[vivek95]

Originally Posted by BlueEyes

[*]Leave B'lore by 6AM and reach Hubli by afternoon[*]Finish the work at Hubli and reach Belgaum by 6-7PM, stay at a hotel near highway[*]Leave Belgum at 4AM towards Pune and reach Mumbai via expressway[/list]
I have never driven/gone beyond Kolhapur, so I am completely dependent on Gmaps till I reach my destination!
[[/list]Appreciate your responses.

Parag has already nicely explained in detail how to go about this 1k km drive. If possible and convenient, try halting overnight at Kolhapur on day 1 rather than Belgaum as Parag has suggested. Also, I wanted to add that use the "Eastern freeway" in Mumbai from Chembur onwards to reach Colaba causeway. It's one heck of an awesome elevated freeway devoid of any signals and heavy traffic.

[Ertigiat]

Originally Posted by BlueEyes

• Leave Belgum at 4AM towards Pune and reach Mumbai via expressway

• I would like to reach Mumbai(Kolaba area) around 12PM. Leaving Belgaum at 4AM is a good plan?

Originally Posted by paragsachania

To be able to reach by 12 noon, you might need to start little earlier. The other option for you is to drive till Kolhapur on Day 1. Belgaum - Kolhapur is indeed a stressfree section that you need to bother much. If you can settle at Kolhapur by 2100 also, it will still be easy for you to start from here on Day 2 at 0400 and then your plan would look something like this:

0400 Kolhapur
0700 Pune bypass
0730 Pune Bypass end
0930 Panvel
1130 Colaba

I would recommend to stick to the plan suggested by Parag Sir. This will help you to avoid peak hour traffic of Pune bypass & reach destination as per your planned time.

Some of the Hotels in Kolhapur for the stay are,

Hotel Orient Crown

Hotel Rasika

Hotel KTree

Hotel Sayaji

[BlueEyes]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

The other option for you is to drive till Kolhapur on Day 1. Belgaum - Kolhapur is indeed a stressfree section that you need to bother much. If you can settle at Kolhapur by 2100 also, it will still be easy for you to start from here on Day 2 at 0400 and then your plan would look something like this:

0400 Kolhapur
0700 Pune bypass
0730 Pune Bypass end
0930 Panvel
1130 Colaba

Thank you so much for this breakdown.
Now that you mentioned it, I would surely plan for overnight stay at Kolhapur which looks like easily doable provided I leave early from B'lore.

Originally Posted by vivek95

Also, I wanted to add that use the "Eastern freeway" in Mumbai from Chembur onwards to reach Colaba causeway. It's one heck of an awesome elevated freeway devoid of any signals and heavy traffic.

I will take Eastern Freeway Infact Gmaps is showing the same route, thanks.

Originally Posted by Ertigiat

I would recommend to stick to the plan suggested by Parag Sir. This will help you to avoid peak hour traffic of Pune bypass & reach destination as per your planned time.

Some of the Hotels in Kolhapur for the stay are,

Hotel Orient Crown

Hotel Rasika

Hotel KTree

Hotel Sayaji

Appreciate hotel recommendations. Couple of these are just a few minutes of detour from highway.

[cyberwhizs]

Just an update

En-route from mumbai to bangalore today.

Started at 0600, (planned was 0530). Traffic was thick on the expressway till lonavla. long queue at khalapur. A normal 0600 hours start has always got me to pune/wakad in about 2:30 hours. Today it took a good 3:30 hours. Crossed pune without much of a trouble. Long queues/slow queues at almost all toll booths. Had intended to reach davengere but then decided to break the journey at dharwad instead. Took around 11:30 hours, reached at 17:30 in the evening. Averaged a modest 55 km/hour. This is despite trying to maintain a steady 100/110 with bursts of 120

The vithal kamat - just before kognoli toll is ok to stop by. Food was ok - much better than kamat upachars or other vithal kamats that i have experienced, Washrooms not in the best of conditions but passable. Would have usually stopped at Amar - taswandi ghat but then it was getting a bit late.

Slightly Off Topic:

My fastag refuses to be "read" , better half spent quite sometime over phone with icici fastag folks and nhai. It shows up insufficient balance , or simply hangs. I had got my fastag as a mandatory gift on purchase of a new car, had used it last month on a trial basis - Rs 200/- this time around i recharged with Rs 2000/- and i have ended up paying cash at each toll booth.

I believe that the faulty tag could have been replaced at any point of sale place viz khalapur, talegaon, khed shivpur, taswade , kognoli - but the nice folks at each toll booth did not bother to tell me that. I just happened to find that out a couple of hours ago. Now will try and get that done tomorrow maybe tumkur or neelamangla wherever the next point of sale is. Frustrating experience.

