Far From the madding crowd

The perfect driving holiday needs some essential ingredients: an off-the-beaten-path destination and a comfortable, capable long-distance runner. So, we took the Elite i20 off to Guhagar in coastal Maharashtra on a weekday.

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Weekend getaways. The words have a magical ring to them. Families, bunch of friends, college students, lovers, absolutely everyone loves weekend getaways. Which is precisely why sometimes, you need a “weekday getaway” instead. Most of the popular tourist spots near big cities like Mumbai are easily accessible and hence, on everybody’s favourite weekends, are choc-a-bloc with all sorts of people. Not to mention the kilometres-long traffic jams leading up to these holiday destinations. So, to avoid the pain and suffering involved with driving out of Mumbai on a Friday or a Saturday, we decided to leave on a Thursday and return before the weekend madness started. And to add to caution, we picked a place which would be off the regular tourist’s radar – Guhagar, about 300km of leisurely driving away from Mumbai.

Now came the question of which vehicle to pick for said drive. Something that’s compact, peppy, comfy, and packs in the essentials to make long stretches behind the wheel entertaining. Hyundai’s i20 came right off the top of our heads, the decent fuel economy providing brownie points. The audio system is quite good, entertainment would be taken care of and the 1.4-litre diesel burner would be good to wring out on the bit of NH66 we’d traverse on the way. This alternate road to Goa is reputed for its curves, any driver’s delight.