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Dear All,

I am planning to do a Delhi to Trivandrum in a Cruze Automatic. Kindly suggest the best possible routes. Present Plan is

Day 1 Delhi To Nagpur(Stay at Nagpur)
Day 2 Nagpur to Bangalore(Stay at Bangalore)
Day 3 Bangalore to Trivandrum

Plan is to start early in the morning 4-5 AM and Halt for the night by 9-10PM. I will be accompanied by another driver, however I am planning to Drive majority of the trip myself. Present idea to follow Google Map however fastest routes and Better roads are preferred.

Dear Mods,

Could not find a appropriate thread, hence starting a new thread. Kindly feel free to merge if threads on this query already exists.

Pramod

You can find a detailed update by paragsachania here,

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...ml#post4059412

For Bangalore - Trivandrum, you can check this thread,
www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-travel-queries/26059-trivandrum-bangalore-route-queries.html

The best route for Bangalore - Trivadrum is via Hosur - Salem - Madurai - Nagercoil - Trivandrum

Hyderabad-Delhi is covered in detail in this thread. http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...ueries-15.html

From Hyderbad onwards it's fairly straightforward to Bangalore-Nagercoil-Trivandrum , covered in this thread http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...e-queries.html.

You'll be driving continuously for 3 days with 14-16 hrs everyday , that can take a toll.

Crossing Bangalore early morning is important while coming from Hyderabad side, or you can get stuck in city traffic.

It will be a herculean task to complete Delhi to Trivandrum in 3 days. We rode Bangalore-Delhi recently on our way to Leh. Roads in Maharashtra and MP are not that good.

If you take the Central India Route:

• Make up your mind about 2 things - Bad to very bad roads in 2 sections, lack of facilities* (Along the highway)
  
  
• Accept the fact that you cannot escape the cattle menace between Gwalior and Jhansi and Jhansi - Narsingpur : There have made road their home
  
  
• This route will be advantageous over Western India route for the time that is saved (almost 8-10 hours), Kms (200+), ease of not having to drive through heavy urban sections or pass big cities (Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur, Gurgaon), will be very fast in various sections with almost no traffic
  
  
• Opting for Western India route will give you lots of choices to halt & eat, will have good private and freight traffic and will give you the benefit to be flexible in terms of skipping one option and settling for the next one
  
  
• Bangalore - Nagpur is an easy 18 Hours drive
  
  
• During the day, crossing towns, Gwalior to Jhansi will be time consuming
  
  
• Nagpur - Bangalore would take another 15-16 Hours of continuous drive
  
  
• You need to plan your breaks precisely on this circuit, especially Delhi - Nagpur & Nagpur - Hyderabad : Options aren't that many
  
  
• Bad patches between Gwalior - Jhansi and Nagpur to MH/AP Border and they are tremendously slow and will ask for a lot of patience
  
  
• With bad roads right from the first half on Day 1 for 130 kms, it is only endurance that should make you reach Nagpur and nothing else
  
  
• Day 2 will be relatively easier, you as a driver are always happier when you finish off the bad sections first and then have a carpet ahead till destination - So Nagpur - Adilabad would be bad but then all the way to Bangalore after this will be faster
  
  
• You cannot be choosy on breaks here, you need to settle down at what you get and not look for choices unless you want to venture into the town which is not going to be easy if you plan Nagpur on Day 1
  
  
• With proper planning, super early departure on Day 1, you can cover Delhi-Nagpur with some aggressive driving. We left Delhi at 8:30PM on Day 1 and were in Nagpur next day at noon around 2:30PM and we were 3 drivers, all male occupants and drove through the night to cover all the bad sections quite faster
  

For day 3 between Bangalore and Trivandrum, I will not bother commenting as that is not my territory and there are various experts who "drive" regularly on that section to be able to guide you with the latest conditions & timings and other tips.

