Women’s Road Trip: Delhi to Mumbai

They say ‘First times are Special’.

True that.

This particular trip will always be special for me as it was my first long road trip.

I had to move from Delhi to Mumbai and was very keen on driving down in my car instead of sending the car along with the rest of my stuff.

After some convincing/cajoling at home, I got my mom to agree to accompany me on this trip. Her only condition was that we would book our hotels in advance.

That condition went against my idea of unplanned road trip – but I guess you need to choose your battles!

Delhi to Mumbai is roughly 1500 km and the roads were mostly in a very good condition and contrary to what I had heard about this being a very busy route, for most stretches we were the only ones on the roads (Ajmer to Vadodara).

Also, check out some amazingly useful roadtrip products on amazon:

Pepper Spray, Pee Safe, Peechute; car freshener, Car charger, Car charging cable, Car air pump , Car tissue holder, Car vacuum cleaner, Car door edge cover guard

Possible Route Options For Delhi-Mumbai Road Trip

There are many routes that you can take to reach Mumbai from Delhi. You can choose the route depending on the time at hand and the cities you would like to visit on the way.

The three common routes are:

1. Via NH48, NH58 and SH5: Delhi – Jaipur – Ajmer – Udaipur – Godhra – Surat – Thane – Mumbai
2. Another route which is mostly common with the above is via NH48, NH58 and Mumbai-Ahemdabad expressway : Delhi – Ajmer – Udaipur – Himmatwala – Ahemdabad – Surat – Thane – Mumbai
3. And the third route is via Yamuna expressway, AH43, AH47, NH160 : Delhi – Agra – Gwalior – Indore – Nashik – Mumbai. For information on this route, you can check my blog article : Mumbai to Delhi via Indore

The first route is the most popular route and should be the fastest with least bottle necks and lesser chances of getting stuck in traffic snarls.

The travel time and distance is similar for all three routes and you can pick the one as per the city you would like to explore.

There is an exclusive Delhi-Mumbai greenfield expressway which is being constructed and should be open to public in June 2024. This expressway would reduce the distance by 220 km and travel time from 24 hours to 12 hours!

The route for this road would be Delhi – Gurgaon – Kota – Ratlam – Vadodara – Surat – Thane – Mumbai.

This expressway is scheduled to open around mid 2024. Recently, the first stretch from Delhi-Lalsot was inaugurated and my mom and I did a roadtrip till Jaipur to explore this expressway. Read about that trip and the expressway here.

PS: I have also driven back from Mumbai to Delhi in 2022 and had taken the third route mentioned above (via Madhya Pradesh). Check my vlogs on that roadtrip:

Mumbai to Delhi via MP (Part 1)

Mumbai to Delhi via MP (Part 2)

The Plan

Deciding on the stopover points took quite a bit of research. The usual stop is Udaipur which is roughly halfway between the two cities. However, I wanted it to be a more relaxed drive and did not want to be on the road for more than 7-8 hours a day.

Also, I had already been to Udaipur and wanted to explore a new city. We finally zeroed in on Ajmer and Ankleshwar.

Part 1: Delhi to Ajmer

We started from Delhi at 5 AM and drove till Ajmer which was our first stopover city. This drive took about 6 hours including one breakfast stop.

As expected, this was a very busy route (despite it being an early morning drive) and I again felt as if I was starring in one of those ‘Need for Speed’ games.

I have been on this highway (NH48) before so knew what to expect. Since it was my first women-only long road trip, I had decided to stick to this familiar highway. However; its my least favourite highway in India and I try to avoid it as much as possible.

The road condition was excellent though.

Part 2: Stay at Ajmer

Since we had woken up early for this trip, the first thing we did on reaching our hotel was to catch up on some sleep.

With only a few hours in the city, we set out to explore the two destinations on our list. The first stop was Ana Sagar lake which was a short rick ride from our hotel. This is a man-made lake in a serene area away from the hustle bustle of Ajmer city.

Our next stop was Ajmer Sharif dargah which is one of the holiest places in Rajasthan. This sufi dargah has the tomb of Moinuddin Christi who was one of the renowned spiritual healers of the world. Built by emperor Humayun, it is said that any wish (mannat) requested here gets fulfilled.

The dargah is in the market area of Ajmer so my suggestion is to avoid taking your car there.

Exhausted after dodging hundreds of people to get to the dargah, we had an early dinner and retired.

Tip:

• About 30 mins drive from Ajmer is a city named Kishangarh also known as ‘moonland of Rajasthan’. The famous ‘instragrammable’ spot is the Kishangarh dumpyard.
• About 10 km west from Ajmer city is Pushkar which is a pilgrimage site for Hindus and Sikhs and can be visited. This city hosts an annual fair in October/November – if your trip is around that time, do visit Pushkar.

Part 3: Ajmer to Ankleshwar

This was our day for maximum driving as we had to cover nearly 700km. We started early morning and aimed to get to Udaipur for breakfast.

We had two route options: one was via NH48 and the other was NH58. After some deliberation, we chose NH58.

