[ShivWason17]

In these tough times and in the times to follow, the travel industry will change as a whole. For me, a road trip in a self driven car has always been the safest option regardless of the distance to be covered, more so now.

Although I was avoiding even a short road trip in these times but this week I had to travel up to hills for work and had to stay here for a complete week. Here is what I did to ensure a safe trip and stay:

1. Carried a stock of good quality masks and sanitisers, not just for me but also for the staff already working there as this stuff is not easily available in the remote areas, there safety ensures my safety.

2. Carried a lot of dry snacks, packs of green tea n coffee, a kettle, an induction and some home made theplas to come handy at any time needed.

4. No question of staying in a hotel, I have rented a house here since last year now and use it whenever I visit this place. The house was locked for 2 months now, sanitized the whole place and I was good to go.

3. After a day I realised that we are a lot safe up here. The area is pretty much cut off from the outside world these days. No outsider is allowed right now.

4. This place is so beautiful that you cant keep yourself from venturing out, so planned a short trip to a place around 25 kms from the base. We carried all things along, required to make our own food. The cottage where we planned to stay was locked since 2-3 months now, the owner was known so opened it just for us and even got it fumigated before we arrived. All the touch points were sanitized.

All in all it was a good outing after a long time. Now when I think about going back to the city in a day, I feel terrified.

So, We can still do the road trips, but cant deny the fact that our safety is in our own hands.

Some pictures from the surrounding areas which I clicked during this short outing:

[dhanushmenon]

Wow. This is quite a thought! A thought that'll redefine travel experiences more most of us in the forum. Going through opinions, I realise that the concerns and precautions are similar for everyone.

I feel that road travel by people will increase as the lockdown starts lifting. Which actually is a double edged sword increasing traffic on highways and rush on roadside amenities. Whilst we can carry pre cooked food with us (Which most of us seem to resonate in our plans), comfort amenities is a cause of alarm.

Staying in a preplanned, reputed and reliable place would be the first thing in my list during travels. That said, I really do not know when and how freely can we travel in near future. Fingers crossed.

[armaan_singh]

I have a yearning to get behind the wheel and take a long long trip, what's stopping me now is the thought of entering any state and being put on quarantine for 14 days.

I am still open to staying in branded hotels, but yes the highway kings and highway queens of the world will not be on the cards anymore.

No Murthal, No Sukhdev, No Karna Lake, No rolling down the window and having a smoke. But barring that I cant wait to get out on the roads again.

[anbusatish]

I could sense the below as some of the norms in/during the road trips, that could be foreseen in these difficult situations,

1. Stay: As few had mentioned already in this thread, it is time for packing tents or buying/building a caravan or towing a cabin. But just that may not be sufficient. We might need government to pitch in here and promote the caravan/tent parks through public & private partnership. Surely this sector is highly unexplored, but has a vast potential.

2. Car Sales: I assume, since many of us will avoid the public transport, atleast for a year or two, the sale of SUVs are going to increase multifold in these situations. As SUVs could be used for multi purposes, for its high ground clearance and vast space availability.

3. Holiday Homes: The sale of pocket friendly holiday homes would increase. It is highly likely that sale of container modified cottage type holiday homes would be pitched in the market

4. Prebookings: In tourist spots, we might expect certain kind of pre-bookings or appointments to be initiated, which could avoid huge crowds at any particular time of the day

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by dicor

Someone like me who did travel a lot before marriage and luckily got a like-minded partner.

Lodging

• Again, I would avoid staying at hotels at all. Even if an emergency, I would prefer the budget brands like Oyo, Treebo or Ginger, Raddison etc.
• If it's Bed and Breakfast, I would prefer to sleep in my XUV as rear seats can become flatbed. just adequate for my family of 3. Find a petrol pump, park and sleep.

Maybe I am overthinking but I am interested to hear fellow Bhpians views too.

Naah - you aren't overthinking. You are thinking exactly what is needed at this hour & as long as more and more people think this way - the virus will be contained (at the expense of some businesses & economy). I have been thinking exactly on the same lines as yours since the day the lockdown got imposed. I love to travel & I love to drive when I travel. The journey & drive itself is the primary reason for my vacation/travels & I'm pretty much bored at the destinations and looking for excuses to drive there. Except when in Goa.

One point that I'd be nervous about is your thought of using the car as accommodation.

1. We are in India. Sleeping with expensive stuff + dear family, is simply inviting trouble.
2. While it may seem okay - sleeping in car is not comfortable at all & will result in excess fatigue the next day.
   • I know this first hand as I used to sleep for 2-3 hours at truck stops in my car in EU when I used to travel overnight for my road-trips - alone.

I won't be surprised if soon there are a lot of joints opening up with open spaces at tourist spots with security & gated landscape. Places where people can bring own tent & utensils for overnight stays during vacation. Park car, put up a tent & live there!

Its a common thing in the UK where people can drive for holidays using their caravans & simply use the British common sense. Talk to a farm owner, strike a deal to park the caravan in their farm for a night or 2. Simple as it gets.

[harish.raghavan]

I doubt if any substantial changes will happen in the way we travel, even after the last virus attack everything came back to normal.

Remember the plague scare at Surat - 1994 or Nipah virus scare at Calicut during 2018 or for that matter Zika or Ebola, Viruses has come but humans got back to their routine ASAP.

France hospitality industry is gearing up for Summer vacation travelers, China now over the scare has become almost like earlier times.

Yes, initially we nay try to be careful - with packed lunches on trip but how long can one resist the Highway dhabas or other street specialties.

