“Conservation in India is a very new concept,” Larry told me as we drove out of the park, the sun casting a golden glow over the ebony trees. Hunting wasn’t banned until 1972. After its abolition, wildlife tourism skyrocketed, but not without problems. Receding forests and accelerating development led to greater rates of human-wildlife conflict. And many operators were more focused on making a quick buck off big cat trips than helping preserve the animals’ habitat or investing in the increasing numbers of people living nearby. This is something Larry hopes to change. He has pledged 20 percent of his profits to conservation organizations and works only with hospitality brands that share his values. “Dollars that come from tiger safaris must go into the surrounding communities,” he said.
Larry has also relished the opportunity to connect travelers with a place he knows deeply. “I’m finally using all of my connections, which were of no use to me operating in the very north of the country,” he explained when he collected me at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on a muggy night a few days before our first tiger sighting. What he meant became clear to me over the next few days: Larry has access to the best gates, zones, permits, guides, and forest department officials, all of which are essential to a successful tiger safari. One night, sitting around a campfire at Suján Sher Bagh, we overheard a couple complaining about a foreign tour operator that had booked them at a gate a 45-minute drive away. I kept my head down. By then we had already seen four tigers, and we had early-morning access to the park through a much closer gate.
Suján Sher Bagh is a throwback camp on the edge of the Ranthambore National Park where the tents, set under peepal trees, have director’s chairs, canvas-covered patios, and giant brass bathtubs. Its owners, Anjali and Jaisal Singh, have developed their own reputation as pioneers in the Indian luxury-meets-conservation space. On the first leg of our trip, we stayed at another of their properties, Suján Jawai, a tented camp about three hours south of Jodhpur that is surrounded by reforested farmland. Big cats, including active wild leopards, as well as antelopes and wild boars, have returned to the area. “Suján’s anti-poaching success and push toward sustainability are exactly the kinds of initiatives we want to support,” Larry said.
For our final two nights, we traveled to Madhya Pradesh, where we checked in to Jamtara, a pared-down wilderness camp in the buffer zone—a government-mandated eco-sensitive borderland meant to mitigate human-wildlife conflict—around Pench National Park, a forested tiger reserve credited with inspiring The Jungle Book. The camp is low-key, with 10 simple tented rooms on a dry riverbed. Its founder is Amit Sankhala, the grandson of Kailash Sankhala, who was known as the Tiger Man of India and whose work as the first director of Project Tiger, a wildlife conservation program that began in 1973 to help increase the animals’ population and restore their habitat, laid the foundation for tiger conservation in the country. Pench is dense with thick bush and towering teaks, making tiger spotting especially tricky. We had the reserve almost to ourselves and spent hours careening along the rutted roads, passing wispy foxtail-like grass and tall trees crawling with rhesus monkeys. We didn’t see a tiger that day, but I’d been told one had visited Jamtara. Prints had been found pressed into the muddy path. Even though I didn’t see a tiger this time, I had the sudden feeling one was watching me. It was enough of a thrill to know it was out there somewhere.
This article appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/on-a-weeklong-trip-to-india-tiger-spotting-and-conservation-go-hand-in-hand