Keur Joshi, co-founder of Make My Trip, in his new venture offering bespoke luxury in the wild – Atulya Yatra

At Tipai, a 38-acre property adjacent to the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary in Maharashtra

Tea under the gazebo, picnics by the river, sunrises at your private plunge pool… and all along the fringes of a dense forest famous for Bengal tigers.

Expect luxuries in the wilderness at Tipai, next to Maharashtra’s Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, home to Indian leopards, sloth bears and bison among 170 species of wildlife. The 38-acre property is the first offering from Wildlife Luxuries, a company that specializes in bespoke craft that inhabit undiscovered wildscapes.

The brainchild of Kayur Joshi, co-founder of Make My Trip (an online travel company), Wildlife Luxuries was founded in 2016. After years of research and understanding travelers’ tastes, Cure is officially ready. Launched Tipai in October this year.

Keur Joshi

“I spend a lot of time with future travelers and 20-25-year-olds who are looking forward to a holiday. It gave me an insight into how important sustainability and localization are,” Keyur said. Having built a career in travel, Keyure said he wanted to enhance the customer experience in the hospitality sector and Wildlife Luxuries came to be. He believes that personalization, sustainability and experience are the three things that are intertwined in travel.

“We want to do luxury in a sustainable way and focus on the experience. If it works, it opens up a lot of possibilities,” says Keyur, adding that the company’s second goal is to ensure that the local environment and ecology benefit from what they do. With this in mind, all the staff are from local villages. .They are training to become bartenders and butlers among others.

“When we started building this 15-villa property, we decided to use what was available on this site. It’s an interesting challenge for us,” he says. They also asked to keep it free of chemicals and plastic. “We saw what the villages around us were doing in terms of construction. We used rammed earth and stones to build the villas. When it comes to furniture, we have done the same thing and made them out of what is available locally,” Keyure said.

From Indian and Japanese to Mediterranean, guests can find it all here, and all made with local produce

Another thing is that we want to understand the purpose of the trip and cater to their needs accordingly,” explains Kayur, adding that a person traveling with family may have different needs from someone traveling with their friends or parents. “The idea is to customize everything from the mini bar to the toilets. Since we like to keep plastic away, it took us a while to find a toothpaste that didn’t come in a plastic tube. We found someone who makes them in glass jars,” Keyur said.

Unexplored places are on Keyure’s radar. He was talking about Melghat in Maharashtra, a beautiful forest. Each property has a different feel, feel and offering due to localization.

Creating personalized experiences is key here. Start with menus. Kieur says he doesn’t believe in standard buffets. However, the guest will be able to get everything, from Japanese to Mediterranean, made with local products, he said.

Activities can be customized, at the tipi, guests can indulge in bird watching, safaris, nature walks, photography classes and fishing. They can laze on the machan or sit by the lake. One thing Keur says he noticed in India is that many people need a 9-5 schedule for their holidays. “But here, there’s a lot of time to do nothing,” he says. “We want them to hit the pause button.”