With different landscapes and habitats naturally comes a different cast of characters. Wild elephants, for instance, and black panthers — but there are some familiar favorites, too: Bengal tigers, Indian leopards, sloth bears, crocodiles, gaur and deer. Though tiger sightings have historically been sparse in these parts, they are improving.

In Kabini, all safaris are centrally managed (as opposed to being run by individual lodges, as in other parks), which basically just means you’ll be sharing a Jeep with other tourists. We’ll arrange for a nature guide to accompany you, but your fellow passengers could be long-lens-toting nature buffs or high-heeled it-girls from Mumbai — it’s a roll of the dice. Like all Indian national parks, there are big crowds of day trippers on the weekends and vacations (in our view, best avoided).

One of the most enjoyable aspects of a visit to Kabini is the chance to spend a bit of time exploring the wider region. Head out on a bike into the villages of the buffer zone, where indigenous Jenu Kuruba (“honey shepherd”) settlements rub shoulders with more conventional Karnatakan villages. Pass households with colorful rangoli on their thresholds (intricate designs made each morning with colored powders, rice flour and petals), stop for a glass of local pop at a cornershop, or pass by the village dairy to see people queuing up with their milk pails. As so often in India, the everyday can be even more interesting than any monument or museum.