2026 Trip of a Lifetime
Diana and I are middle-class, senior American women, who love watching wildlife, being in nature and learning about other cultures and ways of being in the world. We recently spent 25 days (February 15-March 11, 2026) adventuring in Nepal with Shankar Tiwari of Travel Nepal. We want to express our gratitude to him and his family for the incredible experience and offer our highest recommendation to other travelers.
Travel Nepal worked with us to create and implement a custom itinerary for two, that encompassed: all of the primary birding and wildlife watching areas in the Terai lowlands (Sukla Phanta NP, Bardia NP, Chitwan NP, Parsa Wildlife Reserve, Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, and Barju Lake); opportunities to view the majestic Himalayas; walking tours of culturally and spiritually significant sites in Lumbini (Buddha’s birthplace) and Kathmandu Valley (Bhaktapur City, Pashupatinath Temple, and Boudhanath Stupa); and slow rides and walks through small villages across the country to provide us with the heart-melting opportunity to meet and interact with the beautiful, loving Nepali people.
From the moment our plane touched down in Kathmandu until it departed again nearly a month later, Shankar was with us and completely attentive to our safety, health, comfort and special interests. Shankar is an internationally recognized birding expert with decades of experience guiding in Nepal’s National Parks and Wildlife Reserves. He is an excellent naturalist, efficient organizer, proficient English speaker, and also a smart, honest, warm-hearted, friendly person that was a pleasure to spend time with throughout our magical travel adventure.
Lastly, this trip was both affordable (due to economic differences in Nepal vs the USA) and logistically very easy for us. Virtually all of the expenses were included in the trip cost: meals, accommodations, internal flights, hired cars and drivers, boat rides, jungle safaris, park fees etc. No surprises. Hotels and safari lodges were all safe, beautiful, high-end places, swankier than we would usually stay in. And again, all of these arrangements were made for us by Travel Nepal and Shankar was with us the entire trip ensuring all of our wants and needs were met.
And yes, in addition to the myriads of new bird and wildlife species that we saw…we were blessed to see two wild Bengal tigers!!
Sherri C. and Diana B.
If you are considering a trip with Travel Nepal and would like to contact us, let Shankar and Rasila know and they will connect you with us via What’s App.
We have been with Shankar on 2 trips to Nepal (Lowlands and Langtang Trek), 2 trips to India (South India & Andaman Island and Northern India) and one to Sri Lanka. Wherever we go to with Shankar, he is a great companion and excellent bird guide and his organizing skills always very helpful. He is without doubt one of the best guide we ever had the honor to travel with, his brilliance in the field is outstanding, his knowledge of the birds and their vocalization exceptional. Shankar has a great enthusiasm for nature and birds and never gets tired to show us as many birds as possible. We can only highly recommend him and are proud to call him friend.
I can throughly recommend Shankar Tiwari for birding tours to Nepal and other countries. He is an excellent bird guide and a very kind, considerate person. He leads tours with ease and is helpful and personable. I have been with him birding in Nepal, Malaysia and India on several occasions and I have travelled with many other bird guides and he is one of the best. He knows his country well and the birds also.
I have no hesitation in stating that Shankar Tiwari is the finest guide in all of Nepal. His understanding and knowledge of nature is second to none and he is a credit to the country of Nepal. If you wish to experience the Asian continent with one of the leading field guides in the area look no further than Travel Nepal. Alongside Shankar you will fully appreciate the wonderful wilderness that Asia has to offer.
April 2012 was my third trip with Shankar to explore the true wilderness of Nepal with a particular emphasis on witnessing the Royal Bengal Tiger. We spent 8 fantastic days together in the Royal Bardia National Park and our combined efforts resulted in no fewer than 6 individual tiger sightings. Not only were we able to appreciate the true beauty of the tiger, we were fortunate enough to observe the type of behaviour which is seldom encountered these days in the National parks of India as tigers there are so habituated to the tourist vehicles. Staring face to face with a tiger before a charge is an amazing experience. Alongside the exceptional tiger encounters we also had the chance to see wild elephants, crocodiles, gharial, many species of deer, avifauna, pythons and one-horned rhinoceros. Natural Variation Film have produced a short compilation of the highlights of our trip to Bardia which can be seen on YouTube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uAvWg5KRvs
The Royal Bardia National Park truly is a natural treasure on the Asian sub-continent and I can not wait to return with Shankar again.
