Mumbai-based Road Trippers Club will give you serious travel goals. Here's how.

For most of us, the concept of a road trip did not strike a chord until Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara hit the screens in 2011. All the young people out there, even people in their 30s and 40s wanted to go on an epic road trip with their childhood buddies or college friends — or anyone for that matter. Inspired by the Zoya Akhtar movie that made us all wish for just that one epic trip with friends, these six friends based in Mumbai started the unique Road Trippers Club — a community that allows people from all age groups to travel in the comfort of their own cars or bikes and to meet a lot of new people on the way. Started in 2018, the club comprising Ruchik Gandhi, Rikin Gosai, Tanmay, Ankush Birajdar, Vineet Rajan and Deepak Ananth would hit the road quite frequently and thus they came up with the idea of opening doors to new experiences, places and, of course. friendships to all the travel enthusiasts out there.

All you need to do is choose a trip from their website that suits you and join them for a drive. You can also create your own drives with interested people once you sign up on the website.

The central melting point is our website, all the information is there, you pick and choose your availability, your interest, or who you want to travel with. The one common bond is the love for road trips, people who love to travel in a group, meet and interact with new people — that's the biggest motivating factor

Vineet Rajan, Core Team Member, Road Trippers Club (Pic: Road Trippers Club)

There is no age limit, you just need a driving license and you are good to go! Students, entrepreneurs, people in banking, all of them join the drives, says Vineet and adds, "Once you join a drive nobody asks what you do personally, you drive in a group and the journey matters."

Flagged off in Mumbai, they went on their first drive on February 2 and 3 last year and by December 2018 this growing community of travellers had already expanded their chapters in 12 different cities across the country, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Kolkata, and more. "A bunch of us last year, in Mumbai, started speaking about creating a community for people who like to travel by car. It mainly came from the fact that Deepak and I have done a lot of biking trips — we've both done something like 5 lakh odd kilometres by bike — only for the love of travel and bikes. We have also travelled with our spouses, but we felt that there would be many more like us who would not be comfortable travelling on a bike with their spouses or family. We thought we are in great need for a community for people who want to travel by themselves with their family — for which you need a car as you typically have a pet, kids or older people. That's how this idea began," says Vineet Rajan, one of the founders of Road Trippers Club.

To the love for road trips: Flagged off in Mumbai, they went on their first drive on February 2 and 3 last year and by December 2018 this growing community of travellers had already expanded their chapters in 12 different cities across the country (Pic: Road Trippers Club)

Keeping all the fun and adrenaline rush aside, Vineet also says that the club is very particular about the members' safety while on a trip. "We have drive coordination groups on Whatsapp. We are planning for a mobile app soon so that it becomes easier. Every drive has a registration link, certain drives need money for stay but most are day trips. In case money is required, we collect beforehand and people are told very clearly that this is what the cost is per person. All drives are made pet-friendly and family-friendly. Safety is of great importance to us, we do long briefing sessions before the drive with respect to what they are supposed to do and what they are not. They are provided with safe driving techniques, they are asked not to overtake anybody in a convoy. Each vehicle has their own position, there's always a lead car and sweep car, everyone kind of buckets into this, between the head and the sweep. Typically, the sweep will be the most experienced traveller, who will also have a toolkit, know some mechanics, and carry first aid. If we have an overnight stay, we opt for exclusivity, 10 to 15 rooms in a single resort so that all of us can stay and there is nobody else apart from that. There is a huge level of security when you stay with the people you are already comfortable with," explains Vineet.

There is no registration fee to join the club right now, but Vineet says they might evaluate that at a later stage if the numbers are going to be larger, "We are already around 5000 members now, if we introduce a registration fee, we will also look to provide benefits to members like a partnership with coffee shops and more."

Kochi is the latest chapter that they added to their ever-increasing number of travellers.

We have to thank avid travellers mostly for our success. These communities got created in a matter of months as they were all initiated by someone who is an avid traveller themselves. In Chennai, Radhika Shivaramakrishnan she came up and wanted to add more people to the community by organising meetups and drives. A lot of things are happening at the ground level and that's the reason for our success, I would say. We conducted 45 drives in December 2018. In total, we have done around 200 from the time we began. As the word spread, more and more people just came forward

Vineet Rajan, Core Team Member, Road Trippers Club (Pic: Road Trippers Club)