Jim Corbett National Park

India's first national park, established in 1936, held around 1,100 elephants in 2019, and most visitors come for tigers without realizing how good the elephant viewing is. The place to be is the Dhikala grassland in summer: once the floodwater recedes, herds come out onto the chaur, and as the heat builds, wildlife drifts to the banks of the Ramganga reservoir. Dhikala opens from November 15 to June 15 and closes for the monsoon, when the grassland floods. A night or two at the forest rest houses inside the zone puts you there at dawn and dusk, when herds are most active, and takes you well away from the day-trip crowds at the busier gates.