Road Trip From Goa To Delhi – 3838kms In 12 Days

After weeks of long discussions on planning to move back from Goa to Delhi permanently, finally it was decided that it’s going to be a drive rather than a flight this time. Being a travel freak, Karan was extremely excited about the drive. I never knew how much of detour we shall be having until I had a look at the itinerary he had made which included some interesting locations which I too wanted to explore. First I disagreed to do this but somehow Karan convinced me and it was decided that it’s going to be at least 10 days of journey by road.

Locations we touched while driving back:

1. Mahabaleshwar
2. Lonavala / Khandala
3. Mumbai
4. Ahmedabad
5. Dwarkadheesh
6. Bhuj
7. Kutch
8. Jodhpur
9. Jaipur

Goa – Mahabaleshwar

Venna Lake in Mahabaleshwar

Our drive from Goa started at about 8 am with a lot of stuff packed in our car. While driving from Goa to Mahabaleshwar we crossed some beautiful roads and places like Dhudhsagar waterfall, Amboli waterfall, Chorla Ghat, Belgaum etc. We didn’t stop at them all as we had explored them already during our stay in Goa but they fall in the category of must visit locations of Goa-Karnataka-Maharashtra border area. While crossing these places and the amazing roads of Maharashtra, we reached Mahabaleshwar by 6 in the evening.

Mahabaleshwar is super awesome. We never knew there were nicely made wax statues in India too until we found one here. In the month of December, the place was quite chilling too during the night time and the morning was simply beautiful. We spent one night in Mahabaleshwar.

Mahabaleshwar to Lonavla

Mahabaleshwar to Lonavla drive

After exploring the beautiful Mahabaleshwar morning, we started our drive to hit Lonavla by evening but to my surprise roads of India have improved big time in such a way that we could cover up the distance quickly and reached there by afternoon only. Our plan was stay in Lonavla and Khandala for 2 days at least looking at the popularity of these 2 cities. But things have changed completely or may be December is not the right month to visit there. Lonavla was hot and humid during that season. And since it’s popular, it felt like it is got all the visitors from around. Anyways, we had limited our 2 days plan to 2 hours and decided to start for Mumbai at 3:30ish.

Lonavla / Khandala – Mumbai

Just imagine we could manage to reach Panvel by 5:30pm. The Mumbai Pune highway is fast and smooth and the drive was simply terrific. One strange thing that happened was, since this was a road trip we had planned to stay low on budgets especially with regard to the hotels. So we tried to pick hotel in the outskirts thinking to skip the city traffic and start early morning as Mumbai was never a part of the original plan. There was one hotel we entered who asked me to rush straight to the room and asked Karan for how many hours we wanted the room for. HAHAHAHA. That was one hell of an experience. We were laughing for hours. One good thing, I never knew was that Mumbai gave options of renting hotels for couple of hours too. By the way this hotel was listed on Makemy Trip and Yatra and had good rating.

Anyways, we called a friends and asked him to arrange an accommodation which we did. But as everyone knows about the horrible Mumbai traffic, it took us about 4 hours to reach Andheri. We spent the night in Mumbai with some drinks and decide to hit the road again early morning which apparently we could not do. Though we left at 7 we managed to reach the highway which was around 20-25 KMs in 2.5 hours of starting from the hotel.

Mumbai – Ahmedabad

So the drive from Mumbai to Ahmedabad started. All the frustration given by Mumbai was washed off by the beautiful roads of Gujarat. Within just 6.5 hours drive we could hit Ahmedabad. The roads were smooth, there were beautiful trees around and almost negligible toll tax in comparison to what you would pay in other states. Out of all the roads that came by, Gujarat’s road were the best. Since we had reached before 7, we could easily locate an affordable hotel where we stayed for 2 nights.

Food at Manik Chowk, Ahemdabad

Amazing Sandwich at Manik Chowk, Ahemdabad

Anyways Ahmedabad is a total foodies place. When rest of the city goes to sleep, Manik Chowk in Ahmedabad awakes. It looked like half of the city had gathered there at 11pm to have amazing Gujarati food like Khakhra, phaphra and the pineapple-chocolate-cheese sandwiches which you can’t find anywhere else. It was simply amazing. The food was so tempting that we decided to ditch visiting the Sabarmati ashram and try more food there. We did take a good one hour jogging around the Sabarmati River which is so well maintained. It felt like the 2 days had passed within minutes.

