Jim Corbett National Park

India'S First National Park (1936); Launch Site Of Project Tiger (1973); Corbett Tiger Reserve · Ramnagar, Uttarakhand

India's oldest national park, created in 1936 in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand and renamed after Jim Corbett, the hunter of man-eating tigers who became a conservationist and wrote about this forest. Project Tiger, the programme that saved India's tigers from collapse, was launched here in 1973. The reserve is a mix of sal forest, grassland chaurs and the wide valley of the Ramganga river, with a strong tiger population, wild elephants in large herds, leopards, deer, gharials and mugger crocodiles in the river, and one of the best bird lists in India. It is visited through separate zones with their own gates. Dhikala, deep in the core, is the best and the most sought-after, with forest rest houses where you can sleep inside the park; it opens only from mid-November to mid-June. Bijrani and others are day zones, and Jhirna stays open all year. All permits and rest-house bookings are made online through the official system and sell out early. Ramnagar is the town at the gates, about six hours by road from Delhi.

Corbett Tiger Reserve Office, Ramnagar, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand, 244715, India

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED; confirm before planning. Safaris run in two sessions daily, a morning session from around sunrise for about three to four hours and an afternoon session ending around sunset, with times shifting by season. Dhikala is open from about 15 November to 15 June, Bijrani from about mid-October to the end of June, and Jhirna and Dhela are open all year; most zones close for the monsoon. Gates close at a fixed time in the evening and late vehicles are turned back. The traps: unbooked peak dates, the monsoon closure, mismatched ID, and a late arrival at the Dhangarhi gate for Dhikala.

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