Thinking of staying at Hotel Borgos during your Kaziranga trip? Here’s our honest review of the rooms, food, service, and everything you need to know.
When you’re planning a trip to Kaziranga National Park, where you stay can make or break the experience. Early mornings, long safari days, and the remote setting all mean you want somewhere comfortable, convenient, and reliable to come back to. For us, that place was Hotel Borgos—a resort-style property right by the park gates that ended up being the perfect base for our visit.
In this review, I’ll share what it’s really like to stay at Borgos: from the unbeatable location and beautiful property, to the rooms, food, service, and even the quirks (hello, rolling power outages). If you’re considering Hotel Borgos for your Kaziranga trip, here’s everything you should know before you book.
The Location
The location really couldn’t be better. Hotel Borgos sits just a five-minute walk from the entrance of the Kohora (Central) Range, which is the most popular and best-organized range at Kaziranga National Park. And it’s just a 20 minute drive to the Bagori range, which is the other must-visit area of the park. If your goal is to maximize safari time and minimize hassle, this spot makes life easy.
For our jeep safaris, the drivers picked us up right at the hotel lobby – a smooth, no-stress way to start each trip. And when we booked an elephant safari one morning, we didn’t even need a ride. We just walked straight over from the hotel. Having that kind of convenience, especially with such early morning start times, is a huge perk.
The Property & Amenities
The entire Borgos property is just gorgeous. The lobby is decorated with intricate wood carvings, traditional furnishings, and even big fish tanks, which my son enjoyed checking out. It feels very warm and welcoming, while still very grand.
And do you see those ramps besides the stairways? How unique is that? It’s meant for rolling your suitcases up and down. You simply walk on the stairs and roll the suitcase besides you, so you don’t need to lift it. Clever, right? We also saw it used for a wheelchair, which seemed a little terrifying. But I guess it makes sense. Of course, my son thought they were excellent for sliding down.
The grounds are equally lovely, with pretty gardens and outdoor seating areas, some set up with fire pits for the evenings. There’s also a swimming pool, which looked very inviting, and even a small indoor room with pool tables for evening entertainment.
The property also has its own Jasmine Spa, which has an excellent reputation. We didn’t get a chance to test it out (I’m not really a spa person anyway), but it’s a nice option if you want some post-safari pampering.
And you’ll also want to check out the cultural performance in the evenings. It’s a combination of music and dance, and is performed in the courtyard most evenings.
Our Room – King Room
We stayed in a King Room at Hotel Borgos, which was large and spacious. And the bed deserves a special mention – it was absolutely enormous. I’m fairly certain it was actually two queen beds pushed together with a topper over the seam (no gap at all). We had requested a rollaway for my son, but in the end, the three of us just slept in the mega-bed without any issue.
The room also had a large balcony with two chairs, a table, and even a cute little swing. One morning we sat out there with coffee and watched monkeys playing along the small creek below – an unexpected bit of entertainment right from our room!
The bathroom was clean, modern, and fully equipped with the Western-style amenities you’d hope for. There was a full size bathtub with shower, lots of counter space, and reliable modern plumbing. There wasn’t a hair dryer at first, but one was brought promptly when we asked at the front desk. The same went for towels – only two at check-in, but plenty more delivered without fuss. So just ask for what you need!
I should pause to mention the hot water heater situation as well. Showers at Borgos come with a little quirk that’s common throughout India: instead of central hot water, the bathrooms have a geyser-style water heater mounted on the wall. This means you’ll need to switch it on about 10–15 minutes before your shower to give the tank time to heat up.
Once it’s ready, you’ll have plenty of hot water, but if you forget to turn it on, you’re in for a very brisk wake-up call. It wasn’t a big deal, but it’s worth knowing in advance so you can plan ahead.
And for those of you that need all of the details, here is a peek at the included toiletries (see picture above). I found them to be sufficient – no need to pack your own.
Other features included a mini-fridge that kept our drinks nice and cold and a small in-room safe. The safe was fine for passports and small items, but don’t count on it fitting a laptop or camera gear.
