Everything you need to know

It occupies a core-zone vehicle slot for the entire day rather than a three-hour window, and the reserves price it accordingly. What you get for it is the middle of the day, when almost every other vehicle has left the park.

Four unrelated markets bundled into one number: park permits, a vehicle with a driver and a forest-department guide, a bed, and the person hosting you. They move independently, which is why two operators quoting the same park can differ by a factor of three. Lodging is where most of the spread lives.

International guests pay in US dollars and Indian guests in rupees. Dollar prices include GST; rupee prices have GST added at checkout. Card payments carry a 4% service fee.

Yes. Lodges price a room per night rather than per person, so a single-occupancy supplement applies; we quote it with your itinerary once the lodge and dates are set.

If you are there for photographs, yes. May and June have the highest concentration of animals at water and the longest sightings. If you are travelling with children or anyone who struggles in heat, take the December–February window instead and accept slightly lower odds.

Core zones close for the monsoon, roughly from the end of June until October. Dates are set annually by each reserve. Some buffer zones stay open through the monsoon.

For core-zone tiger photography, effectively yes. It is a spectacular time to be in India generally, and the buffer-zone drives that do run are green and empty, but it is not when you plan a tiger trip.

Enough to change a trip, in Tadoba's case — its buffer zones can stay open through the monsoon. Each reserve has its own month-by-month page: Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Tadoba and Ranthambore are all linked at the foot of this page.

A regular permit is a morning or an afternoon drive of a few hours, in a set slot, with a compulsory exit between the two. A full-day permit keeps the vehicle in the park from gate opening to gate closing, through the middle of the day. It costs considerably more, only a limited number are issued, and it is the single biggest structural advantage a photography trip can have.

The core zone is the protected heart of the reserve, and it closes in the monsoon. Buffer zones surround it and have their own gates, and some of them stay open all year.

A driver and a forest-department guide, which is a legal requirement in every core zone rather than an upsell — and the good ones have worked one patch of forest for twenty years. On our trips there is a third: Lala or one of our naturalists, whose job is the photography rather than the finding.

Guests describe the result more precisely than we could: 'no jeeps behind the subject', and 'keeping our vehicle at the tigers' heads while many other visitors had only a rear view'.

Yes. Vehicles are shared only within your own group, and positions get rotated so nobody spends the week on the wrong side of the light.

Forest tracks, so dusty and bumpy — but the vehicles are open 4x4s built for it and the distances inside a park are short. Long transfers happen on tarmac between parks.

At designated points only, and you may not leave the vehicle elsewhere. On a full-day permit this is worth planning around rather than improvising.

More cards and batteries than you think — cold mornings drain batteries and a full-day permit is a very long time between charges. A beanbag, a rocket blower, a couple of large ziplock bags, and a plan to back up every night to two places.

Hire exists in the major cities but not near the parks, so it has to be organised before you travel.

Not in the vehicle — there is no room and you cannot get out. A beanbag over the rail or the seat back does the job properly.

Not permitted in or near India's tiger reserves. Do not bring one expecting to use it.

Bad enough that changing lenses in the vehicle on a dry afternoon is a decision, not a reflex.