Mumbai to Ahmedabad Road Trip: Atal Yatra Day 1

I commenced the first leg of my Atal Yatra’, a solo-driving expedition along 6000 km of the Golden Quadrilateral of India that I will complete in just 15 days.
Today I will drive from Mumbai to Ahmedabad. It is approximately 560kms. This morning at 7.00 am my drive was flagged off from Mumbai’s iconic Nariman Point and hereafter I will travel through Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai and end on 26th February 2024 in Mumbai. It’s a 13-day drive through 13 states, with 2-day halts in Kolkata and Chennai averaging 500 km a day.

[@okna4470]

Keep going 🤗

[@NBDrives]

Thank you!!

[@ashridhar]

12 to 14 hours of solo driving is risky not only for the driver but other users on the road. It results in driver fatigue and drowsy driving syndrome (Akin to what happens to body when you drink and drive. Impairment, driver mistakes increase resulting in serious accidents). Recommended is 8.5 hours with frequent breaks. Doing the Golden Quadrilateral drive itself is a good thing, but trying to do it in 15 days with 12 to 14 hours driving poses serious risks.

[@NBDrives]

Hi @ashridhar, thank you for your inputs. You bring up some very valid points and I am glad you did. I just want to clarify a few things:
- While most of my travel days took anywhere between 9 - 13 hours, the time spent behind the wheel didn’t exceed 10.5 hours (which only happened on 2 days).
- This isn’t a haphazardly planned road trip across the country by a youngster with no experience. There was a tonne of planning and structuring that went into laying out each of the driving days, following the best endurance driving practices (that have been derived from my personal experience on previous rally’s that I have participated in, as well as inputs from endurance drivers). These include things like mandatory breaks every 2 hours for stretching the body, resting your eyes and relaxing the mind to prevent any lapse in concentration, following lane discipline and matching the speed of general traffic to avoid any unnecessary risks, staying hydrated and maintaining high focus levels.
- I also spent a month prepping my body in the lead up to the road trip, by working on my core, arms, shoulders and legs to deal with the amount of driver fatigue that would be felt on the journey. Additionally, I altered my sleeping pattern for the month prior to the drive (as I am not a morning person) so that I could end my day by 8:30-9pm in order to wake up repeatedly wake up at 4:30 am.
- This drive has been planned and as a marathon and not a sprint, meaning the priority was safely completing the distance on each driving day, regardless of the amount of time it took (which also had an upper limit of no more that 14-15 hours total travelling time). If on any day that time was going to be exceeded, alternate stay arrangements were also planned along the route.
- I absolutely agree with you, that without the right preparation and mindset, completing this distance in 15 days can be very dangerous. However, if approached with the correct mentality of an endurance driver (or for that matter any endurance athlete) - where you are challenging yourself to accomplish a gigantic task, but never pushing beyond your breaking point - this road trip in this time frame is achievable!
I apologise for this lengthy reply, and I hope my intended tone comes across in the above points (I’m not looking to fight or demean the points you raised, but instead offer my perspective in a respectful manner). I truly appreciate the tome you have taken to craft your message and engage with my channel! 😀