It seemed like a good choice as the roads were smooth and empty along with scenic views. On most stretches, we were the only ones on the road which had only one con – lack of restaurants.

As we had already been to Udaipur once before, we did not want to check any particular point and decided to go to lake Pichola for a stroll. We had hoped to find a restaurant along the lake, but couldn’t. The lake was deserted as it was early in the morning (10AM).

If this is your first visit to Udaipur, then it is worth having a night halt here as Udaipur is a beautiful city to explore.

We restarted our journey towards Ankleshwar. We had two route options: we could either take the straight route which was SH5 via Godhra or take a diversion and go via Ahemdabad – Vadodara expressway.

I had never seen this particular expressway, so decided to take this diversion. This is a slightly longer route (about 20 km longer) and like most other expressways, this road was smooth as well. So much so that I was feeling drowsy while driving here and had to switch the driving responsibilities with my mom. The toll on this expressway was about 200 INR for a car.

We encountered a bit of a traffic jam on Narmada bridge at Bharuch since the bridge was being constructed at the time of our trip (2017). I have been on this bridge a couple of times since then and have always had a smooth journey.

We reached Ankleshwar at around 7PM and headed towards our pre booked hotel.

Part 4: Stay at Ankleshwar

The hotel was decent. The only issue with the Bharuch belt is that the tap water is salty due to the sea water influx into Narmada river.

I had planned to wash my hair here but decided to skip it. Even brushing our teeth with tap water was not an option. I have stayed in 4 different hotels around Bharuch and all of them had this salty water issue.

We had a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant and crashed. We had travelled nearly 700 km on this particular day and were exhausted.

We did not do any sight seeing in Ankleshwar as the idea for this stop was to get rest without entering any of the crowded cities (Surat/Bharuch/Vadodara).

Part 5: Ankleshwar to Mumbai

Since we only had about 6 hours of drive here, we started at around 8AM.

By this day, I was feeling confident with the drive – our initial concerns regarding safety and being cautious were slowly fading away. My conservative track pants and loose tee had now given way to loose shorts and tee

Our original plan was to take NH48 all the way to Mumbai but since we were making very good time and we were more confident in taking less conventional (read crowded) routes, we decided to take the parallel coastal road from Navsari to Dahanu.

A beautiful stretch with frequent glimpses of the sea and other water bodies. Most of the stretch is lined with coconut trees on both sides of the narrow road. We lowered our windows and let the smell of nature fill our car.

On this stretch (around Navsari-Valsad), I saw our national flower – Lotus for the first time.

We stopped at a sea facing restaurant in Dahanu for lunch – Crazy Crab restaurant. An excellent choice. The restaurant had seating on the ground floor as well as the first floor. We got a nice seat by the window on the first floor with the coconut trees and Arabian sea as our view.

The place did give a feel of Goa, especially with the sea food aroma. My mom wanted to have a mojito, but unfortunately at that time there was a ban on serving liquor in restaurants within 500m of the state/national highways.

So we had some scrumptious prawn and fish dishes with virgin mojitos.

We stayed there for nearly 2 hours enjoying the ambience and sea breeze. Definitely recommend stopping here for lunch. And as another plus to this place, it was not very expensive.

After the lunch we headed towards NH48. There are two routes to reach Mumbai – one route is to stick to NH48 and the other route is via Wada. Preferable is to stick to NH48 as the Wada route was not in a good condition and there are many villages on that route. NH48 is a very smooth drive. You might encounter some traffic at Mumbai entry point depending on your timing.

Possible Stopovers on Delhi-Mumbai Road Trip

The route should be planned depending on the number of days that you have and the cities that you wish to see. Below are the cities worth halting overnight at (if you take the Gujarat-Rajasthan route). Some of the cities are not on the route, but will be worth it if you would like to explore cities on your way to Mumbai.

• Jaipur
• Ajmer/Pushkar/Kishangarh
• Alwar/Sariska/Bhangarh fort – Read about Delhi-Sariska roadtrip.
• Kumbalgarh fort
• Udaipur
• Rani ki Vav – one of the best stepwells in India
• Jodhpur –  Read about some of the interesting Jodhpur facts. Read about my Delhi-Jodhpur road trip.
• Chittorgarh
• Mount Abu
• Ahemdabad
• Vadodara: Lakshmi Vilas Palace
• Statue of unity
• Silvassa
• Daman
• Dahanu

Tips for Delhi-Mumbai Road Trip

• During this trip, you will traverse through five states: Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. For a more economical drive, try and fill your fuel tank in Delhi, Haryana and Gujarat as the price/litre in the other two states is significantly higher.
• If you are stopping overnight only for rest purpose, then try and find a hotel on the highway itself. NH48 has a lot of good options especially around Bharuch. If possible avoid a room facing the highway as the traffic noise will be quite loud throughout the night.
• Since Delhi and Mumbai are both metros, time your journey such that you avoid city traffic. Leave Delhi early morning (before 6AM) and try to avoid entering Mumbai in the evenings (6-9PM); unless it is a Sunday.