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Time flies so fast, and all of you will agree to this too. Just last weekend I was on a road trip to Nanded with my parents and a week later, I’m sitting in a mall and writing this blog post. One thing that I’m religiously trying to do is take my parents to places that they’ve not been to whenever my dad and my off days are in sync. The most recent one was our Hyderabad to Nanded road trip.
This wasn’t my first time in Nanded, I was here 6 years ago with my office colleagues. Back then we had visited by train from Hyderabad. This time around I drove to Nanded in my Tata Punch along with my parents. So in this post, I’ll share complete details of the Hyderabad to Nanded road trip that you’ll need to plan your trip.
[Also Read: Road Trips From Hyderabad]
Hyderabad To Nanded Route
Nanded is a town in the state of Maharashtra and a very important place in Sikhism. It’s one of the five Takths in Sikhism and it is the place where it was declared that the holy book Guru Granth Sahib will be worshiped by Guru Gobind Singh Ji. Hence, it’s a place of great importance.
It’s a bordering town that is barely 100 km from the Maharashtra-Telangana border. And due to the Punjab influence, the town feels like a mini Punjab than Maharashtra.
You can read my blog post on Hazur Sahib Nanded to know more. Further, the road trip can be done in a single day but it will be extremely tiring. The best is to drive from Hyderabad to Nanded, spend a night in Nanded, and drive back.
Nanded is about 280 km from Hyderabad, depending on where you stay in Hyderabad. There are two major Hyderabad to Nanded routes that you can opt for.
- Using the NH 161 from Sangareddy towards Degloor and Naingaon to Nanded. This is the shorter route
- Using NH 44 via Ramayampet, Kamareddy, Nizamabad to join at Naingaon onwards to Nanded. This is the longer route.
I choose the first route for two reasons:
- it was a new route for me, so I wanted to explore that. I’ve driven a lot on NH-44 (Hyderabad to Lucknow and back) and hence wanted to try a new route.
- it’s a shorter route and would take slightly lesser time.
As you’d expect most of the road is a tolled road and I paid about Rs 770 as a toll for the entire trip This includes Rs 300 for my ORR trip as well.
Hyderabad to Nanded Road Conditions
From the place where I stay, I have to cover a large distance on Nehru ORR in Hyderabad, so my road trips start great. Since you’re taking the road towards Sangareddy, expect some city traffic from the ORR exit at Patancheru to Sangareddy.
On this route, you further have two choices, you can drive to Sangareddy crossroads, take a right and join the NH 161 or take a right from Kandi (right before IIT Hyderabad) and join NH 161. I chose the second option to avoid the traffic. We left home at about 07:00 in the morning and reached Nanded at 13:30, not bad at all.
The first few kilometers after Kandi are diversions, but after that, the road is butter smooth. It’s a runway if I can say. Amazing 4-lane roads with broad dividers with planters. Also compared to the other highways, I’ve been on, NH 161 from Kandi to Degloor is very less crowded. There are proper signages and a lot of rest areas along the highway. I wonder who are these rest areas for. Many of these were massive but closed :/
If you’ve traveled by road a lot, you’ll know that the moment you enter a different state, the road condition changes. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. For example, during my Hyderabad to Bidar road trip, the road condition on the Telangana side wasn’t great, but the moment I enter Karnataka, it was sublime.
Roads in Telangana are the best, the major highways at least. And that’s valid in this case too. Until the Maharashtra border checkpoint, everything was super good. However, after that, the road condition worsened. A small patch of Delgoor-Nanded road is a two-lane road with lots of city traffic which means you need to drive cautiously. After that 20-30 km stretch, you get the 4-lane road until close to Nanded, however, the road condition isn’t that good.
As you reach closer to the Nanded, you’ll see the traffic increase and the road conditions deplete further. On return as well, I took the exact same route. We started from Nanded at 08:00, visited the Kaleshwar Temple, and resumed our onward journey. I was home by 16:00. Overall, I was impressed with the road conditions from Hyderabad to Nanded. Impeccable roads that are a treat for drivers.
Food Stops on Hyderabad to Nanded Road Trip
One of the major attractions that happen on road trips is food. Everyone is eager for the next food stop, and with parents, it’s even more as they want their chai and breakfast on time. We left without eating and the plan was to stop on the way and have breakfast. And the planner that I am, I already had a place in mind (and on the map) for breakfast.
We stopped at a place called Mana Inti Bhojanam in Sultanpur. It’s on the left side a few kilometers after you on NH 161 after you take the right from Kandi. Going by the pictures on Google, the place looked impressive. However, upon reaching there, we learned that it’s a relatively new place. While the setup is what it is as it looks in pictures, the service is not yet there. We had Poori, Masala Dosa, and Idli and paid Rs 160 for 4 items. The taste was fairly simple, and the chutney was good. For 160, it was good, service could be better.
We had our lunch in Nanded at Durvankur Thali, one of the popular places in Nanded to have a thali. Priced at Rs 250 for an unlimited thali, this was pretty good. You can read my blog post on Food in Nanded to know more about the places where you can eat in Nanded.
During our return trip from Nanded to Hyderabad, we got a lot of Vada Pav packed for the road trip and for dinner as well. We stopped at King’s 9 Family Restaurant in Shankarampet for lunch. It’s a decent enough place with clean washrooms. The menu has variety and the service is quick. We ordered Kaju Paneer, Dal Tadka, Rotis, Rice, Thums Up and Ice Cream. The preparation was good, typical highway type, and it had good taste. For all of this, we paid Rs 850 which I felt is slightly higher. But a good place overall.
Summary
If you’re planning to visit Nanded from Hyderabad, you can either a train or go on a road trip from Hyderabad to Nanded. Either way, you’ll take a similar time. The roads from Hyderabad to Nanded are pretty good and fun to drive. Not much to see on the way in terms of landscape though. Traffic is minimal which means you can cover large distances faster.
In my Hyderabad to Nanded road trip, I drove over 600 km in 48 hours with an average of 22.5 km/l which is pretty good. Spent Rs 4000 on petrol with some more in the tank. The average on the highway that my Punch gave was 25, however, it was the Nanded traffic plus the visit to Kaleshwar temple that brought it down for the entire trip.
Overall, a good road trip from Hyderabad. Let me know your thoughts on this blog post in the comments below. You can also tweet to me at @Atulmaharaj, DM me on Instagram, or Get In Touch.
What a lovely idea to take your parents with you on these trips to give them a chance to see places they haven’t been before. I’m thinking of suggesting it to my children! As ever, a fascinating blog post. Will definitely read the sequel. All the Best David
Thanks a lot David, well I just feel that they took me around when I was a kid, so I’m just doing what I should be doing. Thanks for dropping by 🙂