The words of Saint Augustine “The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.” surely proved to be most apt for travellers, who make the streets and the vibrant nature their home away from home. And for the members of Road Trippers Club, life itself lies in travelling and capturing every moment in the diary of unforgettable memories.

Recently the club organised a road trip in a convoy of vehicles to Morni Hills, which are offshoots of the Shivalik range, the one and only hill station of Haryana, on 1 December. There were other plans of a small trek, a nature walk and in the evening, a barbeque for all the members.

For a noble cause, on 2 December, travellers also took a social initiative of spending some quality time with children at Prerna Bal Ashram, in the Capital, collecting Rs 200 from all who joined the trip. The funds, books as well as education materials were donated to the orphans. RTC is a non- profit, passionately growing community of road-trippers, which is fueled with the idea of enabling road trippers, who love hitting the roads, to discover new places, new people and new experiences.

The club was started by five “globetrotter” friends in Mumbai in February. It now has chapters in eight cities ~ Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur and Hyderabad. Every city has its group of people who plan their outing. With its simple mission of bringing together avid travellers for road trips, the club comes up with a new place to explore, where not only can one enjoy a quick weekend getaway out of town but families, friends and solo travellers meet like-minded companions.

The trips they organise are not just about fun but responsible trips, including safe driving and biking and concern for the environment. At the same time they help each other during the trip. So, if someone has less time and does not have company, he or she can join the club for a trip together, which is organised keeping in mind the convenience of all members. Other than the weekend getaways, they also organise local walks to explore the city, breakfast runs or photography walks for the same day return and also have a meet-up once a week in a restaurant for a brunch.

“We have a million such stories, some of the most touching ones are like the ones about how we reconnected an army war veteran with his love for road tripping, which he had discontinued due to injuries that he had suffered in the Bangladesh war. Or how some of the kids voluntarily gave up their devices and phones, when they were asked if they would like to travel with us or stay back in their homes. Each member will tell you their own version of how group travel with us has changed a part of their lives, and this is the success story of the community that we are building,” Road Trippers Club’s Core Member Vineet Rajan, and Delhi chapter lead Pritish Anand  said.

Each trip has a theme

In an e-mail interview with Pritish Anand, a few interesting details about the club’s never-ending adventures emerged. Excerpts:

What other outdoor activities do you all conduct while enjoying fun-packed road trips?

Each trip has a theme. For instance, we went on a trip to a beach in Maharashtra, where the theme was wildlife conservation. We went there to watch how the baby Olive Ridley turtles hatch and walk towards the beach and swim away and to understand how we can help conservation in little ways like ensuring we don’t litter. There are treks, cooking lessons, plenty of stories, exploring the nearby areas and also providing the much needed fillip to the locals in terms of tourism.

When it comes to learning of various cultures, how does the club provide such an opportunity?

Our philosophy is to stay and interact with the locals in every place we go. While we stay in resorts, we avoid staying in a city, but travel to the villages to experience first-hand how the locals exist. Similarly, we have a lot of cases where chapters from different cities travel to other cities and learn how the locals function. In India, the culture and traditions changes every few kilometres and every drive for us is learning.

Who doesnt love pets? With this love for pets, what led the club to welcome this decision of bringing along pets to road trips?

Everybody loves pets. Everybody wants to interact and play with animals. But a lot of us cannot have pets due to various reasons. But we believe that the pets are an integral part of the team as their human partners are. Almost every drive of ours is pet-friendly. We seek our places that welcome pets in their resorts. They are sometimes given priority!