Introduction

In today's world when time is money and everyone want to move swiftly, hiking or nature walks become a different and rare experience. In urban world we do it in society parks or on roadside footpaths. Slow movement is a great opportunity to observe things better and gain deeper knowledge. During jungle safari trips, we mostly visits popular tiger reserves where due to presence of predator animals, nature walks or hiking activities are either kept suspended or occasionally operated for limited distance  and for limited duration. At Madhya Pradesh tiger reserves can be explored by hiking activity. Here instead of hiking word, we commonly refer them by terms called nature walk or walking safaris. At some tiger reserves like Bandhavgarh, Panna tiger reserve, it is operated by luxury resorts, under supervision of in-house naturalists. Where as if we visit Kanha national park or Pench national park, it is operated by both resorts and park management under the name of nature walks When we comes to Satpura national park, park management operates it in the name of walking safari and luxury lodges operates it in name of nature walks.

What is Walking Safari ?

In simple words, walking safari means exploring forest in walking mode. We commonly use safari vehicle to explore the forest areas and term it jeep safari. Similarly when we explore the forest or tiger reserve areas by walking, we call it walking safari. It is similar to hiking but major difference is that while doing hiking, our area of walk could be forest or hill or any other rough trail but in walking safari, our walking is done on forest area.

How it is done ?

From tourist point of view, we can explore the forest by 3 major ways i.e. by walking alone in buffer zone forest areas, by using in-house naturalist of lodge and go with them for a walk and third way is to visit safari gate ticket counter and book a nature walk or walking safari option in which forest department guide will accompany you for walk.

• Walk by own: It is rarely done by tourists because they are not well aware of terrain, area, possible threats. Still those who are aware of it, have confidence to do it, or may have done it in same area, in past, they may try this option. Usually it is possible at areas, surrounding to the hotel or resort.
• Walk with in-house naturalist: Such walks are managed and operated by deluxe or luxury resorts. This will be a chargeable activity and done on pre-decided track of approx. 2-5 km length. Benefits of such walks are that you will get better knowledge with practical examples. It is good to enhance our knowledge about plants, insects, trees and birds. Here mammals sighting chances will be very less as naturalist will take as only in those parts of forest which are accessible to general public and wild animals avoids such public areas. Such walks can be booked in advance and may be cancelled in advance.
• Walk with forest guide: It is an activity managed and operated by park management thus visitors get better access to actual forest area in company with forest trained guides. It is done on pre-decided track of usually 2-6 kms length which is usually covered in 2-3 hrs duration. Just like jeep safaris, they are operated in same time frames. Here we need to note that such walks are booked only on the spot basis, no advance booking. Such activities are not operated in all national parks or at all the safari gates of a particular national park. As per ground situation, local management authority takes decision on operation and suspension. This walking safari option is considered as the best one as it allows better access to less disturbed forest areas thus visitors have good chance to seek information on local plants, trees, insects, birds, rocks and even enjoy wild animals sighting. 

Advantage

Walking safari is a hiking activity which is mainly focussed on getting exposure to local plants, trees, insects, reptiles and birding. In compare to jeep safari, it is a slow mode of safari done in a small pre-decided area. While moving on safari vehicle, we swiftly traverse through vast forest area and small details of forest like insects, plants, reptiles, birds are mostly over looked and major focus was on mammals. Thus by doing walking safari, we can cover all those missed elements of jeep safaris  and give a completeness over all experience. It is a great opportunity for doing different kind of photography in which focus was on local plants, trees, insects, birds etc.

Challenges

As per its name, walking safari is done by walking through forested areas. It is done over a limited part of forest which is comparatively very small like 5-10 sq. km. Such located are mostly close to local villages or human establishments thus these forests lies in buffer zones areas. Due to frequent movement of human society, mammals tries to keep distance from such areas, especially in daytime in which safaris are operated. Thus during our walk, we hardly find any mammals sighting. Second important challenge is the uncertainity factor associated with such safaris. Occasionally, when some predator animals (tiger, leopard, sloth bear) movement recorded by park mamagement, for sake of visitor's security, park mamagement may take decision to suspend the activity for undisclosed period of time. Thus uncertainity factor is associated with such safaris.

Associated Risks

As per its name, here we do safari by walking over the ground. Although we are accompanied by forest guides but it is done without any fire-arm as we see during walking safaris of Africa region. Thus such safaris are not risk free. Here we need to be careful during such safaris and always remain alert as forested areas are full of threat factors. While doing such safaris, we have to walk on rough train which are sometimes rocky, damp, through bushes thus we have to be careful from all angles. While walking with children, we need to be more cautious and follow the insturctions of our guide.

Where to do walking safaris ?

While visiting Madhya Pradesh or Central India region, we can do jungle walks at multiple destinations. Almost at all the national parks, it is oeprated mostly by deluxe and luxury lodges.

Walking safari vs Jeep safari

Both the safaris have their own advantages and constraints. Walking safari is good if we want to move slowly and observe the forest minutely. Such a way of safari allows us to carefully observe the natural diversity of national park forest like care observation of small plants, variation of trees, insects behavior study, bird-watching and reptiles tracking. All these advantages can be enjoyed through a real time nature oriented walk in natural forest. During jeep safaris, we will not be able to observe the forest carefully as vehicle moves fast to cover vast forest area with mindset to do more and more animals sighting. When it comes to large mammals sighting, walking safari have challenges like walking trains are mostly allocated near by village area in which humans movement is very frequent thus large animals tries to stay away from such location, in day time. Although they visit in night hour but  walking inside forest is not allowed after sunset.