My most memorable road trips

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It’s been few weeks since I posted one of my road trips on Twitter. That’s when one of my blogger friends Shrinidhi replied with his list of memorable road trips, being the ardent travel blogger that he is, he has traveled a lot. We decided to write blog posts on our memorable road trips. He did it the same day and me, well doing it a month later.

I knew I had to write about this sometime soon, but never got that going really. So eventually took this Saturday noon to jot down few things about my memorable road trips. Now that you know what this blog post is about, here are my memorable road trips. Below is the tweet that was the prompt.

What's the most incredible #RoadTrip you've ever done ?

Mine was this 40 Hr long bus ride from #Delhi to #Bangalore ! Over 2000 kms crossing Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and relishing delicious dhaba food too.#MaharajTravels #Socialmaharaj #Travelhttps://t.co/jF037DuD2r pic.twitter.com/7XCQhUs0VV

— Atulmaharaj (@Atulmaharaj) May 14, 2020

I love road trips (I don’t know many who don’t like it) Whenever given an option, I’d choose a road trip. Bike, Car, Bus anything. After all, it’s the journey that matters and not the destination much. However with all the office work, road trip means long holidays and that isn’t quite possible. Nonetheless, here are some of my most memorable road trips that I’ve managed to do in the last few years 🙂

Most Memorable Road Trips

Delhi to Bangalore on a Volvo

This trip has possibly got to be the longest time I’ve spent on a road trip. For those wondering is this even possible. Yes it is. Rajasthan Tourism runs a bus from Delhi to Ahmedabad. It’s about 18 hours journey from Delhi to Ahmedabad. From then on, taking the SRS bus to Bangalore for another 20 odd hours. The journey can be taxing, but totally worth if you love road trips. Instead of buying food, my friend got some delicious dinner in Jaipur. (Though I did eat something outside the bus stand)

The bus dropped at Paldi and then I hopped on to another bus to Bangalore. We raced past everyone on the Expressway to Baroda and soon on our way to Surat. Had a basic lunch near Surat and then entered Mumbai around evening. Was lucky enough to get down from the bus for a while and grab few Vada Pav for dinner. Stopped at Natraj for dinner near Pune. The next thing I remember was that I was at Majestic in Bangalore ! One helluva memorable road trip for sure. Read the detailed trip here.

Delhi to Amritsar

One of my next memorable road trips is the Delhi Amritsar road trip. I was in Rohtak to attend a wedding of one of my office colleagues. Reached Rohtak around 1 and along with few other colleagues we randomly decided to visit the Golden Temple ! In the next two hours we were on the road. Started at 4pm ish drove all along the beautiful roads from Delhi towards Amritsar.

Around 2 in the night we decided to stop at Haveli – a popular highway chain of restaurants. And believe me, there was waiting at 2 am ! After waiting, we got to our tables and had some of the best Punjabi food. More about Haveli here. We then stopped at my colleagues house for few hours before heading to the Golden Temple in the early morning. Though we were inside the temple, we couldn’t actually go to the main shrine due to time crunch as we had to reach Rohtak by 6pm for the actual wedding ! And guess what, we did manage to be in time for the wedding 🙂

Kochi to Idukki Tata Nexon Bloggers Meet

I had always wanted to visit Kerala but never did until this trip. After being on-boarded as the official blogger for Tata Hexa launch in Hyderabad, I was also invited to the launch of Tata Nexon in Kochi. We reached the hotel by noon and soon got the first glipmse of the car. And boy it look spectacular. The next thing we know that happened after the briefing and party was the drive next morning. Our’s was the first car to be flagged off from the hotel and I was the driver ! Yes the first driver of Tata Nexon Blogger’s meet.

That was the first time I was driving in Kochi. I was expecting the roads to widen, but with every mile, the roads were becoming narrower. I’d say one of the tougher memorable road trips being a driver. Soon we were out of the city and greeted by lush green trees and mountains. God’s own country waali feeling totally ! The car was performing perfectly and we had a great time driving. Stopped multiple times on way to click photos until we reached the resort in Idukki. Had a good brunch and drove back in a different car to the hotel. With like minded bloggers whom I met for the first time, this totally was one of my most memorable road trips.

Kochi to Munnar on Honda Activa

So almost a year later, I decided to explore more of Kerala. Having known Kochi a little bit from my previous trip, I knew exactly what I wanted. I decided to rent a scooter from Royal Brothers in Kochi and drove all the way up to Munnar. Many people warned me before going on this trip, but I had to. The roads were so scenic that every mile, you’d want to stop and click photos. And that wasn’t possible in a cab or a bus. :/

For a 110km journey I took 6 hours to reach Munnar. The last 30 odd kilometres were pure bliss. The sight of those mountains, chilled weather accompanied with a slight drizzle and clouds crossing over, can’t describe it more ! One of my fondest memorable road trips I’ve had. It was a surreal ride for sure. More details about this memorable road trip in this blog post.

Mumbai Panchgani – going back to school

You should already know by now that how much I miss my boarding school. It was in 2016 when me and my friends decided to visit school. Two of us flew in from Jaipur and Hyderabad and met at the airport. The next thing, we had scores of people staring at us at the airport when we met. Took a cab from the airport to Colaba. I wrote a detailed blog post on exploring Mumbai in 8 hours.

Long story short, we got into rented car from Hiranandani in the evening and headed to Panchgani. Since I wasn’t aware of the area, my friends did most of the driving as I made stories on Instagram. Driving to Panchgani always bring so many memories alive. And this is one trip I can do every single day. It started raining by the time we reached our AirBnb. Spent a couple of days there and drove back to Mumbai. Here’s a video I compiled of us driving back from Panchgani. I had submitted it for a contest with Indigo, went till the final round and lost out there 🙁

Road Trips that I want to do someday

Now, being a road trip love, these are just a few trips that I’ve done. However like any other traveler, are a lot more road trips, I’d want to do . The list keep getting longer with every passing month (read a YouTube video, a blog post, a news article). Below are the few road trips that I’mm eager to do some time.

• The Leh Circuit – Leh, Laddakh is a dream circuit for any traveler. I have been thinking about it for a couple of years now. Wanted to do it this year, but doesn’t seem like it’s possible. But would want to do it. However, before that I’d want to learn how to ride a motorcycle.
• K2K (Kashmir to Kanyakumari) – Another road trip that I want to do some time is the Kashmir to Kanyakumari road trip. I can imagine the change in culture, landscape and obviously the food across the length on India.
• Hyderabad to Kolkata – After having done a few memorable road trips to Vizag from Hyderabad. I’d love to travel further up to Bhubaneshwar and eventually land at Kolkata. The last time I was in Kolkata was way back in 2004 for the shoot of Bournvita Quiz Contest.
• The North East – The farthest I’ve been to in the east is Kolkata 🙁 And I so want to explore the entire north eastern part of India. Assam, Meghalaya and the wilderness or Arunachal entice me.

What other road trips you think I should add to the above list ? Do suggest in the comments below 🙂

What’s you most memorable Road Trip ?

These were some of my major memorable road trips. I’ve done quite a few others but I don’t have them documented because I didn’t have a blog then. Also there are few short getaways like Hyderabad to Ananthagiri, Hyderabad to Bidar and so on. I also intend to keep this post updated with all my road trips in future too. I’m sure you would have also done some road trips earlier. If you had pick your memorable road trip, which one would that be ? Mention in the comments below or tweet to me at @Atulmaharaj or DM me on Instagram.