Two nights in India's oldest national park with proper dawn safaris, then two nights in Nainital around the lake: the classic first wildlife trip for a family.
Here is the honest thing about tiger safaris that no brochure will print: you might not see a tiger. Corbett holds one of the highest tiger densities in India, and even so, the forest decides. What we can promise is the forest itself, and Corbett's is the best in the north: sal trees a hundred feet high, elephant herds in the Ramganga grasslands, five hundred species of birds, and that early-morning jeep silence when the langurs start alarm-calling and every hair on your arm stands up. Children remember that sound longer than they would remember a guaranteed sighting.
We do two safaris, both at the right hours, dawn and late afternoon, with naturalists who read the forest aloud as you go: what the pugmarks say, why the deer are staring at one patch of grass. Then the trip changes register completely. Two hours up the hill is Nainital, the lake town the British built around a green eye of water, and the pace drops to boats, bakeries and the ropeway up to Snow View, where on a clear winter day the high Himalaya stands along the horizon.
This is the trip we recommend to families with children between about six and fourteen, and it is deliberately short and close to Delhi: one easy drive each way, no flights needed. November to June is the window; the park's core zones close in monsoon.
Five days, start to finish. The route, then the rhythm of it.
Drive from Delhi to Corbett (about 6 hours with a proper breakfast stop), arrive by mid-afternoon, evening nature walk along the Kosi river with a naturalist.
Dawn jeep safari in the park, late breakfast, lazy afternoon at the resort, late-afternoon safari in a second zone, dinner around the bonfire in winter.
Unhurried morning by the river, drive up to Nainital (about 2.5 hours), evening walk along the Mall Road with the lake lights coming on.
Morning boat ride on Naini Lake, ropeway to Snow View for the Himalayan panorama, afternoon free for the bazaar and the bakeries, early dinner.
Naina Devi temple at the lake's edge after breakfast, then the drive back to Delhi.
The facts most itineraries leave out. We print them because they are what decides whether this trip suits your family.
At Corbett, a riverside resort on the Kosi we have used for years, close to the safari gates so the dawn start means 5:45 and not 4:45, with lawns where children can run off the jeep hours. In Nainital, a hotel above the lake with the view at breakfast, a short walk from the Mall Road.
Families with school-age children, first-time safari-goers and grandparents who can manage a bumpy jeep ride. The safaris are cold at dawn in winter and dusty in summer; we say so now rather than at the gate. Not for serious wildlife photographers wanting four safaris and a hide, and not for anyone who will count the trip a failure without a tiger; the forest does not take bookings.
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