Valji Varia (www.natural-variation.com)
Travel Nepal organised a fantastic trip to the highlights of Nepal. Shankar’s knowledge of the bird species in Nepal is amazing and I have learnt so much just from being alongside him on some wonderful adventures. He is a true gentleman and host and will always try his hardest to make your trip is a memorable experience. I look forward to many more exciting adventures in the future.
We visited Nepal to see the rhinos and of course as many birds as possible. And we were lucky to have Shankar as our guide. We saw a lot of rhinos and more birds than we could ever have had imagined. Because his eyes are exceptional. We loved his special interest for owls which were up to this time a strange species for us. And even early in the morning he drove me out of the bathroom to show to me a Blue-eared Kingfisher, which is very rarely to see. His knowledge about birds is incredible. When he visited us in Germany, we went to the internationally very well known Senckenberg Museum for natural science, which hosts a comprehensive collection of preserved birds. And he identified al least three species, which had been identified wrongly by the scientists. But on top of all he is a very friendly and lovable guy. It’s fun to be on tour with him.
I wrote to Shankar Tiwari just about 10 days before my trip to Nepal and was lucky that he was free. Very quick I got a clear answer and some proposals. When I arrived in Nepal a change was necessary which didn’t made any problem at all. I had wished for a lot of mountain birding with many hours of hiking, target bird being Himalayan Monal. Shankar picked an excellent route, we saw the target bird already on the evening of the first hiking day, then more than 40 more during the next days, and we also had really close and good views. During our 10 days birding I understood Shankar´s great bird guide qualities: He knows all the songs, can attract the birds by whistling, and is really patient (with the birds and me) so that nearly all the birds could be identified and have been seen well by me; we hardly ever had the unsatisfying feeling of something nice passing without identification. Nepal with Shankar was definitely my best birding experience in Asia!
If you have made all the standard trekking and birding routes in Nepal and looking for something really different” off the beaten trek”.
– If you want to experience Nepal untouched by tourism, as it was generations ago;
– If you want to have National Park all for your self;
– If you want to explore an area with a specialised biodiversity, with rare species only found in far western himalaya region;
– then I can strongly recommend to visit Khaptad National Park and area;
I experienced remoteness, wonderful landscape and mountain views, special flora and fauna, magnificent birding and people so friendly, happy to welcome foreigner. I was the only western visiter in 2013 and was welcomed accordingly.
Best time to go: beginning of April – Rhododendrons are in full flower and birds have mating season.
Elsa Nickel Germany
Guide: Shankar Tiwari
Program code: West Nepal
I recently had the good fortune to go birdwatching in Nepal with my friend Dr Robert Sothman in Nepal. I contacted Tragopan Trek / Travel Nepal Pvt Ltd., a contact found through Birding Pals Nepal. We had excellent feed-back and responses to all our e-mails which gave us confidence to book a bird watching tour through them. We were met at Kathmandu airport by our guide Shankar and had a very comfortable night at the Royal Singi Hotel, Kathmandu. Our tour started with a three day trip to Chitawan staying at Tigerland Safari Resort. This was an excellent place to stay. Shankar proved to be an outstanding guide. His ability to pick up birds in dense vegetation was truly remarkable. Also his identification skills on those tricky Phylloscopus warblers was outstanding as well as an outstanding ear for bird calls. After three days we moved on to Pokhara to stay at the delightful Fishtail Lodge. It had a very interesting way of accessing the lodge, check it out on the internet. Here our target birds were the only Nepal endemic, the Spiny Babbler, Turdoides nipalensis and a collection of vultures. Again Shankar did not disappoint in getting us the babbler plus excellent views of most of the vultures. Lastly we did a seven day trek in the Lantang Valley from Daunche to Lauribinayak and return. Here Shankar engaged a porter to carry most of or gear up to 10ksper person, the rest was sent back to their office. The porter we used, Bishnu was an outstanding individual and certainly added to our trip. We trekked up birding to Lauribinayak around 3900 metres high. The birding was outstanding but a bit tough going at times for us two pensioners (69 and 74!) Younger people should manage it fine. We finished the trek at Daunche for an overnight stay before setting off the next day for Kathmandu and the flight home the following day. The trip was fantastic. I recommend any serious bird watcher to consider Nepal on their itinerary. Nepal only has one endemic, the Spiny Bababler but the number and density of birds was truly amazing. We recorded over 360 species in the 14 days birding. Quite a truly amazing total which included such great birds as Monal, Blood Pheasant, Satyr Tragopan, Grandala etc. Also the guide to use is definitely Shankar, his dedication to making sure he managed to get as much out of the trip as possible was outstanding. If you consider going to Nepal then use Shankar it he is a great guide and Nepal is a great place to go birding