Ahmedabad – Dwarkadheesh

From Ahmedabad we started at around 8am & by 5pm we were in Dwarkadheesh. Dwarkadheesh was not a part of original plan but well as Karan says “Improvising is the essence of travelling” we took this detour. Stay & food in Dwarkadheesh is quite reasonable. We could easily locate a dharamshala there at Rs 300 / night and ate at the dining area of another ashram which was almost free of cost (Just Rs. 20 which also they call donation). Dharkadheesh, the majestic Krishna temple is so full of love and peace that devotees don’t want to leave the place.

Nageshwar Mahadev Jyotirling

Bet Dwarka in Dhwarkadheesh

We also got a chance to explore the Nageshwar Mahadev Jyotirling ( one of the 12 Jyotirlings of Shiva) & Bet Dwarka (Sudhama dham), a beautiful place across the serene blue sea where Sudhama had stayed while visiting Krishna at that time (reference from Krishna story). All this was cherry on top in our drive back to Delhi. Soon after visiting these locations, we again started driving at 3 pm.

Dwarkadheesh – Bhuj – Kutch – Bhuj

In about 7 hours time we reached Bhuj, booked a hotel online while we were on the way and stayed there for the night. Next morning we took an hours drive to Kutch to explore the beautiful salt dearest that is indescribable in words.

Bhuj to Kutch, Gujarat

Kutch is thousand times more serene that it has been explained ever. You can see the white surface as far as your naked eyes can see and the bluish white sky is reflected perfectly on the white desert that you will have to look twice or thrice to differentiate between the land and the sky. The feeling is simply superb.

Kutch in Gujarat

While there is a path way to reach somewhere in the center kind of area where they give you an option to climb up on using the staircase and watch the beautiful area as far as you can. Try to stay on the pathway only because the white salt has water inside and the stepping up on the sand could be dangerous. Since we were traveling in December we got the chance to explore the famous Kutch festival too that happens every year and bought the beautifully handcrafted Gujarati things like purse, duppatta’s and suits. We reached back to Bhuj, stayed for the night and started for Rajasthan in morning.

Runn of Kutch in Gujarat

Bhuj – Jodhpur

Jodhpur city, Rajasthan

The morning drive from Bhuj to Jodhpur was again amazing as roads of Rajasthan are again beautiful. Since both of us drive, there was no issue to reach at locations in less time, taking less breaks. Jodhpur was done by evening in about 8 hours and we decided to book an ancient haveli kind of accomodation there. We were following the ritual of going, checking and then booking the hotels if we could reached before 7 at any location, but if the expected to reach after that, we preferred to book on the way.

Haveli Hotel in Jodhpur, Rajasthan

Mehrangarh fort, Jodhpur

Mehrangarh fort, Jodhpur

We took 2 nights halt in Jodhpur where we were accompanied by my brother who took a train from Delhi only to drive back with us from Jodhpur. When in Jodhpur, how can one forget to explore the famous Mehrangarh fort. So we explored it during the day, did some shopping in evening and spend the night in the beautiful green haveli owned by a retired travel guide and his family.

Jodhpur – Jaipur

Next morning we started from Jodhpur to reach Jaipur. Since we were 3 now, driving was more convenient. We could easily reach Jaipur by evening and decided to relish the authentic Rajasthani food – gatte ki sabzi, roti etc from there which was another awesome part of this beautiful long journey of 12 days.

Drive from Jodhpur to Jaipur

Jaipur – Delhi

After spending the night in Jaipur, now we started driving towards our final destination, Delhi which took around 6 hours which were easily completed with a big smile face.

It took us around 2.5 hours to reach from Jaipur to Manesar(Gurgaon border) and another 2.5 hours to reach home from there.
The moment we reached near our house, both of us felt like an achievement in some way.

Goa to Delhi drive is one of the best thing ever happened to us. All the locations we covered made us realize that there is so much to see, eat and explore in the world but we have confined ourselves to the monotony of 9-5 jobs and don’t wish to free ourselves from.
What travel can teach you, nothing else would!

Pack your bag, go and explore the world!

Also read: 5 Signs Clearly Show That You Are A Real Traveler