For three generations, the SUJÁN family has devoted itself to India’s wilderness — documenting it, protecting it and ultimately creating places that allow travellers to experience it without diminishing it. Jaisal and Anjali Singh describe SUJÁN Jawai as their most ambitious conservation project: a safari camp where guests are immersed in the region’s wildlife, landscapes and Rabari culture while leaving as light a footprint as possible.

SUJÁN Jawai sits in the open wilderness between Jodhpur and Udaipur, framed by towering granite kopjes, caves, Anogeissus scrub and winding sand riverbeds that together form the most dramatic safari landscape in Rajasthan. What makes it fundamentally different from any fenced reserve is that the leopards here are wild and genuinely free — moving across a populated, working rural landscape shared with the Rabari shepherd communities who have lived alongside these cats for generations. There is no boundary fence, no ticketed zone, no permit system. The coexistence is simply what this landscape has always been.

The camp itself takes its design cues from two traditions simultaneously: the great safari camps of East Africa, and the tented caravan culture of Rajasthan’s own nomadic communities. Military-style campaign furniture, four-poster beds, canvas and stainless steel, a chic palette of grey, black and white with a dash of scarlet — the colour of the Rabari turban — throughout. Just ten tented suites in total, including three specialist categories, means the number of guests present at any one time is genuinely small enough for the experience to feel intimate rather than managed.

The sustainability programme here is one of the most substantive in our entire collection — not a marketing addendum but a founding principle. The menu at SUJÁN Jawai features indigenous desert ingredients sourced directly from farmers supported by the camp’s own sustainable farming initiatives. The camp has adopted several schools in the surrounding villages and runs a Health and Sanitation Programme across eight villages where it operates. The Computer Training Programme at the village of Bisalpur imparts training to hundreds of students from multiple villages across the Jawai region. This is what conservation tourism looks like when a family has spent three generations genuinely committed to the outcome rather than the optics.

SUJÁN Jawai is a member of Relais & Châteaux and was recognised among The World’s 50 Best Hotels in 2024 — honours that reflect the property’s rare ability to combine exceptional hospitality with a long-term commitment to conservation.