BARDIYA National Park – Learn from our experience, and make yours better!
We thoroughly enjoyed our 2024 safari experiences in Botswana and Tanzania, but our rhinoceros sightings were like grains of rice through binoculars. 🙁
Once we learned that you could see rhinos (and tigers, Oh My!) in Nepal, we were in!
Nepal has several national parks, the most popular of which is Chitwan, a theoretical 6 hours from Pokhara, and Bardiya.
Researching (a little) online, Chitwan seemed rhino-heavy, and a little … commercial, so we we decided to go to Bardiya (also spelled Bardia) National Park instead, which is a theoretical 15 hours by bus from Pokhara. Long, but manageable. Plus, you can fly from Bardia back to Kathmandu for around $180pp, which seemed like a good plan at the time. In the end, we did end up visiting Chitwan. See this other article for that.
Covering roughly 930 sq. km., Bardia National Park is only Nepal’s 5th largest park, but it has the highest population of Bengal tigers, currently standing at 125. It’s also known for wild elephant herds, rhinos, asian wolves, and SO many birds species.
Our Bardiya National Park Experience
Getting to Bardia
We may have mentioned before that Nepal’s roads, in 2025, basically SUCK. Construction everywhere!
In the end, our 15-hour bus ride from Pokhara turned into 26 hours, with several hours spent just sitting in the middle of the “road”, in the middle of the night.. . no access to food, bathrooms or aircon.
On the plus side, that’s a night’s lodging you don’t need to pay for. Like Chitwan, you’ll actually get off and on the bus in a different town, typically a 300-500R tuktuk ride away. In Bardiya’s case that town is Ambasa/Ambasha.
Grab a tuktuk and head into “town” (should be 500NPR for the 16km / 10 min ride, so negotiate) which is essentially one street with a few shops and get settled in at your lodging. In our case, it was literally 100m from the gate to the park.
Where to Stay
We stayed at Mr. B’s Place, and paid$16/night for a room with private bath and aircon. Like many (most?) lodgings in Nepal, it had a large double (queen-ish) bed and a single. It’s a very cute place, run by a very friendly family, and gets great reviews. Wifi and power were about on par with anywhere else, meaning usually you had it, sometime you didn’t.
They serve VERY good food, with many ingredients (rice, veggies, herbs) coming from their own garden / farm, but a bit higher priced: We paid $8 for breakfast for 2, but had an amazing dal baht dinner for $5. That’s for 2 people. (Dahl Bat is the secret weapon for keeping food costs low).
There also a street along the river with several more guesthouses & homestays: expect rooms in this area to run between $5USD to $20USD, with the latter including aircon and private bath with hot shower. You can search for lower-priced rooms if you want.
Sounds too good to be true, right? The reason is pretty simple: much like the teahouse on the Annapurna Circuit, the hotels expect you to eat with them, book your tours through them etc., which is how they really make money.
We did have a couple momo lunches at Karuwa Restaurant & Bar across the street because the food was good & the beer was cheaper, it had better atmosphere and for meeting other travelers. (Hi Leo!!)
You can also buy beers from a couple places in town (one guy charged amount printed on bottle but seldom open), but you can’t bring those into restaurants.
What is there to DO in Bardiya National Park?
Your itinerary will likely depend on weather, but here are our suggested activities:
Day 1: All-Day Jeep Safari
We booked a full-day jeep safari through the park through Mr. B’s, which cost $80pp, including lunch and all the water we needed (which btw was about 4L pp)
Our safari lasted nearly 12 hrs, from 7am to 7pm. In all that time, we didn’t see much.
We did technically see a tiger-barely. He was so far away that we only really got a look at him via our guide’s and other photographers’ cameras. Still, we DID see a tiger!
Most of the rest of the day was lots of back-n-forth checking water holes, looking for this (or other) tigers.
Other animals we saw included a half-dozen Giant Hornbills, which are supposedly very rare, and a number of other birds. Both Bardiya and Chitwan are fantastic for birders.
