarh and one in Pench. By the time you get here, I think they will have opened in Panna and Kanha as well. They are excellent - but are $600 per person per night all inclusive. That is $1200 per night!!!! By no means do they provide that much additional value

gshah18, your pictures are amazing!

I would LOVE to know what on earth could make those hotels worth $600 per night PER PERSON!

Given the CC Africa affiliation, I'm guessing the rates are based on the African safari model of all inclusive (game drives, meals, beverages and good wine, tea, sundowners, laundry, lovely accomodations, transfers, etc.)

Still, it is a lot for India. But that rate would be considered mid range for Africa.

Thanks everyone!

gshah18 - Your pictures are wonderful!! They made me very excited about the trip! And thank you very much for your insight!

Pennywise3 - Your experience made me a little bit more comfortable with choosing Bandhavgarh. I am scheduling my trip so I will be on safari on weekdays, which hopefully will mean smaller crowds.

I am definitely going to Bandhavgarh, but I am also trying my best to squeeze in Kanha. I am very tempted by the CC Africa/Taj lodges. I guess I'll see how the rest of the trip falls into place, maybe I can splurge for two nights of luxury. I wish there was someone on this board who can share some firsthand experience regarding CC Africa's lodges.

As of now, I really only have the dates and parks nailed down and am waiting on feedback from two agents.

Sorry I don't have personal experience with them. But CC Africa as a group has a fabulous reputation (in Africa). This is their first foray into India. Unfortunately, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone here who has stayed at the India properties...they're just too new. Perhaps tripadvisor???

Hi

I stayed at the CC Africa lodge in Bandhavgarh - Mahua Kothi - I was fortunate that my uncle was treating - else there is no way.

We stayed for 3 nights. The place used to be a private run lodge called Churhat Kothi - which I have also stayed at. The previous owner of that place now runs Anant Van (which you should check out)

Mahua Kothi - The setting is fantastic and it is a great place to come back to after your morning and afternoon drives. There is very friendly staff, good food, and you are treated very very well. The rooms are gorgeously decorated and very comfortable - it will be freezing in February in the nights and mornings - so they have small heaters that they keep in the rooms and great down comforters - and there is always a fire raging in the main room. The naturalists are good and the jeeps are great.

Having said all that is it worth $600 per person per night. No. But very little is.

I just want to second the recommendation for JungleMantra as a place to stay in Bandhavgarh. Excellent. See posted review in TripAdvisor. Also, I loved Pugmark in Ranthambore. Incidentally, both of these were recommendations of Compass Tours. I booked my trip through them.

We went to Bandhavgarh in November of 2006. It was packed. Going on "safari" in India in disappointing after you've been on one in Africa. We saw 5 tigers. The jeeps all line up in the morning and you're off! The other game in the park is tremendously disappointing as there was very little to see. Our first guide/driver was bad and we asked for a new one, who we loved. His name was Teeret(sp?) A young man who loved the animals more than you. We stayed at Tiger Den and we were happy. JungleMantra looked good, but was kind of new and we couldn't get enough information. I'm glad that we went to Bandhavgarh only because I absolutely wanted to see a tiger and would have been terribly disappointed had I not. Now that I have been able to see one in the wild, I would not go back to that park and would take my chances elsewhere and hopefully enjoy a park with more diverse game.