10 Day road trip with our little one!! making her a pro in traveling!!

We recently went on a 10 day long road trip from Chennai to Kerala and Back, this was a partly spiritual and a partly fun getaway for us and the longest one we have taken in recent times. We came back with our wallets and bank balances much lighter but our hearts full with fun memories and ready to take on our everyday life with even more zeal and enthusiasm!!

This was originally supposed to be just a train/flight journey straight to Kochi and a trip to the Athirapilly waterfalls as well as the back waters of Allepey or Kumarakom, But the perks of being an entrepreneur now is that we don't need to wait for leave approvals!! well there are positives to everything. So Ananth suggested that we could drive down to Kerala and so that was it. This was one of the most epic road trips that I have had in my life and considering we had a 20 month old toddler with us, I would say this turned out to be a highly successful one too!! Dhriti was an absolute champ and I am so happy and proud that she is turning out to be a total traveler just like us!!

We planned this trip at a time when I was not at the best of my mental health and situations as well as relationships were not the best. This trip was the therapy I needed and I can not begin to explain how rejuvenated I felt at the end of it!!

This is probably the third vacation I have taken with Dhriti and her second road trip but as usual a lot of flak was thrown at me by my parents for choosing to put Dhriti through a lot of discomfort and not even waiting to travel until she grew up a little more!! Well I would like to thank Ananth here for being my pillar and supporting me and going ahead with this plan of driving around for more than 1500 kms in 10 days with a 20 month old. When I think back it does seem a little too much to me too!!

So this blog is about my overall experience in the car while getting from one city to the other and how I learnt to make things easier as the days went by.

TAKE EACH DAY AS IT COMES:

A 10 days long trip, driving across states for more than 1500 kms can seem daunting when looked at on the whole. so take it one day at a time. We started off our day 1 already an hour later than what we aimed for. We headed from Chennai to Trichy which was about 350 kms . Now Dhriti likes car rides once we hit the highway and we are cruising along at about a 100 kms per hour but right until Chengalpattu the GST road is horrible and don't even get me started on the traffic!! so we had our breakfast at Guduvanchery and then changed her Diapers, She quickly fell asleep as soon as we crossed Chengalpattu and the next 2 hours just flew by and we literally covered about 150 to 200 kms. Once she woke up she spent an hour just playing with things and then began to get restless. with just 50 to 70 odd kms to go we thought we would drive along and reach the hotel once and for all before we rest. But that's a mistake, if the baby wants a break, then a break it is.

START YOUR DAY FRESH AND SLOW:

This kind of a road trip is going to be filled with activities, there is also going to be quite a number of long drives. on the days when you travel from one city to another, always be patient, let the baby sleep for as long as he/she wants. Have your breakfast and feed the baby their food however they are comfortable, ensure they are not very hungry or sleepy when you start because a cranky baby as soon as you hit the road is not what you want.

TAKE FREQUENT BREAKS:

I know it feels like you are driving forever, but again frequent breaks makes the babies happy, they do feel claustrophobic inside the small space in the car, barring their nap time they mostly insist on getting out of the car and frequent breaks of 10 to 15 mins each are enough to make them happy and cooperate much better for next couple of hours!!

CARRY THEIR FAVOURITE SNACKS:

At least Dhriti spent quite a bit of time munching on her favourite snacks which includes makhanas (foxnuts), cut fruits and cookies too. I honestly feel its ok to let them indulge on what they like for a bit, they may not really get addicted to it. Its always good to carry some healthy snacks from home, whatever they generally love and fruits are always available across the highways of our country.

TRY TO PUT THEM TO SLEEP:

Once you hit a highway and can drive uninterruptedly for sometime, try to put them to sleep as soon as possible. They like long and smooth drives and generally get drowsy and eventually sleep, its always better to catch up on maximum driving at these times and cover long distance. Once asleep do not wake them up on your own at any cost, These few hours are quite peaceful and also gave us a much needed private time to catch up on some random as well as long due conversations.

TAKE TURNS DRIVING:

This is something I could not do this time but hope to make it possible for the next road trip. When more than one person knows driving there would be a welcome break for each while driving as well as watching the baby. I hope to become good enough in driving before the next time we plan a road trip so that we both could be of some use to each other for driving as well as watching the child.

PLAN A SIMPLE ITINERARY:

The drives are long and taxing enough so ensure that the days are otherwise quite simple and not too packed with activities. This would be good for the baby as well as you, as always like I have repeated in quite a few blogs of mine please keep your expectations simple, sometimes even checking out one place a day becomes a huge task.

HAVE A BREAK DAY IN THE CITY:

Its good to have a free day in the destination you reach before you head to the next city, I will leave a map of all the places we covered this time as we stayed for 3 days in each city so that the drives were not getting too much for us and we also had some breathing time in between.

On the whole I would say we had our difficult days as well as easy ones but we loved each and every day on this trip. Yes I did get homesick on the last day but I am already dreaming about my next trip. I just hope we now have a perfect travel buddy in our little one too.