[arun_josie]

During my recent drive to Mumbai and back, we stopped at hotel Verda Dwarawata(Dharwad) for lunch. This is around 1Km from the highway but a calm and nice place. Food was good, the service was little slow. It has both Veg and Non-Veg. This hotel has stay option too.

Here is the location, https://goo.gl/maps/znvN4LWtBYCq4pxb9

While going from bangalore, we started late(around 6:30am) and it resulted in 2-3 hours delay when compared to a 3am start. In future, I will stick to 3 am start, this is more peaceful and fast.

Originally Posted by cyberwhizs

Just an update

En-route from mumbai to bangalore today.

Started at 0600, (planned was 0530). Traffic was thick on the expressway till lonavla. long queue at khalapur. A normal 0600 hours start has always got me to pune/wakad in about 2:30 hours. Today it took a good 3:30 hours.

I started around the same time yesterday and yes it was little traffic heavy.

[cyberwhizs]

Further updates.

1. Started from dharwad at 0900 hours , reached bangalore - at around 1630.

2. Stayed at hoysala, bang in the center of town. It is a clean place suitable for a night's stay. Service is prompt but inflexible. It attached with a popular restaurant. basement parking will prove to be an excellent training ground for folks graduating from a hatch to larger vehicle. There are other options nearby but you will not find any of them on online booking portals.

3. The numerous diversions in the hubli - chitradurga section will slow you down. It becomes pretty bad at some places wherein the dual carriageway is reduced to a single lane for short stretches - 1 to 2 kms. If you have a slow moving truck in the front - God help you. It is just frustrating.

4. Overall, though road have improved the time taken to traverse 1000 odd kms has increased from 14:30 hours(circa 2011) to 18:30 hours(2019), My first trip mumbai - bangalore - door to door in 14:30 hours starting at 0600 hours and reaching at 20:30 now seems like a record that will never be broken. Despite the fact that my current vehicle puts outs double the bhp of my previous one.

5. If you must FasTag - stay away from ICICI FasTag, their customer service is unhelpful and their agents at designated toll booths are missing from their seats. My Tag has an issue and needs to be replaced and i was up for a wild goose chase.

6. Stopped at Kamath Upachar at Sira - Food was surprisingly good. Washrooms - clean. Not all kamath upachars are the same, each one is unique so one outlet is not a representative of other outlets operating with the same brand name.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by cyberwhizs

4. Overall, though road have improved the time taken to traverse 1000 odd kms has increased from 14:30 hours(circa 2011) to 18:30 hours(2019), My first trip mumbai - bangalore - door to door in 14:30 hours starting at 0600 hours and reaching at 20:30 now seems like a record that will never be broken. Despite the fact that my current vehicle puts outs double the bhp of my previous one.

Thanks for the updates. I honestly think that the normal driving duration for this 1000 km Mumbai--Pune--Bangalore hasn't changed much, can factor an hour's delay for Hubli--Chitradurga section. I think you just faced the typical - insanely high Maharashtra highway traffic on Sunday from Mumbai to Kolhapur and then the Hubli--Durga road construction, that altogether resulted in 4 hours extra drive time for this 1000 kms stretch.

As it is, MH has high traffic levels even on weekdays which only gets worsened on some Saturdays and Sundays. I have experienced the worst of the worst MH highway traffic during my drives from Bombay to Belgaum and back to Bombay, especially on a Saturday and Sunday noon with a 1pm start time from either ends. Last time when I drove on 3rd February from Belgaum to Bombay, crossing Khed Shivapur toll at Pune alone took 30 mins and mind you it was just the sheer volume of traffic ( cars being highest followed by buses and trucks ) that caused this delay. The toll queue was easily more than a km here on both carriageways ( by the way my fastag worked like a charm at all the tolls ). You would come across some posts on Mumbai--Pune--Goa thread where in Bhpians had reported taking a whopping 5.5 hours non stop from Kolhapur to Pune alone and 9 hours from Kolhapur to Mumbai on a worst possible Saturday/Sunday.

My usual driving time from Bombay to Belgaum is 8.5 hours including 1 hour break and when the MH traffic is at its worst, it has taken 10.5 hours, again including 1 hour break time. Karnataka never sees this amount of heavy traffic so the Kolhapur--Belgaum stretch pretty much remains the same at 1 hour 15 mins for me every single time.

