Jim Corbett National Park

Jim Corbett National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Corbett is India's oldest tiger reserve, five to six hours from Delhi in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand, and it is sold from the capital as two- and three-day packages with the transport, a resort at Ramnagar or along the Kosi river and the safaris included, or as the wildlife stop on the Golden Triangle circuit after Agra and Jaipur. The safaris themselves are the thing to understand: the park is divided into zones, Bijrani, Jhirna, Dhela, Garjia, Durga Devi and the core Dhikala, and each jeep safari of three to four hours in the morning or the afternoon is booked online through the forest department for a named zone with a permit, a jeep and a guide, weeks ahead in the season, since the permits are limited and sell out;

the packages handle the booking, which is the main reason to buy one. Dhikala, the grassland heart of the park on the Ramganga reservoir, is entered only by overnight guests at the forest rest houses inside, booked months ahead, or on the canter, the open bus that makes a day trip there from Ramnagar and is the budget way into the best zone. Elephant rides were stopped in the core. The nature walks and the birding in the buffer forests along the Kosi are booked at the resorts. Independent visitors take the train from Delhi to Ramnagar, book the permits on the department's website with passport details and hire the jeep at the gate; a resort's help is worth it for the Dhikala rest houses.

Visiting Jim Corbett National Park: what you will see

The park was created in 1936 as Hailey National Park, the first in India, and renamed in 1957 for Jim Corbett, the hunter of man-eating tigers turned conservationist who helped establish it; it covers about 520 square kilometres of core with a tiger reserve of nearly 1,300 around it, in the Terai and the Shivalik hills where the Ramganga river leaves the mountains, and it was the first reserve of Project Tiger in 1973. The landscape is sal forest, tall and dense, opening onto the chaurs, the grasslands along the river, and the Ramganga reservoir at Dhikala, where the elephants graze the flats in herds, the gharials and mugger crocodiles lie on the banks and the tigers come down to drink in the evenings; the Dhikala chaur with the reservoir behind it and the hills beyond is the finest view in Indian tiger country.

Corbett has about 250 tigers, one of the highest densities anywhere, but the forest is thick and the sightings are harder than in the open parks of central India, so that a visit is as much about the elephants, the sambar, the chital, the hog deer and the birds as about the cats; leopards, sloth bears, otters, wild boar and the occasional Himalayan black bear complete the mammals, and the bird list of 580 species, with the great hornbill, the Pallas's fish eagle, the ibisbill on the river stones in winter and the collared falconet, makes it one of the best birding reserves in Asia. The Garjia temple on a rock in the Kosi river, the Corbett museum in his old house at Kaladhungi and the Corbett falls are the stops outside the gates, and the resorts along the Kosi have made Ramnagar a weekend town for Delhi.

Jim Corbett National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park's zones are open from 15 November to 30 June, with Jhirna and Dhela open all year, and the safaris run in two slots, from about 6 to 9.30 am and 2 to 5.30 pm, adjusted by season; the Dhikala zone closes in the monsoon. Winter from November to February is cold in the mornings, clear and green, with the birds at their peak; March to May is hot and dry, with the grass burned and the animals at the water, and the best tiger sightings in April and May;

the monsoon from July to October closes most of the park. Book the permits as soon as the dates are fixed, and take the morning slot. Allow two nights for three or four safaris, three with a night at Dhikala. Nainital is two hours into the hills, Rajaji is the reserve to the west, and Delhi is six hours by road or an overnight train.