There were also bottled waters available for purchase in the room and at the restaurants. As a foreign traveler, you’ll definitely want to rely on bottled water – tap water isn’t safe to drink here.
The Food – Restaurants, Breakfast, and Room Service
Borgos has several dining options, and we were impressed with all the food we tried.
Elephant Restaurant – This is the main restaurant, which is open most of the day. Breakfast is served buffet style here in the mornings, lunch is à la carte in the afternoons, and dinner has both a buffet or à la carte option. The menu is really massive, with a variety of Indian and Indo-Chinese dishes, and everything we ordered was excellent.
Juhal – Towards the back of the property, you’ll find a fancier restaurant, which serves traditional thali meals. (A thali is a platter of small portions of many different Indian dishes.) It looked wonderful, but it wasn’t a good fit for us – too adventurous for our child, and way too much food for my in-laws who are light eaters. So we skipped that one. But it looked wonderful and I really enjoy thali style meals, so I can try many new things at once!
Breakfast Buffet – Breakfast is included with your stay and served from 7–10 AM in the Elephant Restaurant. The spread had plenty of variety: traditional South Indian breakfast dishes, omelets made to order, cereals, and fresh bakery items. Even the coffee was great – it was some sort of sweet, creamy concoction.
The Bar – Right next to the Elephant Restaurant is a spacious bar area with plenty of comfy seating. It’s a great place to grab a drink, and you can also order anything from the full restaurant menu here.
Cat Cafe – This is a small dessert shop just off the lobby, which is fun for a quick treat. To be honest, the desserts were not all that great. A bit on the stale side. But my son did enjoy his ice cream!
Room Service – The entire Elephant Restaurant menu is also available for room service, which came in handy for us after a couple of long safari days when my son fell asleep early. We ordered paneer tikka and dim sum, and both were fantastic (and surprisingly inexpensive). In fact, it was some of the best paneer tikka I’ve ever eaten! Sometimes room service can feel like a compromise, but here it was one of the highlights.
Service
Overall, the service at Hotel Borgos was very good. We did have a few frustrations before arrival. Despite several emails and calls trying to arrange our jeep and elephant safaris in advance, we never got clear answers. (And since my husband speaks Hindi, I can confirm it wasn’t just a language barrier.) They seemed just completely unable to get these things locked down in advance of our arrival, which was frustrating for a Type A person like me!
But once we checked in, everything fell into place just fine. The front desk took our requests and quickly booked all the safaris drives we wanted, at the times we wanted them. So the moral of the story: trust the process. Things move a bit slower in India – similar to “island time” in the Caribbean. ;) There are plenty of jeeps, and once you’re on site, the staff will make sure you’re taken care of.
Throughout our stay, the staff were consistently friendly and helpful. The front desk team spoke excellent English, so you won’t encounter any issues with checking in and out. Borgos definitely caters to foreign tourists, and we never had trouble finding someone who could help us when needed.
Power & WiFi
One thing to know before you go: rolling power outages are common in this region. It’s not a Borgos issue – it’s just the way things are in this rural area. Thankfully, the hotel has generators, so lights, air conditioning, and most everything else click back on within seconds of the power going down. So as far as electricity goes, it’s more of a blip than a problem.
The Wi-Fi, however, is another story. Every time the power cuts, the Wi-Fi goes down, and it doesn’t always bounce back quickly. If you’re thinking about working remotely from here, don’t. It will be frustrating at best. For casual use (checking messages, uploading a photo or two), it’s fine. But this is not a place to rely on steady internet.
In terms of power outlets, the rooms had multi-socket outlets that accepted Type C, D, or M plugs. Those are all standard in India. Because they wouldn’t want to make things to easy on us by choosing one standard, right? We brought Type D adapters and found that worked most everywhere on our trip.
Would we stay here again?
Yes – absolutely. Hotel Borgos was the perfect base for our Kaziranga safari. In fact, it was the highlight of our entire trip to India! The property is beautiful, the staff is fantastic, and the food was amazing. And you just can’t beat the location for proximity to the park entrances safari drives. If we are lucky enough to make a return trip to Kaziranga, we would definitely book at Hotel Borgos once again!