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The full board

Road-trip experiences, one region at a time

Every route here has been driven end to end by our own crew, in the season we recommend it, staying where you'll stay. We add a journey only when we can vouch for each of its days — which is why there are four, not forty.

Stylised illustration of the Konkan coast: a road winding past palm trees and red laterite cliffs beside a teal sea

01 · NH 66 · 5 days · October – February

Konkan Coastal Highway

Five days of sea forts, red cliffs, and Malvani thalis.

The Konkan coast is the drive most Indian road-trippers promise themselves and keep postponing. NH 66 threads between the Sahyadri hills and the Arabian Sea for the length of Maharashtra, dipping to fishing harbours and climbing over laterite plateaus the colour of rust.

Mumbai → Goa · View route

A road threading a high Himalayan valley between snow-covered peaks

02 · NH 3 · 7 days · June – September

Manali–Leh Himalayan Pass

Seven days above the treeline on India's greatest mountain road.

The Leh–Manali Highway is not a drive you tick off; it is one you acclimatise to. In 479 kilometres the road leaves the orchards of Kullu, tunnels under the Rohtang ridge, and climbs onto the Tibetan plateau, crossing Baralacha La, Lachulung La, and finally Tanglang La at 5,328 metres..

Manali → Leh · View route

A motorcyclist on an empty desert highway under a wide sky

03 · NH 62 · 8 days · October – March

Rajasthan Desert Circuit

Eight days of forts, stepwells, and dune camps on a Thar desert loop.

Rajasthan built its history along its roads: caravan towns, toll forts, and painted havelis strung between water sources. This circuit follows that logic in a 1,100-kilometre loop from Jaipur — south-west through Pushkar to the blue city of Jodhpur, deep into the Thar to Jaisalmer, and back through the fresco towns of Shekhawati..

Jaipur → Jaipur · View route

A carved stone temple tower rising above the temple walls

04 · NH 32 · 6 days · November – February

South India Heritage Trail

Six days of Chola temples and filter coffee through the Tamil heartland.

Tamil Nadu's great temples were built a day's journey apart, which makes the state a road trip that designed itself a thousand years ago. This trail runs south from Chennai along the Coromandel coast to Pondicherry, then inland through the Kaveri delta — Chidambaram, Kumbakonam, the Brihadisvara at Thanjavur — and ends beneath the painted gopurams of Madurai's Meenakshi temple..

Chennai → Madurai · View route