Tigers and India are the image of the Raj and romantic India. Unfortunately the reality is that tigers are now rare and endangered in India with only around 1400 left in the country. So to see tigers, in their natural habitat is not an easy quest, which is why so many wildlife enthusiasts come to Rathambore National Park, in Rajasthan.

Tiger, Rathambore National Park, India

Rathambore is a unique sanctuary for wild tigers, adjacent to the ancient town and fort of the same name, which dates from 944. The park has always has been home to tigers for a 1000 years,  Before the tigers were protected, Rathambore was a hunting ground for the ruling royal family. These days the only hunting allowed is with a very long telephoto lens. Only 3.5 hours by private car from Jaipur and its bustling streets Rathambore is a world away.

The National Park is a walled off area which includes ancient monuments and temples. The tigers don’t have it all to themselves though, there are also leopards, stripped hyenas, sambar deer, peacock, monkeys, sloths, bears and even some Egyptian crocodiles, imported when a local Maharajah liked the look of them!

Accommodation in the park is camping - but this is glamour camping (glamping) on a scale the even the Australian upmarket camps look decidedly middle-class . The camp, Aman-i-Khas is created anew after each monsoon which only the concrete pads of the tents remain for. I use the term “tent” in the Maharaja sense of the word. This is tent with four rooms including ensuite and enclosed verandah. Hot water and top-of-the-range toiletries are to hand of course as is room service. Air-conditioning too! The only thing not available is a TV - there’s one in the library-tent dear the dining-tent. A spa tent offering Indian massages to smooth away all those aches and pains from riding in the back of an Indian jeep. This is most definitely 5-star luxury camping.
Pre-dinner drinks are offering around the roaring fire and there is even a temple-like swimming pool to cool off in. Aman-i-Khas is approximately 3.5 hours south of Jaipur which has international connections or is a quick 1/2 hour flight from New Delhi. Guests can travel accompanied, in First Class train comfort: always an interesting way to see India. Alternatively a car and driver will take around the same time or helicopter transfers are available.

Once you are through “roughing it” in the “camp”, you may want to extend your stay a few hours north at Aman Resorts sister property Amanbagh, set in a a secluded valley between New Delhi and Jaipur but again about a million miles away from them in terms of landscape and atmosphere. Here the property is permanent - 24 Haveli suits and 16 pavilions set in what was once a Moghul hunting staging post. Around 200 staff look after the guests and manicured grounds. Mirrored pools suites larger than some people’s homes fantastic cuisine. Here the excursions are not to see the wildlife but to explore the local colourful rural communities.

Whether you stay at both or one of these wonderful resorts you will have a fantastic time in India!

Ningaloo Marine National Park is a unique destination on the remote Western Australian Indian Ocean coast. The appeal of this remote area and the reason for the National Park is the the fringing coral reef. The reef is Australia’s only large reef positioned very close to land. Located 1200km north of Perth, remote Exmouth is quietly starting to attract the adventurous end of the luxury traveller market.

Snorkeller, Ningaloo Reef

With the best will in the world the land of the prosaically named North West Cape region is dry and barren: a hostile landscape and not particularly attractive. What is the appeal? What draws an increasing number of international tourists isn’t the land - its what lies under the ocean. The stunning turquoise sea is not just spectacular, its the home for an amazing number of exotic animals, the most spectacular of which is, without a doubt the whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is a slow filter feeding shark that is the largest living fish species. Whale sharks can grow to a length of 12.2 m. (40 ft.) and weigh up to 13.6 tonnes (15 short tons). From April to July the whale sharks congregate on Ningaloo Reef. These harmless giant creatures swim at snorkel depth so anyone with the most basic swimming skills can snorkel and swim among them.

Beach near Exmouth, Western Australia

Even if you are not at Ningaloo at the right time of the year for the whale sharks you may still see manta rays, turtles dudongs, whales, dolphins, and sharks.

The main town in the area, Exmouth, is more an air base than a tourist town. Including all the basic services and the usual accommodation options: but luxury hasn’t been on the list - until recently.

Sal Salis is a luxury camping option (also known as glamping) from the same people who brought us Bamurra Plains Safari Camp in the Northern Territory Located around 1 hour’s drive south of Exmouth in the Cape Range National Park. The tents are situated just 50 metres back from the beach amongst the low lying coastal dunes. With only 5 rooms, sorry tents, this is an intimate experience in a huge landscape. Each spacious tent comes with its en-suite complete with (compositing) toilet and a ver comfortable bed, 100% cotton linen, a pillows selection, soft bath towels. Be warned though this is an ecologically sensitive luxury camping venue so no air-conditioning: which might be a bit much in the height of summer in January and February. Telephones and TV’s are definitely NOT included. Instead Sal Salis describes their property as:

“The main camp building is raised above the sand and coastal scrub with views out to the reef and breakers beyond. Dinner is hosted against a back-drop of rich orange sunsets over the Indian Ocean and in the cool of the evening kangaroos and wallaroos appear from the bush for their evening graze. A bar and open lounge area with a small reference library provides a great spot to sit out the heat of day or enjoy a quiet sundowner. Our chef provides contemporary Australian cuisine with hints of bush food and native produce, guests may help themselves to the self-service bar at any time.

To be honest if you want all the mod-cons you would be better off checking into a more traditional luxury resort such as Qualia on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef If you want to see some of the most spectacular underwater scenery and wildlife anywhere in the world - be one of the first to check into Sal Salis and Ningaloo Reef.

Photo Credit: Moving to Australia

Thought I would do a quick review of new about luxury travel from around the blogosphere. There are a lot more $1/day type backpacker reviews out there than the sort of place our discerning readership would stay at: but I found some nice places well worth checking out. Also in the current economic climate: some choices for affordable luxury, for those of us who can still afford to travel there are some great deals out there!

