Flame of the Forest Safari Lodge
Kanha National Park

Flame of the Forest Safari Lodge is the kind of place you dream about when you think of escaping to India’s wild heart - soulful, small-scale and stunningly situated on the banks of the Banjaar River at the edge of Kanha National Park. With only four elegant cottages, this lodge is less a hotel and more a warm, immersive invitation into the forest itself, a retreat that feels deeply personal, grounded and totally un-showy in its luxury. Luxury, after all, is all in the experience. 

The cottages are open-plan, earthy and tactile, and built with mud, timber and thatch. The open verandahs are strung with daybeds and lanterns, where you can while away the afternoon watching birds skim across the river or a sambhar deer slip quietly through the undergrowth. There are outdoor showers, copper basins and soft beds draped in white muslin; simplicity elevated by care and craft. Nothing here is flashy and everything is intentional.

The lodge is the vision of Karan and Isabelle, who built it from the ground up in 2008 using local artisans and sustainable techniques. Their ethos is one of gentle immersion, guests are invited to reconnect with nature and community.

Days start early, with morning safaris into Kanha, a land of sal forests, vast meadows and tiger trails, where naturalists know the park like the back of their hand. Safaris are led by Karan himself (a former Taj naturalist) whose passion for the park’s tigers, leopards and barasingha is infectious. Between game drives, you might join a yoga session in the riverside shala, cycle to a nearby Gond village or simply lounge on your daybed, lulled by the rhythm of the jungle.

Come evening, you return to stories shared around the fire-pit, or quiet, candlelit dinners beneath a sky dense with stars. The food is home-cooked, seasonal and soul-warming (think lentil soups, wild greens and fragrant curries), sourced from their organic garden and neighbouring farms. The lodge’s commitment to community is not performative, it is lived. Through the social enterprise, Hathi, Isabelle has created employment and education opportunities for local women, empowering them with skills. 

Flame of the Forest is not for those seeking five-star flash. It is for the traveller who values authenticity over artifice and intimacy over indulgence. It’s no wonder Condé Nast Traveller described Flame of the Forest as a “wildlife fairytale”, this is one of India’s most beautifully considered and low-impact jungle lodges, where you are a participant in something meaningful. It’s a place to exhale and reconnect, and feel the world slow down to the rustle of leaves and the call of a koel.

The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.
Rudyard Kipling