Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary is a beautiful park located on the border between Kerala and Tamil Nadu. However it gets extremely crowded as it is popular equally with Indian and Western tourists. During the Christmas holidays it is particularly bad as many Indian families choose to spend their holiday here. As a result acomodation is hard to find, but more importantly tours and activities get booked up fast and the park gets extremely crowded, driving the wildlife away. We were completely unable to get any tickets for the boat trip for many days in a row. Many walks were also booked up. We ended up doing a walk that took us high up the mountains, the only one available, probably because it is one of the most physically demanding. We had a fantastic day, the views were really lovely, but we hardly spotted any wildlife, which was disappointing.
There are many other Wildlife Sanctuaries in Kerala, which are for some strange reason a lot less popular than Periyar, but you will be much more likely to spot animals there. We spotted many animals in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary and were delighted after our disappointment in Periyar.
