Experience the best of Sawai Madhopur

Sawai Madhopur is a town in eastern Rajasthan, named after Maharaja Sawai Madho Singh I of Jaipur, who founded it in the eighteenth century. It is the base for Ranthambore National Park, a reserve of dry deciduous forest, rocky hills and lakes where the Aravalli and Vindhya ranges meet.

Tigers, which can be seen by day, are the park's best-known residents, alongside leopards, sloth bears, sambar deer and marsh crocodiles. Ranthambore Fort, a hilltop stronghold of the Chauhan dynasty that is part of a World Heritage listing of Rajasthan's hill forts, stands inside the park, with ruined palaces, a temple to Ganesha and tanks of green water.

Rajasthani cooking is simple and robust, with dal baati churma, gatte ki sabzi and flatbreads of millet on local menus, and sweet tea is poured everywhere. Mornings are cold in winter, the heat becomes fierce by late spring, and the monsoon turns the dry forest green.