Luxury Hotels: Queenstown, New Zealand

We recently looked at Queenstown’s luxury skiing options but Queenstown, New Zealand offers more than skiing. It truly is a year around destination with spectacular scenery (Lord of the Rings really had to do very little CGI on the landscapes) and easy access to Doubtful Sound: one of the world’s most pristine and remote temperate rainforests. This lucky writer got to stay at three premier boutique lodges in Queenstown, which also rank on the world-scale: Matakauri, Blanket Bay, Eichardt’s Hotel and Millbrook Resort. Millbrook is actually at nearby Arrowtown but any of these hotels would make for a special luxury experience any time of the year. A luxury travel trip to New Zealand,

Eichardt's Hotel, Queenstown, NZ

Glamping in Asia with Remote Lands

Well I would just like to point out that you read about “glamping” - Glamorous Camping - aka luxury camping here first. Remote Lands who are the self-proclaimed “world’s leading luxury travel designer of bespoke journeys to Asia” has extended their range of glamping tours, or as they call it “bespoke camping experiences” which take the “rough” out of roughing it.

So its still a bit out-doorsey with the emphasis on walking at horse riding but at least there is a comfortable bed and gourmet meal and massage waiting for you when you return to camp. Remote lands isn’t joking about the remote bit though, their destinations include Gobi Desert, Mongolia that’s a luxury ger camp as the tents are of traditional Mongolian design. In Bhutan their luxury camping includes a private blessing from the head abbot of Punakka Dzong Monastery. The Myanmar (Burma) adventure is based in Chin State a former British colonial hill station.

Mongolian Ger, Traditional not Glamping

Photo credit: andi808

Luxury Hotels for less in North America

Top travel magazine Conde Neste is predicting some sharp hotel prices in North America The sudden sharp decline in travel combined with the boom of hotel building over the last few years adds up to great bargains right across the market. Their picks for great deals are

• destinations which have seen airlines cut their in-bound flights: Caribbean, Hawaii, Las Vegas;
• destinations that do NOT appeal to international visitors particularly Europeans and Chinese who are enjoying the lower dollar. Consider Phoenix, San Diego, Santa Fe, Savannah, Tampa, and Tucson.
• look for brand-new hotels trying to establish themselves in the market. Also look for hotels which switch from one hotel group to another and need to re-brand
• the old standby may well work too: negotiate: the view, the extras, the breakfast and the rate, the customer is once again king

Paris, Las Vegas

Epoque Hotels Offer Interesting and Discounted European Luxury Hotels

Epoque Hotels is a collection of over 300 hotels, mainly in Europe but also in North and South America and Asia. The hotels are divided between trendy chic and traditional luxury and seem to be mainly smaller 4 star properties. The pricing is sharp with clever offers such as a guaranteed US$ rate as well as the more usual bundling of breakfast and museum passes. Worth a look if you want to step up to the next level in Europe particularly.

Rubinstein Hotel, Krakow, Poland

Save Money and Support The Locals

There is a growing awareness among tourists of the environmental impact of of their travelling. But even more devastating can be the impact on local communities when the big-name 5-star resorts come to town. A luxury resort often operates in a vacuum; isolating its guests from the locals except for carefully controlled excursions. There is an excellent post over at travmonkey.com on how to move beyond the resorts: five ways to support local communities

Well hope you found something of this little round-up there are certainly some interesting times coming in the travel industry.

If you’ve seen Australia, the movie, you will know what the appeal of the Top End’s tropical landscape it.

Buffalo, Northern Territory

Of course the Northern Territory has beautiful National Parks: but they don’t cater for 5-star luxury, more the camping and family holiday scene. Now taking note from the luxury African safari model comes to the Northern Territory in the form of Bamurru Plains located on the edge of Kakadu National Park, and only 3 hours drive from Darwin.

Bird Life, Bamurra Camp

The brainchild of adventure tourism entrepreneur Charles Carlow, who also runs the just-opened Sal Salis at Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, Bamurru Plains was launched in early 2007. It has been a resounding success making it on to the hotlists of influential US and British travel magazines and providing what could well be Australia’s first African-style safari option. The brags in the visitors book point to adventure aplenty: “We saw a jabiru at sunset with snake in its mouth and dingoes rounding up wallabies”

Bamurru Plains is a safari camp on Swim Creek Station, a privately owned pastoral lease on the flood plains of the Mary River delta east of Darwin. The property runs 10,00 head of buffalo and 1500 brahmin cattle. At only 303sqkm its tiny by Australian standards but the area is a paradise for the visitor looking for the unusual and beautiful.

Fine Dining meets Camping

Camping Glamour Style

Bamurru offers the “glamping” experience as glamour camping is getting know as. There are no tents to put up and not a sleeping bag to be seen. Instead the ensuite fixed tents include lemmongrass-scented ssoads, feather-filled pillows and a powerful shower (hot and cold available) attached to a tree trunk in the tin-and-timber bathroom annex. The lack of noisy generators and the large, mesh covered windows means that you will probably wake early to the sounds of the blue-winged Kookaburras, or the sound of a buffalo splashing around in the floodplains not far from your bed.

With no telephones, TVs, CD players or the typical features of a hotel room to distract you, your focus turns to the surrounding environment. Only 3 of the 9 rooms have air-conditioning and you will have to book it and pay extra too. Meals are family style in the central dining room and menus feature local produce including buffalo and baramundi. So basically camping with a comfortable bed, a hot shower, a guide and cook thrown in - I could get used to that!