India

You are met at the gate in Delhi and taken across to the station for the express train south, the fastest and most comfortable way into tiger country. At Sawai Madhopur your naturalist is on the platform. Vanyavilas sits at the edge of the park: tents in name, with teak floors, marble baths and a chandelier apiece, around a courtyard where the resident elephant takes her evening walk. Over dinner the naturalist lays out the park's zones and the next three days' plan.

Ranthambore · 1 of 3 nights · Express train (4.5 hrs) · The approach

Wake before light; tea arrives; the vehicle leaves the gate as the park opens. Ranthambore's dry deciduous forest is unusually open, which is exactly what you want: long sightlines over the lakes and ruins, sambar calling, langurs pouring through the banyans. Tigers are wild animals and promises are not made, but the odds here are honest and your naturalist reads the alarm calls like a newspaper. Back for a late breakfast and a slow midday, then out again for the golden-hour drive.

Ranthambore · 2 of 3 nights · Two park drives · Early and alert

A final dawn drive works a different zone of the park. In the afternoon you climb to Ranthambore Fort, the thousand-year-old fortress the reserve is named for, which stands inside the park boundary: ramparts, stepwells and temples with the forest moving quietly below. Leopards den in its walls. Dinner is in the amphitheatre court under the stars, and the packing is done for you overnight.

Ranthambore · 3 of 3 nights · One drive, one fortress · Full

The train runs north to Bharatpur and a car brings you into Agra by early afternoon. Amarvilas is the interval the journey earns: every room faces the Taj Mahal, six hundred metres off, and the evening is spent doing very little other than looking at it, first from the terrace and then from Mehtab Bagh across the river as the light goes. An early night, deliberately.

Agra · 1 night · Train and private car (3 hrs) · The interval

The Taj at dawn, without the crowds, is the send-off. Then the day earns its keep: a car to Delhi, the short flight to Jabalpur, and the forest road out to Bandhavgarh, with every connection met and timed to the minute because that is the job. By evening you are at Mahua Kothi, twelve village-style kutiyas in forty acres of sal forest, with a fire lit and dinner waiting. A travelling day, honestly declared, and the last one of the trip.

Bandhavgarh · 1 of 3 nights · Car, flight and forest road (a full day) · The one long leg

Bandhavgarh carries among the highest densities of wild tigers in India, and these two days work it properly: dawn and golden-hour drives in a private vehicle, middays back at the lodge with the pool and the library. Between drives there is a walk through the neighbouring village with the lodge's naturalist, because the forest's edge is a working landscape and worth understanding. Evenings end at the fire pit, comparing notes. By the second dusk, the forest has usually given what it gives.

Bandhavgarh · 2 & 3 of 3 nights · Four park drives · The heart of it

A slow last breakfast in the forest, then the road back to Jabalpur and the flight to Delhi, where you are met airside and walked through to the international departure with time in hand. The trip ends the way it ran: someone else worrying about the details.

Bandhavgarh · Forest road and flight · Met throughout · A quiet close