The Road Trips Co(RTC) is a group of passionate travellers including solo-trippers, families, motorcyclists and other individuals who come together for on-road experiences. The community which was first started in Mumbai is now present in over 18 cities making weekends and holidays, fun and exciting.
News Today spoke to Preethika GN, who is leading the RTC in Chennai, about their growing presence, most sought place by the people and more.
Q: Tell us about RTC and its growing members in Chennai since its inception.
A: RTC is a community of passionate travellers who love to explore new places while on the road. RTC trips include a varied range of experiences, from day sprints, monsoon treks and camp nights to weekend getaways, heritage walks and long expeditions. Our trips are also child-friendly and pet-friendly. Narayanan and I joined RTC rather recently and at that point of time, the RTC Chennai was already a bustling group of 100 plus members. In the months that have gone by, we have more than tripled and have close to 400 awesome Chennaiites in our fold.
Q: What is the modus-operandi of RTC?
A: As the Chennai chapter heads, we come up with a drive plan, a month in advance (this includes requests from the community as well), check the feasibility of the location and announce the drive thereafter. Each drive has between 12 and 20 participants and they are classified as a sprint (a single-day drive) or a getaway (2 or more days). We have a very active WhatsApp group where we discuss about the drive and share a registration link through which members can opt for the drive.
Q: Is RTC arranging any monsoon rides? If so, what are the places?
A: Chennai doesn’t really have great monsoons, hence RTC Chennai doesn’t have monsoon rides as such. Our nearest mountain range is easily 300 km away from us and so, we get to go wherever we believe we can enjoy nature and have fun. On the other hand, cities like Kochi, Mumbai and Bangalore have organized multiple monsoon rides leading all the way to the beautiful clouds and misty waterfalls.
Q: What is the most sought after place by Chennaites for a weekend getaway and do you arrange trips based on request?
A: Pondicherry is one of the most popular destinations. That being said, we haven’t gone on one as we are trying to introduce newer destinations to our community. We love taking suggestions and requests, a lot of them are in the pipeline currently.
Q: Apart from arranging road travel trips, you guys recently arranged Sowcarpet Food Walk. Tell us about food walk and what are the other things you are doing via your network?
A: Geographically, Chennai isn’t as lucky as Bangalore, Mumbai or Pune. Those places have numerous options within a 150 km radius. Hence, we wanted to organize something fun and exciting within the city itself. Everyone loves food so we thought why not arrange a food walk? To start with, Sowcarpet was our first bet since it has a diverse history attached to it along with great street food options. We had 20 plus people signing up for this walk which took us close to 3 hours to complete. This also gave us the confidence to look at ‘within Chennai’ as an option and we have a few more food and heritage walks in the pipeline!
Q: And finally can you tell us about yourself and what prompted you to get on board with RTC?
A: Vineet Rajan (a core member of RTC and co-founder ScoutMyTrip) and I have been friends for a long time now. We both are passionate bikers and love everything that travel brings about in our lives. When he called and explained the idea about this road travel community, I had to be a part of this. Narayanan who enjoys travelling was also equally excited so, here we are as couple and RTC Chennai heads. We try to balance our time at work and also actively get Chennaiities to experience the real spirit of RTC.