Unplanned things can bring real excitements in your travels. Have you ever got chance to go on any unplanned road trip? Sometimes, Journey is far better than the destination and if it is unplanned then we get to know how well we can manage all unexpected things.

Recently, I was in Bangalore for my Wildcraft Alpha League Race event. Wildcraft Alpha League Race event was an adventure race in which we contestants had run 5 kms of muddy track along with crossing 20 different obstacles. Unexpectedly, there was a huge crowd of around 5000 people. It was the one of the best adventure experiences I had after Waterfall Rappelling. But at the end of the race my friends and I were totally tired and our bodies were aching badly.

It was our reunion time, we four friends decided to go on a road trip and explore the Bangalore city and nearby places.  With some basic trip planning of a few hours we came up with the plan and we hired a car for one day .We thought of covering Mysore city. Mysore is a famous tourist place in India, specially known for Mysore palace, Mysore silk, Chamundi hills etc.

It was the beautiful sunny morning, when we started our road trip; we were driving on the highway NH275.
The highway route was quite scenic and smooth. We were enjoying, singing, shouting and photographing most of the time. We were talking and discussing about lot many things, which is quite expected when four friends meet after a long time.  On our halfway, I don’t know what made us to change our plan. Rather than going to Mysore, we decided to go Ooty. Ooty is one of the beautiful hill stations of India. It is in Tamil Nadu of India and we were driving in Karnataka.

Travelling on the road from one state to another, it was sounding fun. Though, initially we were a bit confused about our sudden change in plan since we were not ready for a trip,  in which we were thinking of staying out for a day or more . Also, we weren’t  carrying anything which we usually need to for long trips, neither clothes nor anything, but with lot of confusion we all agreed and we decided to go to Ooty. So we diverted our Route from Mysore to Ooty. Google Map indeed helped us go through confusing roads.

On our way to Ooty , we traveled through 2 tiger reserves, Bandipur National Park and Mudumalai National Park. Both the national parks were quite desolated, but beautiful and scenic. We were not allowed to stop or photograph in between the National Park due to wildlife and tiger reserve area. At that time,  I really wanted somehow from somewhere, Tiger should show up on our way, though it didn’t happen, but never mind we saw many other interesting animals  like Deer, Elephants, Gray Langur, Peacock and Gaur etc.

As we were approaching toward Ooty, we entered in the Ghats of Hill. The route through Ghats was quite dangerous; we realized one needs to be really good at driving and thankfully, we had a friend who was quite expert in driving through such hilly regions. We came crossed around 36 hairpin bends, which were quite scary and breathtaking, but it was really an adventure fun  journey though.

We reached in Ooty at night time, It was more than 10 hours I guess we were driving since.  Climate was too cold and foggy and we were carrying any jackets . Ooty is the one of the coldest places I have ever been to. Since it was night time, very first we started looking for accommodation. After visiting a few hotels and bargaining, we could manage to get a room through online booking. We went in local market. Though most of the shops were closed,  but we could again manage to get some clothes and other necessary things. We packed food as we preferred to get some hot and heavy food . We all were happy finally we handled everything well.

On next day early in the morning, we spend exploring the Ooty in Stream Engine train then we enjoyed some drizzling at our way to Pyakra waterfall. On our return journey,  we visited Mysore palace and did some shopping.

So throughout our unplanned trip of 2 days, we traveled through 2 States,2 Tiger reserves, Nilgiris hills and Pyakra waterfall.  We got a chance of visiting places like Bangalore, Mysore and Ooty. Well, it was not vacation time but the real adventure and expedition .  Finally, we came back with happy memories of our unplanned trip and indeed, it was a wonderful experience.

Have you ever been to any unplanned road trips? How was your experience?