We visited Bannerghatta National Park in October 2018.
Bannerghatta National Park, near Bangalore, Karnataka, was founded in 1970 and declared as a national park in 1974.
In 2002 a portion of the park, became a biological reserve, the Bannerghatta Biological Park. It is a popular tourist destination with a zoo, a pet corner, an animal rescue centre, a butterfly enclosure, an aquarium, a snake house and a safari park. It is one among the few places in the world where wilderness is preserved so close to a big city.
You can book the tickets online in the web site –> https://bannerghattabiologicalpark.org/
The important point to be noted is that the park is closed on Tuesdays.
Zoo Timings are from 9:30 AM – 5:00 PM and Safari Timings are from 10:00 AM – 4:30 PM.
Also, please expect heavy rush through out the year (especially the weekends) as this is one of the most visited place within Bangalore.
We would suggest reaching the place by around 10 AM, so that there won’t be much crowd.
If possible, avoid holidays and weekends.
While entering the gate, left side will be safari journey and right side will lead you to the zoo. First complete the safari as the wait time for safari will increase during the course of the day.
The most important part of the whole trip is the safari.
Safari is well organised. You will be asked to wait for your turn in various waiting sheds. You will be asked to get into a bus accordingly.
To prevent the animal attack, Safari is normally done using fully covered mini bus (operated by the Forest department).
The safari bus will start once the seating capacity is full. The side windows have grills but there are openings to put a camera and/or binocular. The front of the bus has wider grill-less windows, but that front right side seat is usually blocked by the bus staff (helper). Sometimes the helper in the bus will offer someone a seat and the expectation is that they will be given a good tip at the end of this trip. My relative was also trapped in this and he had to pay around 100 rupees. The large area that the safari takes you through is fenced and there are entry/exits to different portions of the safari (lion safari, tiger safari, bear safari etc). It takes about an hour as they stop whenever they see animals.
The ride was about an hour. We got a chance to see deer, rein deer, bears, elephants, lions, tigers, white tigers, very closely. People of all age group would certainly love this safari.
Once the safari is completed, they will drop you at the Butterfly park and then you can visit the zoo later on. There is nothing special about the zoo but the butterfly park is amazing.
The butterfly park was conceptualized as one integrated center that would support education, conservation and research activities.
I have heard that there are boat rides available within the park, but I haven’t gone gone for it.
The detailed tariff can be found below. I would suggest booking the ticket online, so that you can avoid the rush.
There is a lot of parking space available near the main gate. Off course there is a small parking fees aswell.
There is a public bus stand just at the entrance of the Park. There are lot of bus service (like 365, 366, 368) from various parts of the city to this place, which make it easy for people to visit the park, even if they don’t have their own vehicle.
The following needs some improvement:
Properly organise the parking area.
Properly organise the ticketing areas. There are lot of confusions.
Toilets needs more maintenance.