By the way I am driving solo tomorrow from Bombay to Belgaum and hoping for an uneventful drive on a Tuesday. I am starting at 1pm, will come back and update here. My ride is VW Polo petrol 1.2L

[rakesh_r]

Did my yearly trip to Palakkad (Kerala). Apart from the multitude number of diversions till Chitradurga, I was able to maintain a good average speed. Left office at 16:00 hrs and reached Kolhapur at 19:30 hrs. Stayed at my preferred Hotel GaneshRatna which is very much near to the highway. Next day left Kolhapur by 04:00 hrs and reached Grand Estancia, Salem (TN) by 17:00 Hrs. My hometown was just another 3:30 hrs from Salem to which I could have easily continued if not for the Hotel booking which I did very hastily. Looking at the effective time taken, I can very well do Pune-Palakkad in less than 1.5-day (night stop included), which is way lesser than the time taken by the train (Coimbatore express) I used to travel previously.
10:30 pm- Home to Pune Junction- Day1
2:00 am- Pune Junction-Coimbatore express- Day2
7:30 am- Coimbatore Junction- Day3
9:00 am- Catch Parsuram express to Palakkad- Day3
11:00 am- Home sweet home- Day3

The roads in TN have improved by leaps and bounds, awesome roads I must say. The Pune-Satara stretched has marginally improved.

[cyberwhizs]

Originally Posted by vivek95

Thanks for the updates. I honestly think that the normal driving duration for this 1000 km Mumbai--Pune--Bangalore hasn't changed much, can factor an hour's delay for Hubli--Chitradurga section.

Well,google maps - then 2011 and now also seem to show a significant difference, just replotted it - shows 17:15 hours. I have driven mumbai bangalore a few times over the years. When i drove in 2011, i remember one could maintain a steady 100 kmph over extended distances once you cross kholapur - this is not at all possible today.

And yes, there are a couple of new toll booths on the KA side, one is bankapur

Originally Posted by vivek95

I think you just faced the typical - insanely high Maharashtra highway traffic on Sunday from Mumbai to Kolhapur and then the Hubli--Durga road construction, that altogether resulted in 4 hours extra drive time for this 1000 kms stretch.

As it is, MH has high traffic levels even on weekdays which only gets worsened on some Saturdays and Sundays. I have experienced the worst of the worst MH highway traffic during my drives from Bombay to Belgaum and back to Bombay, especially on a Saturday and Sunday noon with a 1pm start time from either ends. Last time when I drove on 3rd February from Belgaum to Bombay, crossing Khed Shivapur toll at Pune alone took 30 mins and mind you it was just the sheer volume of traffic ( cars being highest followed by buses and trucks ) that caused this delay. The toll queue was easily more than a km here on both carriageways ( by the way my fastag worked like a charm at all the tolls ). You would come across some posts on Mumbai--Pune--Goa thread where in Bhpians had reported taking a whopping 5.5 hours non stop from Kolhapur to Pune alone and 9 hours from Kolhapur to Mumbai on a worst possible Saturday/Sunday.

Some days are worse than others, With a 0600 start - i reached kohlapur at 1400 - around 8 hours, may be hour more than what i would normally take. I did not encounter any abnormal traffic once i crossed lonavla, It was routine - actually less than normal sunday morning traffic. Yes, i did lose some time arguing with toll booth folks - trying to figure out the fastag issue.

Originally Posted by vivek95

My usual driving time from Bombay to Belgaum is 8.5 hours including 1 hour break and when the MH traffic is at its worst, it has taken 10.5 hours, again including 1 hour break time. Karnataka never sees this amount of heavy traffic so the Kolhapur--Belgaum stretch pretty much remains the same at 1 hour 15 mins for me every single time.

Yes - traffic almost disappears once you cross kholapur. Made me often wonder where did all the trucks and people go. The sudden change is perceptible.

Originally Posted by vivek95

By the way I am driving solo tomorrow from Bombay to Belgaum and hoping for an uneventful drive on a Tuesday. I am starting at 1pm, will come back and update here. My ride is VW Polo petrol 1.2L

All the best - may the traffic not be with you. Enjoy your drive.

Any recommendations on stay options in belgaum, i am aware of pai resorts, sankanam and treebo elite. Stayed at treebo last time around - messy parking space. sankanam had this incident of a bunch of doctors falling sick a couple of years back - read about it the newspaper - so have been hesitant to go there though folks have recommended it.

May be i will break the journey at kholapur on my way back. Or keep it open like i did during my onward journey.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by cyberwhizs

Yes - traffic almost disappears once you cross kholapur. Made me often wonder where did all the trucks and people go. The sudden change is perceptible.

True that, its mostly to do with the high density of cars that disappear once you leave Maharashtra and enter Karnataka. Western Maharashtra especially Kolhapur--Pune/Mumbai/Nasik/Aurangabad sector has the highest density of passenger cars. Infact, even after entering Karnataka on Kolhapur--Belgaum sector 70% of the cars bear MH registration ( mostly MH 09/12/14/all Mumbai RTOs).

Originally Posted by cyberwhizs

All the best - may the traffic not be with you. Enjoy your drive.

