[ampere]

Originally Posted by Archish

To complete a long pending religious commitment, planning to make a to Shirdi from Chennai by car. Me and my friend will be driving in his Ford Fiesta.

Route :
- Standard one. Chennai-Bangalore-Pune-Nagar-Shirdi

If long hours of drving are OK, I would suggest :
- Driving up to Kolhapur on Day 1.
- Start early the next day go though Pune up to Shirdi

On the way back :
- Driving up Belgaum/Hubli on Day 1.
- Drive the rest the next day.

Notes:
- You lose time crossing Bangalore and Pune.
- Hence you will need to account for that aspect, esp Bangalore when driving towards Shirdi and Pune when driving back.
- A 2AM start from Chennai would help cross Bangalore with ease early morning and reach Kolhapur by evening and also a good night's sleep.

[New.Novice]

Originally Posted by ampere

How would you account for the fact if Karnataka Express gets delayed? 4:30PM Arrival time means, keep a buffer till at least 9-10PM for your darshan to get over.

Keeping this in mind I have changed my itinerary a little. Will come back to Manmad post darshan by a taxi and have booked myself in Vidarbha Express which departs from Manmad at 1:35. Reach Bombay and do a day visit to friend in Pune.

[NPV]

For a Mumbai-Shirdi road trip what would be a good time to start keeping in mind a good darshan time at the Sai Baba Temple, Shirdi ?

I'm guessing 5-6 hrs of drive, so maybe 4am start from Mumbai and reach by 10am at Shirdi ?

[ranjitp1]

Originally Posted by NPV

For a Mumbai-Shirdi road trip what would be a good time to start keeping in mind a good darshan time at the Sai Baba Temple, Shirdi ?

I'm guessing 5-6 hrs of drive, so maybe 4am start from Mumbai and reach by 10am at Shirdi ?

4am is fine,just that you shouldnt get stuck at Ghodbunder with all those trucks lining up to enter and exit Mumbai.5am from Andheri should be a safe bet.You can stop for breakfast somewhere on the highway itself before Nasik.Plenty of places.

[sushrutha]

Originally Posted by NPV

good darshan time at the Sai Baba Temple, Shirdi ?

I have been Shirdi twice.
Last time around 4 years back(January month), I got darshan within 30 minutes when I went there by 9am on a Saturday morning.
This time (day before yesterday) also it was Saturday, we stood in the Queue exactly by 7.20pm, we came out of the temple only by 10.40pm.
Evening time it gets late due to Multiple aarthis , Bhajan & keerthans .
Thankfully we got to see the SHEJ AARTHI in the sanctorum which was almost for an hour.
So overall it just depends on the rush.
What I heard from the crowd and hotel guys is, it's better to be in temple by early morning or between 3pm to 7pm .

Now they have Online booking system for Saibaba Darshan, one can book in advance and visit the temple at alloted timeslots, heard one can get darshan within 15mins. We couldn't book it, so had to take the queue.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by sushrutha

Now they have Online booking system for Saibaba Darshan, one can book in advance and visit the temple at alloted timeslots, heard one can get darshan within 15mins. We couldn't book it, so had to take the queue.

We did the trip in November 2015 (Bangalore-Mumbai by flight and Mumbai-Shirdi by Road) and also booked the online darshan, worked like a charm
Details of our experience is here

[vivek95]

One might be able to fly to Shirdi from Mumbai and New Delhi if everything goes as per the plan, as Shirdi airport is likely to be made operational from October this year.

The Shirdi Airport is likely to be inaugurated in October for which chief minister Devendra Fadnavis will invite Prime Minister Narendra Modi
A tower for Air Traffic Control (ATC) has been installed and work on the terminal building has been completed till 250 metres
Devotees will now be able reach Shirdi via flights from Mumbai and Delhi airports

Read more here - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/53218823.cms

[informmaha]

An update on this thread on the route condition as of October 2016.

I travelled from Bangalore to Pune by Flight and took a self driven car for rent and started from Pune Airport at 12.30PM on 19-Oct-16. The road was kind of Ok with some negotiable potholes till Ahmednagar. There is a diversion just before Ahmednagar and exactly before Kedgoan which will never be missed because of the Shirdi (to take left) board mentioned there which is a bypass to skip Ahmednagar town. Google map navigation also suggests us to take this left if we are using one. This route is suitable only for trucks and they are the one's who are using this and the road is a complete mess. Actually there is no road and its full of craters all this stretch. After reaching half a distance (total - 15kms approx) I was wondering why did I take this route and also asked a truck driver on how much should I still go on like this and he wondered why I took this route. I lost most of my travel time in this road. To cross this 15 kms stretch, it took me more than 1.5 hours in order to negate those craters. If I had come via Ahmed Nagar I would have had to cover 8kms more but I would have had the peace of mind with better roads if I had taken that route and also I would have covered that distance in 30 minutes. There were sharp stones in the bypass road and I had to be very cautious on this route. Some of the trucks were stranded in the middle of the road causing traffic jam in this route and this breaking down of the trucks are due to the big pot holes that they had to clear and it would have caused problems of leaf springs breaking or problems with axles or any other issues.

Instead of taking Pune - Kedgoan - Shirdi Bypass - Vilad - Shirdi, the option to take is Pune-Ahmednagar (cross the town)-Nagapur-vilad - Shirdi.

So instead of reaching at 5PM in Shirdi, I reached at 7.30PM just because of taking that bypass. Attached is the image of the route to be taken and the one not to be taken. X means the route not to be taken and vice-versa.

While returning, we had to go to Shani Shignapur and then to pune, so took Shirdi-Rahuri-Shignapur - Ghodegaon - Ahmednagar - Kedgaon - Shirur - Pune route and this route was awesome. This is the Pune - Aurangabad route from Ghodegaon. I started from Shirdi at 12.30PM and took a break for 1 hour for lunch and reached Shani temple at 3.30 PM. Started from Shani temple at 4.30PM and reached Pune at 7.30PM with speeds not crossing 80kmph.

So I would suggest the routes mentioned above from Pune to Shirdi to have a peaceful drive.

The most surprising factor for me was no toll collected for Cars and SUV's, because in Southern part we generally see no tolls for 2 wheelers only.


Hope this helps someone in need.