For Delhi - Nagpur - Hyderabad - Bangalore you can refer to the following threads:

• Delhi - Agra - Hyderabad - Bangalore
  
  
• Latest conditions between Nagpur - Hyderabad here
  
  
• Hyderabad - Bangalore route updates
  
  
• Bangalore Trivandrum route updates

With these 4 independent threads, you might get all that you are looking for instead of a separate one for Delhi - Trivandrum as these cover individual sectors with latest updates

You can also consider Delhi-Vadodara-Hubli-Bangalore-Trivandrum route. If you start at 0430 from Delhi, you would be avoiding the traffic around Gurgaon and should reach Vadodara by 2000 hours. The roads are good and you can maintain over 100kmph in most sections. Ahmedabad-Vadodara has an express highway which takes less than 1 hour to cover 93 km. In fact you may be able to stretch day 1 drive to cross the infamous bridge at Bharuch and may be stay on the outskirts of Surat.
Surat - Thane - Pune - Satara - Hubli can be attempted for day 2. And you may reach late on day 3 in Trivandrum by taking the Bangalore-Salem-Nagercoil highway. The last 80 km is a pain, but if you travel late night you can avoid the town crowd.
This route is better than the Nagpur route.

What you mention is the Western India route and if you read my post below, I have mentioned the same.

Apart from that, I have also mentioned the advantages here:

Dear All,

Thanks for your replies. As of now the decision is to take the

Delhi-Jaipur-Chittorgarh-Ratlam-Satara-Kolahapur-Belgavi-Hubballi- Bangalore- Madurai- Trivandrum Route.

I am planning to start at around 3am on Tuesday and idea is to drive nonstop(I have a co-driver) atleast for day one.

kindly suggest if the route needs any tweaks or if there are any road condition issues with the route selected.


Pramod

Roads are all fine.

It will be Delhi - Jaipur - Kishangarh - Chittorgarh - Ratlam - Dhule - Nashik - Thane - Pune - Satara

The bold part will take you through better roads and faster as well. 1456 Kms (23 Hours) vs 1553 ( 24 Hours via Thane).

Although there is a direct route from Nashik to Pune and you can totally avoid Thane/Mumbai, that road is single carriageway and is gamble due to traffic and towns to cross (Includes crossing Pune as well). Nashik - Thane is dual carriageway with median and that should be easy on fatigue levels when you are driving all day.

Hence Dhule - Nashik - Thane is a better option and then you have Expressway from Thane to Pune (More precisely Panvel - Pune). You may face thick traffic nearing Thane but crossing Pune will be easier due to the Westerly bypass mainly because its one road even with some traffic.

Day 1:With 3AM start and a driver to accompany you, Dhule makes sense for a night halt - 1110 kms - Saying this only because I know your intent here and the fact that you are driving alone with a co-driver minus sight seeing in mind. Nashik is another 160 kms from here and reaching here will totally depend on progress made. As I say, any journey more than 500 kms cannot have a target due to a lot of factors that can affect the timings - Unusual traffic, Jams, Blocks due to accidents, unexpected road works/Diversions etc.

Day 2: Dhule - Nashik - Thane - Pune - Kolhapur - Belgaum - Hubli: Based on progress your halt can be either at Kolhapur or Belgaum or HUbli (Range of 200 kms, 3 Hours)

Day 3: Belgaum - Bangalore - Salem or Karur/Dindigul

Day 4: To Trivandrum

Thanks for the detailed reply. I have a question, if we drive nonstop(minimum Bio Breaks), is it possible to reach Bangalore in 24-26 Hours?

Pramod

IMPOSSIBLE :) if you really meant Delhi - Bangalore.

Can really get into more details from each sector but I wont for now. Even if you are early on day 1, you might really cross critical places with traffic at peak hours. All this needs very good planning and in short 24-26 Hours is just not possible.

Another advise - Please don't push yourself to reach your target destination. Drives like these are best with sedate speeds and your halts need to depend on the progress made.

