Travel and road trips are something totally close to my heart. Exploring our beautiful country by road has always been a fascinating experience, and even more so when done with Mahindra Adventure. I have done a couple of fantastic expeditions with them in the past, the Himalayan Spiti Escape in 2018 and the Monastery Escape in 2019. And while I was planning to do my next one in 2020, the pandemic struck. All plans went out of the window and the world changed forever, including the way we travel. Everything went on hold indefinitely, but finally towards the end of 2021, Mahindra Adventure announced the Royal Escape expedition from 26th December 2021 to 2nd January 2022. And I was lucky to get a slot thanks to the invitation from the Adventure team. After a gap of nearly two years, a road trip was finally happening. The plan was to fly to Udaipur and start driving, staying at some fantastic palatial properties on the way (that’s why its called the Royal Escape) and ending the expedition at Jodhpur. And what would be a better time to be in Rajasthan than December when the weather would be amazing. Days building up to the trip flew by and there I was packing my bags for the week to follow. A much much needed break too.

Finally, D-day dawned. 26th Dec being a Sunday, traffic was sparse and I got to Mumbai airport pretty quickly. Checked in the luggage and met up with my driving partner Rohit from EVO India magazine, after which we headed to grab a bite before boarding the flight. Thankfully the flight was on time and just over an hour later we arrived in the City of Lakes, Udaipur. And what better to welcome us than the Mahindra Bolero Neo that was going to be my steed for the next 8 days. Got to Shikarbadi Hotel and checked in. Also caught up with Vinod, Manish and rest of the Adventure team over lunch and also an old friend Sanchit who was part of the Monastery Escape with me in 2019. Took a stroll around the property and there was quite a bit to soak in like the horses running around the stables, deer coming to the water front to drink along with the quacks of ducks. It was sundown sooner than I thought, and it was time for the regular drill of introductions and briefing followed by dinner and conversation. It was time to call it a night soon after.