✨
(A highly professional guide written by someone emotionally attached to highways and roadside chai)
There is a special kind of confidence that appears before every road trip.
The kind where we say things like:
“We’ll pack light.”
“We won’t spend unnecessarily.”
“We’ll sleep early.”
And my personal favorite—
“We’ll stop only once.”
Three hours later, the car is full of chips, six water bottles, random chargers, mystery bags nobody remembers packing, unlimited munching supplies, and someone is already asking:
“Kitna aur time lagega?”
And honestly?
That is exactly how a perfect road trip begins.
Because road trips are never just about reaching somewhere.
They are about becoming slightly unhinged together on highways with bad network and excellent scenery.
They begin with playlists nobody agrees on.
One person wants old Bollywood songs.
Another suddenly becomes an international DJ.
Someone plays sad songs while everyone else is eating sandwiches aggressively at 90 km/h.
Meanwhile Google Maps calmly says:
“You are on the fastest route,”
while leading us directly into roads that look abandoned since 1987.
But still…
nothing feels more alive than sitting beside a window while the breeze messes up your hair, butterflies fly past the fields, clouds slowly gather above the mountains, and an entire sunset quietly follows your car.
Road trips somehow turn ordinary moments into lifelong memories.
The chai tastes better.
Maggi at a random hill station becomes a five-star meal.
Even badly clicked blurry pictures suddenly feel cinematic later.
And then come the random stops.
Stops that were never part of the plan.
A roadside tea stall.
Fresh pakoras during rain.
Tiny cafés hidden between highways.
Local food from places nobody can pronounce properly.
Because somehow the best memories are always made at places we never planned to stop at.
And then come the conversations.
Those nonstop, sleep-deprived, deeply unnecessary conversations.
From childhood stories…
to conspiracy theories…
to “what if we buy land in the mountains and disappear forever?”
Road trips make philosophers out of exhausted people.
But planning a perfect road trip is not only vibes and aesthetic sunsets.
There are two kinds of travelers:
The “Let’s just go with the flow” people.
And the responsible adults carrying:
— first aid kit
— medicines
— power banks
— offline maps
— emergency cash
— torch
— tissues
— extra clothes
— snacks for emotional emergencies
— and enough plastic bags to survive a natural disaster.
Honestly, the real hero of every trip is the person who says:
“Keep the medicines with you… just in case.”
Because somewhere between beautiful highways and loud laughter, safety matters too.
Seatbelts matter.
Rest breaks matter.
Checking the car before leaving matters.
Hydration matters.
And not driving while sleepy definitely matters.
Adventure feels better when everyone reaches home safely.
And maybe that is why I love road trips so much.
Because they are messy.
Unpredictable.
Overpacked.
Loud.
Beautiful.
Full of excitement.
Full of detours.
Full of exploring places that once existed only as tiny dots on maps.
A road trip does not ask life to be perfect.
It only asks you to roll down the windows a little more…
play that favorite song again…
take one more random stop…
eat one more unnecessary snack…
laugh a little louder…
and keep moving forward while the sky changes colors beside you.
Somewhere between the roads, the rain, the tea stalls, the scenic views, the butterflies, the local food, the unlimited munching, the giggles, the wrong turns, and the endless conversations…
you quietly realize:
sometimes happiness does not look like a destination.
Sometimes it simply looks like
a long road ahead,
cool breeze through the windows,
your favorite people beside you,
absolutely no tension in your heart,
and the beautiful feeling of being far away from the world for a little while…
just exploring, enjoying, and feeling alive in between the roads. ✨
It only lives on highways. ✨
With love,
—Rajeshwari 🧿💕
© Nihshabd by Rajeshwari. All Rights Reserved