Thank you so much but my drive is put off to next week

Originally Posted by cyberwhizs

Any recommendations on stay options in belgaum, i am aware of pai resorts, sankanam and treebo elite. Stayed at treebo last time around - messy parking space. sankanam had this incident of a bunch of doctors falling sick a couple of years back - read about it the newspaper - so have been hesitant to go there though folks have recommended it.
.

Yeah, that incident had happened but was a one off. Sankam otherwise is highly recommended for it's great food and stay and proximity to highway. Other good options closer to highway ( not as close as Pai resorts and Sankam ) are Hotel Ramdev International, Hotel Rakshit international, Hotel Sai Sangam. Ramdev, Sankam and Pai resorts have ample parking space. Treebo elite is as it is situated in highly crowded messy area with narrow road. There are many other good hotels with ample parking space like Hotel Adarsha Palace, Hotel UK Fern 27, Hotel Sanman, Hotel EEFA ( 4 star) but I usually recommend these for people doing Mumbai/Pune--Goa who would want to break the journey at Belgaum.

If you want a plush 4 star range hotel then Hotel Fairfield by Marriott is bang on NH4 at Kakati, Belgaum( right side Bangalore--Pune direction ).

Kolhapur definitely has more plush hotels at reasonable prices than Belgaum anyday anytime. Infact the area around Kawala Naka, Tarabai chowk, Kolhapur has literally too many highly rated excellent hotels- way more in number than Belgaum.

[cyberwhizs]

Originally Posted by vivek95

...

Thanks, appreciate the details. Treebo was a last minute booking based on experiences at other treebos, The rooms are fine as such. It was just the location, and google maps took me right through the market shortcut on a friday evening --- well, it was an experience. When i reached the hotel, there was bunch of vehicles at the entry, couldn't get in, then had to call to get them moved and finally got in.

Driving in bengaluru apart from being a test of patience, is a nice way to find out the minimal milage of your vehicle. The traffic situation has gone from worse to worst, with all the metro and other construction going on. Bengaluru weather has also changed, it is hot and dry.

Looking forward to driving back to mumbai over the next Saturday/Sunday.

PS: The sambhar in belgaum is very different from every other place - any idea what is it?

[Sandy28]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Factor in 6 lane expansion work for 200 Kms between Chitradurga and Hubli that has resulted in quite a few diversions that can reduce your overall average speed to reach Hubli.
[/url]

Hi Parag, I will be driving towards Mumbai / Udaipur in the next 3 days and onwards to Kashmir. My plan is to start from Bangalore (Electronic City) by 1 pm and reach Hubli by 7 pm on day 1 for the night halt. Is this timing possible considering the road work?

[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by Sandy28

Hi Parag, I will be driving towards Mumbai / Udaipur in the next 3 days and onwards to Kashmir. My plan is to start from Bangalore (Electronic City) by 1 pm and reach Hubli by 7 pm on day 1 for the night halt. Is this timing possible considering the road work?

Quite tight IMHO.

There won't be much traffic during this time of the day considering it's summer but then we are talking of 400 Km in which 200 Km is the work in progress section.

You can very well do the first 200 Km till Chitradurga in 3 or 3.5 Hours at Max. From here you will still need another 3 to 3.5 hours to reach Hubli.

Hence, reaching Hubli by 2000 Hours is more reasonable although you may reach earlier by say 30 minutes.

The next day start would be crucial. Do not start from Hubli such that you enter Kolhapur around 9am. That means don't start from Hubli at 0600. Better to start at 0400 or 0430 Max. This will ensure that you cross Kagal Kolhapur Islampur section before it's peak industrial time. Traffic is not horrible but when it comes to such long drives it's these small little things that make your overall journey relaxing and efficient.

[Sandy28]

Originally Posted by paragsachania

Quite tight IMHO.

There won't be much traffic during this time of the day considering it's summer but then we are talking of 400 Km in which 200 Km is the work in progress section.

You can very well do the first 200 Km till Chitradurga in 3 or 3.5 Hours at Max. From here you will still need another 3 to 3.5 hours to reach Hubli.

Hence, reaching Hubli by 2000 Hours is more reasonable although you may reach earlier by say 30 minutes.

The next day start would be crucial. Do not start from Hubli such that you enter Kolhapur around 9am. That means don't start from Hubli at 0600. Better to start at 0400 or 0430 Max. This will ensure that you cross Kagal Kolhapur Islampur section before it's peak industrial time. Traffic is not horrible but when it comes to such long drives it's these small little things that make your overall journey relaxing and efficient.

Thanks Parag. That is very helpful. Thanks for your tips for the early start next day as well.

[soul-on-4wheels]

Hello everybody! Am planning a Mumbai - Bangalore trip tomorrow morning! Bracing for the weekend Mumbai-Pune traffic. Hope to start from Powai by 4:30am - not sure if I can make it so. Anyways, keep you all posted. Thanks a lot to all who have contributed to this wealth of info in this thread! Cheers!