Perhaps my assumptions may be wrong but hope we get back to long drives ASAP - My guess would be post October.

[SnakemanJohny]

I would lean more towards the lines taken by balenoed, SS-Traveller, Jeep, etc. After lockdowns and travel restrictions are removed, and COVID Saab either goes away or becomes as common as the Common Flue, I would go back to normal life as before.

Even now I do not use hand sanitisers (do not need to get addicted to another yankee fetish), and use masks only when compulsory. The Super Cyclone Amphan (Umpun) has made life so miserable that right now Corona seems to be a distant nightmare. I use soap only when my hands are dirty.

Remember, staying filthy increases resistance. For three days post cyclone, when there was no power or water, we were drinking and cooking in pond water --where hundreds of my fish pass poo ! What more can a virus do ?

[anjan_73]

Not sure I can do just a 1 day road trip. Few changes I would make is
1. Stay at good hotels.
2. Carry my stove/electric cooker to cook if required.
3. Get an air purifier for the car and see if I can get a better cabin filer.
4. Plan my itinerary to avoid red zones.

[narayans80]

I would restart my trips once we have the inter-district and inter-state restrictions are lifted without the quarantine requirements. We would still stay at hotels, eat at restaurants. Restaurants are already open in my city without dine in, and in some highways as I hear from people who are travelling with permits.

Cooking out and staying in tents/car are ruled out.

[Vipin Kumar]

I do not think staying in tents anywhere is safe. How can one so easily make tents and cook food enroute?

We can still stay in hotels. All that we may do is to carry our own bedspreads, pillows, covers, bath towel etc. I have been carrying some of these, if not bedsheets, even otherwise. Bath towel is always part of the package. Without the existence of the new virus too, I require my own pillow everywhere as it is a hard one. Most hotels provide extremely soft pillows which give me headache next morning.

Yes, given the expenses, one tends to reduce hotels to an extent possible otherwise too.

For dhaba food, one can carry a set of disposable plates, glasses and all that.

And minimise physical proximity with people as much as possible. Sanitize... use masks...gloves (whenever you get out and touch suspicious or potential surfaces), sunglasses, etc. That is it.

I think once compulsions of quarantine in interstate movement are lifted, many of us will be back on the road

[Travelmania]

I have to change a lot of previous habits in a post lockdown scenario. As my occupation pushes me to journey, neighbouring states a lot, so now I am solely scribbling how to make a secure and contamination-free journey. As per my priorities, I have jotted down the following parameters to maintain.

1. I want to maintain the habits advised with the aid of the experts like wearing masks, now not to put fingers on eyes and mouth.
2. I will stock packed water and dry fruits in the car to make sure less stoppage without-bio breaks.
3. Sanitise the fingers up to the elbow in regular intervals when I am out of the car
4. Not to allow outsiders to board the vehicle.
5. Avoid dhaba/restaurant foods barring for packed ones, making sure sanitization of the packet before utilizing the product.
6. Accommodation in an acclaimed hotel/resort, which is strict on hygiene and disinfection parameters.
7. Sometimes I need to stay overnight. Instead of daily restaurant foods would decide upon instant readymade meals like Maggie etc.
8. Will always carry a small pack of sanitizer with me in the pocket
9. Will carry personal Bed sheet, Pillow Cover, and towel for the subsequent few months. I believe that might also not minimize the tank area in my car.

For the next few months, my leisure trips will be to small hill stations to avoid the crowd and avail maximum nature. I will avail accommodations on a homestay with minimal lodging facilities, so that less crowded. Now life has to move on with sufficient precaution to contamination-free and enjoyable travel.

[pganapathy]

Personally I will make no changes to my old habits. Anyway, I used to carry some food whenever I did a solo drive and would stop as little as possible except for food if needed, fuel and bio breaks. If any changes are going to happen it will be because of my wife. I reckon she will be concerned about infection, unlike me. Have yet to figure out what changes she will want to make

[Rustom Mistry]

Today,people from local police station in Uttar Pradesh visited our factory and exchanged numbers.They feared that robberies and road side hold ups shall increase as many are getting unemployed as well as people have been let free from prison on parole due to COVID-19. My life involves a lot of late night journeys but would be avoiding them in near future.

[su1978]

Actually, Lets play with some numbers here.

As per the official figures of NCRB(National Crime Records Bureau)-2016, 407 people die in india everyday. Even if we add those numbers which go unreported, lets assume the numbers to be 500. We are in lockdown almost for 60 days. Under normal circumstances, we would see almost 30000 people who would have died during these 60 days. Going by the official death numbers on covid19india.org, out of total 152981 reported cases, we have 4364 death reported. Lets assume the figures to be incorrect and assume the figures to be around 5000 deaths till now. We still have been able to save around 25000 lives.

So what's the point to worry. Taking all the precautions mentioned by SS-Traveller in his post and from our own study, we have to make sanitizers and masks a part of our life. Rather, we should have done it long back with the threat of covid-19 looming over us. Practice social-distancing. Learn to give everyone their own private space. Why should road trips stop? Just that we need to be extra cautious from over-enthusiastic people jumping into our own personal arena.

[armaan_singh]

With the opening of hotels, and some really unfortunate situations at home, I am forced to take a trip to some place within 300-350 KMs from chandigarh. Will definitely be driving so that's transport taken care off, but will all the plethora of rules going around for different states, travel passes, quarantine rules, I am very confused about which direction to head in. For reference it would be a longish trip, about 10 days minimum. Any suggestions (sans judgement) would be welcome. Thanks