On the Dusk drive out of the park, it felt much more like our Tanzania Serengeti and Botswana safaris; we saw large numbers of the various deer & monkeys. In fact, we saw all 5 deer species present in the park.
Pro-Tip: If you stay/book thru Mr. B’s, we suggest you get the older brother as your guide… the younger one doesn’t seem quite as sharp or knowledgeable.
DAY 2: Explore town and the surrounding area; sleep in a tree!
“Town” is pretty limited, as we said in the intro, but there is a temple and a Cultural Village. Several lodgings have bikes available either included available to rent for a small fee; a bicycle ride is a great way to explore the local villages, and connect with the locals / Tharu culture. Just make sure to carry plenty of water – it was 110F the day we biked.
You can also check out the park’s Elephant Breeding Center; the park has a very active elephant conservation program.
You can also book a night in a Treehouse, a great way to spot animals at dusk!
Day 3: Full-Day Walking Safari
Because we weren’t thrilled with our jeep safari guide, and because our new friend Leo had a great experience with them, we booked a Walking Safari thru Namaste guest house.
You’ll start around 0630 with breakfast at Namaste, and head into the park around 0700, maybe 0730. Note you’ll have to carry your own water, roughly 3L, so bring a good backpack and/or a hydration pack.
Upon entering, you’ll likely see the “Government elephants”; these are semi-tame and used by rangers and the army for patrolling the park. We saw them bringing their own breakfast back to their pen.
You’ll get brief instruction about what to do in case of a rhino attack, and be given a walking / tiger-bopping stick. Yes, we’re serious. The stick is for bopping an attacking tiger on the nose.
What you’ll see varies – and as with all safaris, there are NO guarantees of sightings. The first several hours of ours passed pretty calmly. While we did see tiger tracks and scat, we only saw a wild pig, and some “Magic mushrooms” – psychadelic shrooms which grow in elephant poo.
But then… at lunch, we saw a rhino bathing in the river. Far enough that we needed binoculars to see clearly, but still, was a special moment observing this massive, majestic creature just hanging out.
We continued our walk after lunch, walking along the river bank, and… we got soooo close to a tiger, we heard it panting in the brush less than 10 feet away… hearts pounding, we reversed track slowly, and up a tree we went, just in case. Also for height advantage to see if his partner was crossing the river. SO glad we had those sticks. Hahahaha. Ha.
We in fact crossed the river (removing shoes & socks, which no one warned us about) and found a spot to observe, silently, so quite awhile, hoping to find his mate.
No luck, but we did see the same Rhino from lunch again.
You should know that walking safaris are both a nice walk AND a LOT of waiting around, very quietly.
We walked to a lookout tower from which others had seen many animals over the previous day or two, but we struck out.
We heard monkey and barking deer alarm calls back by the river, and raced back, as quietly as possible, hoping to see the tiger. No dice, but we did see a solo male elephant grazing.
On our relaxed walk back out around 1830 pm, spotting deer, a few monkeys and a biiig rat snake.
Due to concerns about weather and our overall schedule, we headed out the next day, deciding we’d try our luck in Chitwan. heh.
Bardiya National Park TLDR;
Is a visit to Bardia National Park worth it?
We’d say yes, a visit to Bardia National Park is well worth it, if you want a jungle adventure! In fact, our Chitwan experience actually made us appreciate the laid-back, nature-focused experience at Bardiya even more. Just avoid monsoon season, which starts late May/early June. Allow a couple days and be prepared to book the same activity twice in order to see whichever animals are your priority. Also be prepared for the bus ride; we’d suggest doing it after Chitwan, if you’re doing both.
We arranged everything on our own, but you may prefer the ease and peace of mind of booking a package. Here’s an all-inclusive 3 Night/4Day Bardiya Tiger Tracking Walking Safari that covers just about everything except your transport to the park.