Top 5 National Parks to Visit in Himachal Pradesh (2026)

The Great Himalayan National Park is the state’s flagship and its largest, sprawling across roughly 1,171 sq km of the upper Beas and Sainj-Tirthan catchments in Kullu district. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list in 2014 for its outstanding alpine biodiversity. This is genuine high mountain country: glacial ridgelines climb past 6,000 m, and the core zone has no roads, so you walk in. Wildlife you might spot includes blue sheep, Himalayan brown and black bear, and, for birders, the western tragopan, the elusive state bird. Most visitors start from Sai Ropa or Gushaini in the Tirthan Valley, pick up a permit at the range office, and trek the Tirthan or Sainj trails with a local guide.

Cross into Spiti and the landscape flips from forest to high cold desert. Pin Valley National Park, set up in 1987 and covering about 675 sq km, sits inside the Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve near the Tibetan border, most of it between 3,500 m and above 6,000 m. This is one of the few places in India with a resident snow leopard population, alongside the Siberian ibex it hunts. Snow closes the valley for much of the year, so the window is short. Come in the Spiti summer, base yourself around Kaza or the villages of Mud and Sagnam, and expect thin air and long, quiet walks rather than crowds.

Inderkilla is the park almost nobody visits, and that is its appeal. Declared in 2010, it protects about 104 sq km of steep, densely wooded slopes in Kullu district, roughly 46 km from Kullu-Manali airport at Bhuntar. Oak, deodar and high-altitude scrub shelter Himalayan birds, monal and small mammals, but there is little tourist infrastructure inside, so treat it as a day of quiet forest walking rather than a safari. Ask locally in the Naggar and Kullu area about current access before you set out.

Khirganga National Park, also spelled Kheerganga, was notified in 2010 and covers roughly 710 sq km of the Parvati watershed in Kullu district, sharing a boundary with the Great Himalayan park. Most travellers know it for the Kheerganga trek: a steep half-day climb from Barshaini up to the hot springs and meadow at around 3,000 m, one of the most popular short treks in the Parvati Valley. The park itself protects bears and other high-forest wildlife across a big, rugged spread. Authorities have discussed merging it with the Great Himalayan park for easier management.

The odd one out sits far south of the snow peaks. Simbalbara, sometimes recorded by its formal name after Colonel Sher Jung, is the oldest protected area of the five: it was first notified as a wildlife sanctuary in 1958 and upgraded to a national park in 2010, when its area grew to about 27.88 sq km. You are in the Shivalik foothills of Sirmaur here, in thick Sal forest with grassy clearings and a year-round stream. It is easy, gentle walking country, good for spotting goral, sambar, spotted deer, Himalayan black bear and troops of langur. The nearest large towns are Paonta Sahib and Nahan.