If you have no family (specifically ladies), the Central India route makes more sense. I did both routes a couple of months ago from Cochin, going up through the central route and coming down through the western route. The central route was faster and much more stress free (nothing much on the road except cattle), except for two bad sections (Gwalior-Jhansi, and Nagpur-Adilabad). We did Nagpur-Delhi in about 12 hours (including lunch near Jhansi and Coffee on the Yamuna Expressway), but even at more regular speeds you should be able to do it comfortably in under 15. From Nagpur to Bangalore is also pretty good except for the terrible section upto Adilabad - again it took us about 11 hours, but 13-15 is more the norm I would think.

The western route is good, but takes up too much time if your intention is transportation and not tourism. The western route also has more facilities as many have mentioned - Jhansi to Narsinhpur is devoid of ANY facility, but thankfully you wont spend more than a few hours on that stretch. From Narsinhpur I would highly recommend the route via Chinddwara to Nagpur - its very scenic and yet very fast as the surface is great and traffic is next to nil.

Also bear in mind that if you're taking the Chittorgarh-Ratlam route you are using MP State Highways - these are as good as NH in terms of surface, but pass through several small villages/mini-towns and have speed bumps before and after every one - this brings down your average speed by quite a bit, until you join the Mumbai-Agra highway. Finally once you cross Igatpuri and reach Kalyan, traffic can really bog you down for quite a distance until you join the Mumbai-Pune expressway.

Personally, I'd prefer the central route - but this is an individual preference.

I'm not usually on this board so wont be able to answer any queries you have based on what I've just written. Talk to HVK - he's your best bet and friend in any such endeavour.

It is possible - if you only consider driving time. 6 am start from Bangalore on day 1 and we were in Delhi at 5.30pm on day 2 after a 12-hour 5pm-5am halt at Nagpur.

But yes, its probably safer to NOT drive at close to 100% for such a long period. It requires a long period of focussed driving, and you do need to stop by around sundown.

Debatable and again if it is central India route. You can refer my own update in this post above where I have quoted my review of the Central India route.

We drove only last month from Delhi sticking to Central India route.

8PM Departure from Delhi and were in Nagpur on next Day noon (2PM) for Lunch and 0830 PM at Hyderabad and Bangalore at 0430AM.

This was with continuous driving, and also a 90 minutes block in MP due to an accident in the morning.

With an overnight halt, its close to possible but with night driving and continuous one, it might really be too much to "target".

Again, I have taken both the Central India (once) and Western India many times. What was earlier Mumbai - Ahmedabad - Udaipur - Jaipur is now Dhule - Ratlam - Chittorgarh which is not really "Western India" circuit. This is also the preferred route now to bypass Mumbai - Ahmedabad - Udaipur Sectors which witness busy traffic.

Idea is to reach as fast as possible since my Co driver is getting married on the 2nd of November :D

There are no ladies in the gang and its just me and another guy, the car is a chevy cruze automatic. Last time I drove Delhi to Hyderabad in 30 Hours in a Maruti Esteem, this was in 2009 and the roads were pathetic and we decided to leave Delhi in the Evening. It was quite exhausting as the car is was not at all forgiving. This completely took my confidence off as a long haul driver. I am and my co driver are not much interested in site seeing or in facilities across the road, I was under the impression that the central roads are horrible and will really kill the drive, but if its just cattle and that too in a confined area of say around 50-60kms, I don't think that can be a game changer. I too feel the west highway would be way too long. As suggested I will contact HVK to get more details.

Pramod

The journey was tracked with an OBD-port tracker - 0500hrs start from Nagpur, 1734 hrs at Noida, 1954 hrs at final destination in Delhi after stopping at a friend's en-route.

Its not 50-60 kms - query Jhansi to Narinhpur via NH44, its about 350km.

He needs to get to the destination in one piece to get married. Not a good time to be pushing it on the road - flights are cheaper than toll+fuel.

Trust experience on this - that is not the time to be tearing around on the road. For 3 days, too. Please don't.