2 Night 3 Days Bardia Tour

• The Best Tiger Odds in Nepal: A larger, wilder park with a quarter of Chitwan's visitors and a findable tiger population.

• A Full Day in the Park: One complete jeep safari day plus two half days, rather than a single game drive.

• The Karnali and Babai Rivers: Gangetic dolphin, gharial and mugger crocodile, with the river crossings where tigers come to drink.

• Walking Safari with Naturalists: On foot in the Terai with two armed guides, which Bardia does better than anywhere.

• Fly In, Don't Drive: A one-hour flight to Nepalgunj instead of fifteen hours on the highway.

Bardia is roughly 968 square kilometres against Chitwan's 952, but takes a small fraction of the visitors — a few thousand foreign tourists a year against Chitwan's tens of thousands. The practical effect is that you are frequently the only vehicle at a sighting, and the animals behave accordingly.

It is also the better tiger park. The population density is comparable but the habitat, particularly the Babai valley and the Karnali floodplain, concentrates animals at predictable water in the dry season, and the machan and river-crossing strategy that Bardia guides use gives genuinely better odds than driving grassland. Realistically it is still perhaps one trip in three, but that is several times the Chitwan figure.

We do not sell elephant-back safaris. Riding is being phased out across Nepal's parks on welfare grounds and we stopped offering it before we had to; every game drive here is by four-wheel-drive jeep, on foot with an armed naturalist, or by dugout canoe. The elephant breeding centre visits are to a government facility where the animals are not ridden.

Inside the parks the rules are strict and your guide will enforce them: no getting out of the vehicle except at designated points, no calling to animals, no flash near rhino or tiger, and absolute quiet on foot. Walking safaris carry a genuine risk from rhino and sloth bear, which is why they go with two naturalists and why the briefing about climbing a tree is not a joke.

October to March is the season. The grass is cut and burned in January and February, which is when visibility is at its best and tiger sightings peak; October and November are green, comfortable and excellent for birds. April and May are hot but very good for wildlife, because animals concentrate at the water. We avoid June to September, when the monsoon floods the grasslands and much of the park closes.

Realistic expectations matter. Greater one-horned rhino are seen on most trips in Chitwan and Bardia; wild elephant, gharial, mugger crocodile, sloth bear, spotted and sambar deer and a great deal of birdlife are routine. Tiger is not routine anywhere — Bardia gives the best odds in Nepal and even there it is perhaps one trip in three. Anyone guaranteeing you a tiger is guaranteeing something they do not control.

You fly Kathmandu to Nepalgunj — an hour over the plains — then drive around two and a half hours north-west to Thakurdwara on the park boundary. The road alternative from Kathmandu is fifteen hours and we do not recommend it. Return flights are included.

Accommodation is a lodge at Thakurdwara with a garden, en-suite rooms and hot water; it is comfortable rather than luxurious, which is the standard in the far west. Bring neutral-coloured clothing, long sleeves and trousers, closed shoes, insect repellent, a hat, sunscreen and binoculars, which matter more at Bardia than anywhere because much of the watching is done at distance from a machan.

• Bardia National Park Guide: Nepal's Best Chance of a Tiger — The largest protected area in Nepal's lowlands, far out in the west, with a growing tiger population, wild elephant herds, Gangetic dolphins in the Karnali.