5 Weekend Drives From Pune That Are Not Lonavala

Tamhini Ghat is one of the wettest stretches of the Western Ghats, and in the monsoon it earns that reputation in the first kilometre. The road from Pune takes roughly 45 minutes to reach the ghat entry near Paud, and from there the 25-kilometre descent to Mulshi Lake is continuous forest, cascading streams crossing the tarmac, and visibility that drops to fifty metres in the right cloud. The lake itself is a reservoir backed by the Tata Power dam, ringed by villages that see almost no tourist infrastructure. Carry your own food. The drive back via Pirangut adds variety to the loop. Total distance from Pune: around 80 kilometres. Best season: July through September, though the ghat road closes in extreme rain, check with locals before you leave.

The road to Rajgad's base village of Gunjavane runs south from Pune through Nasrapur, about 55 kilometres and an hour and fifteen minutes on a clear morning. Rajgad was Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's capital for over two decades before Raigad, and the fort sits at 1,395 metres. The drive itself is unremarkable until the last 15 kilometres, where the road climbs through dense scrub and the fort's three machi walls appear above the treeline. Most visitors come to trek, but the drive to the base and back, stopping at the Pabe Ghat viewpoint on the return, is a complete half-day outing without lacing up boots. Avoid weekends in October and November when the trekking crowds are at their heaviest and parking at the base becomes a negotiation.

Bhandardara sits in Ahmednagar district, roughly 185 kilometres from Pune via the Nashik highway and a left turn at Sangamner. The drive takes between three and three and a half hours depending on the Nashik highway traffic past Chakan. The payoff is Arthur Lake, a horseshoe-shaped reservoir below the Wilson Dam, with the Ratangad and Ajoba ranges rising behind it. The town has a handful of MTDC and private resort options if you want an overnight, but the drive is satisfying as a long day return. The road from Sangamner to Bhandardara is narrow and in good condition; the last 10 kilometres after Rajur are the most scenic. Go in June or July when the Wilson Dam's overflow creates a curtain fall that is genuinely spectacular and costs nothing to watch.

Kashid is 145 kilometres from Pune, and the routing matters: take the Pune-Mumbai Expressway to Khopoli, then drop south through Pen and Alibag rather than going all the way to Mumbai. This keeps the drive to around two and a half hours each way and avoids the city entirely. Kashid is a 3-kilometre arc of white sand backed by casuarina trees, and on a weekday it is quiet enough that you can hear the surf. The beach has no significant development beyond a row of small shacks selling fish and cold drinks. The road through Alibag passes the Kolaba Fort causeway, accessible on foot at low tide, which adds a worthwhile detour. Budget for the Khopoli toll and factor in the Pen bypass, which has been under intermittent construction. Ideal season: November through February.

The standard Pune-Mahabaleshwar road goes through Panchgani, but most drivers treat Panchgani as a speed bump. The better approach is to stop at Wai first, a town on the Krishna river with step-wells, old temples, and a ghat that has appeared in several Hindi films, and then climb to Panchgani separately. Table Land, a 95-acre volcanic plateau at 1,334 metres, is the second-highest plateau in Asia after Tibet. The drive from Wai to Panchgani takes 20 minutes on a road that switchbacks through strawberry farms. The total distance from Pune to Panchgani via Wai is about 100 kilometres and takes two hours. If you continue to Mahabaleshwar, add another 18 kilometres. The season runs October through May; the plateau is closed during heavy monsoon.

Each of these drives works on different logic, one is about the road itself, one about what waits at the end, one about a town most people drive past. The common thread is that none of them requires a booking three weeks in advance or a tolerance for bumper-to-bumper traffic on the expressway. They require only leaving Pune before eight in the morning.