Devalia Safari vs Gir Safari

GIZ Devalia Safari vs Gir Safari: most of us are confused about which one is worth doing especially with kids. This is the perfect post that will answer all your questions about it as we did both the safaris with our kids and were very lucky to have a lion sighting in both GIZ Devalia safari tour and jeep safari in Gir National Park, along with other animals like herds of spotted deer, Nilgai, herds of Gir cows and buffaloes, an Indian fox, peacocks, a leopard on the tree and a couple of monkeys.

So firstly What is GIZ?
Gir Interpretation zone or Devalia is Gir in a nutshell. It is 412ha of fenced area which has been developed to facilitate tourist understanding of Gir, have a Gir like experience to reduce the disturbance and tourist pressure on the sanctuary itself. Devalia Safari tour is very much of a safari atleast as far as the gypsy, guide, forest and animals are concerned. I would any day recommend it if you don’t fancy going on a 3hr safari like the jeep safari in Gir National park, or have young kids who won’t stay that long, have only an hr, haven’t had a chance to book the 3hr safari in advance or want to make sure you see some lions and other wildlife during your trip.

Duration and Charges of the Safari:
The Devalia Bus Safari is 30mins long while the gypsy Devalia safari tour is 1hr long. There are designated timings of both the bus and gypsy safari. You can check the charges and timings of both safaris at the official Gir Lion website

Pre-booking of the Safari
There is no requirement of prebooking the Devalia Safari, as you would be able to get a gypsy or bus booking even on reaching there (around 1.5-2hrs prior if possible) at the Sinh Sadan. So for a 4pm safari, we booked the gypsy at 2:45pm. While there are only 50 permits for online, there are almost unlimited permits if you want to book the safari once you reach there.
For the jeep safari in Gir National Park, also called the jungle trail, you have to book it almost 4weeks in advance, especially during high season like December holidays.

Chances of spotting a lion
In Devalia Safari, there are high chances (they claim 99% probability) of spotting a lion as it’s a fenced area of 412ha, with 4 lions (2 male and 2 female), many leopards, herds of deer and Nilgai among others. We happened to see 2 lioness and 1 lion during our safari trip.

Best time to visit
In terms of weather, of course summers is the ideal time to see lions but the rest of Gujarat is extremely hot so I highly recommend visiting Gujarat in winters unless you are coming only for the safari.

What to carry
The national park and GIZ are both no plastic zone (since 22 May 2019). If you’re going for an early morning safari like 5:45am (Gir National Park 3hr safari) or 7am (Devalia Safari) make sure to have beanies or hoodie jackets, warm clothing which can keep you warm in a temperature range of 15 degrees or so as you are bound to feel colder due to wind as the jeeps are all open air jeeps.
Hotels like Taj Gateway Resort also provide blankets for the 5:45am safari.
No food items are allowed. There are toilet facilities in between the trails in case you are with kids and they need to urgently use the washrooms. After the first lion sighting, our kids slept off for the remaining 2hrs of safari.

Photography Gear
I’m the ones who carries her iphone for all the photography as its too cumbersome to carry a camera bag with 2 kids and all their knick-knacks along with the laptop et al. If you have an SLR with a telephoto (50-250mm range), do carry it as even the best iphone will not be able to replace a telephoto when taking photographs of animals or birds slightly far away.