Gujarat was never a place I had even remotely thought of exploring. I could’ve never imagined the kind of peace I’d experience while driving along its coastline, discovering quiet, hidden beaches in this beautiful yet incredibly underrated state.
This was an accidental discovery of the beauty of Gujarat.
My sister has been posted in Jamnagar, Gujarat as a KV teacher for the past two years. A year ago, our lives were blessed with the arrival of my nephew, Shaivik. Since he’s still a toddler, he needs constant care and supervision. My brother-in-law had to leave for Delhi because of work, and I was supposed to stay there for around 10 days until more (real) help arrived in the form of Shaivik’s grandmother.
Now, I was always under the impression that Gujarat doesn’t have much to offer when it comes to travel and given the lack of my adventures in the year, I decided to reach a couple of days before my brother-in-law had to leave, so I could rent a motorcycle and head towards the coastline for a short solo trip.
Apparently, there was only one car and bike rental service in Jamnagar unlike any other more popular travel destinations and they did not allow motorcycles beyond city limits. So, I had to suppress the biker in me and settle with a rental car instead. I chose a perfectly well maintained 2024 Baleno Automatic.
I was never really a fan of the Baleno as the build quality of Suzukis has always had a bad reputation, but given the lack of options I went ahead with it anyway. Surprisingly, by the end of the trip, I had completely fallen in love with the car. It has a smooth AMT transmission and the suspension of the car genuinely impressed me.
Day-1: The Journey Begins
The journey began at noon on the 17th of December, 2025.
After taking the car from the guy who came to deliver it, first stop was the petrol pump. Having a full tank and the excitement of a solo car road trip, I turned the music on and to my surprise it sounded way better than a car with stock music equipment. The destination was Porbandar, as I wanted to cover whatever was in the city before I headed to the beach for the sunset.
On the first pit stop, I opened the boot to uncover what my brain already suspected. There it was, a solid bass tube, which meant the car had aftermarket speakers and woofers installed, no wonder the great music quality. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Now adhering to the golden rule of every road trip:
"When taking a Pit Stop, If you have time, drink chai. If you don’t, grab a red bull."
Given how I was rushing to see the ocean for the first time in my life, one would think that I took a pass on the chai? No.
I am that hardcore sucker for chai that sips twice the amount of chai in the same time that a normal person takes to finish one cup of chai. That doesn’t mean I skipped the red bull or monster (in this case) as it was the only option available.
Coming to food options, Gujarat seems to lack all famous food chain outlets like Burger King, Haldirams, etc. I believe that’s on purpose, to promote local food businesses more. However, I didn’t find any good local restaurants on my drive from Jamnagar to Porbandar either or maybe I just wasn’t looking for food as I wasn’t particularly hungry.
Tree Tunnels and Open Roads
Found this beautiful stretch where the trees were completely covering the road as though making a tunnel. Just had to get down and click a picture from the centre of the road.
Porbandar
Reached Porbandar just in time to check-in to the hotel, dump my luggage and visit the Kirti Temple which had preserved the house where Mahatma Gandhi was born and brought up. Not much to see there, its a quick wrap up.
Now, I rush towards the popular Madhavpur Beach which lies on the road to Somnath from Porbandar in the hopes of arriving before the sunset. The excitement to finally look at the ocean for the first time in my life had now peaked beyond safe limits. The road quality was excellent and there were usually very few cars on the highways in Gujarat (the ones I travelled on), so I was able to maintain good speeds and boom, there it was, the first sneak peak of the ocean.
First Real View of the Ocean from Madhavpur Beach
Water, SO MUCH WATER! - that was my initial reaction, being awestruck of how endless the ocean looked, how perilious it can be, leaving thousands of sailors lost in the middle of nowhere every year. I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of imagining the destruction it could cause to us, mere humans. Definitely remembered the scene from Interstellar where they land on a planet and the ocean waves are as high as the loftiest of mountains.
I parked my car by the side of the highway and hurried towards the blue magical concoction of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. Never imagined the beach sand to be difficult to traverse through. Made contact with the water waves, and the sand moving away with the withdrawing water quite literally felt like the ground slipping from beneath my feet.
The beach was fairly populated, there must have been somehwere around 50 people, which for a beach is actually very less. People mostly stopped on the highway while travelling and took a quick tour of the beach. There were camels, 4x4 vehicles which you could ride for a fee of 200 Rs, a number of food points offering coconuts, maggi, chai, and the essentials. I reached at the most oppurtune time, the golden hour. I clicked some of my very best pictures of the beach. Here are some of them: (you can find more pictures in Gallery)
A food vendor (papad)
A camel carrying the Sun
Had quite some ideas for capturing the ocean and the beach. Making footprints in the sand made me think about how ocean waves wash them away, and how that mirrors the brevity of human life - how short our lives are compared to the billions of years of the universe’s existence. Here’s a clip I captured to preserve that thought and some other pictures of the beach.
Soaking in the sun and ocean sounds
As most people began leaving, the beach slowly turned peaceful. I found myself mesmerised by the soothing sound of the waves, the endless ocean ahead, the golden glow spreading across the sky, and the cool sand beneath me. I didn’t want to leave. I closed my eyes for a while and unintentionally drifted into a meditative state. Thoughts came and went without disturbing me. It was one of the most peaceful moments of my life. Here are some pictures and videos I captured after the crowd faded away.
The 2 Musketeers
I didn’t leave until it was pitch dark and I could no longer see the ocean.
That’s the thing about oceans and mountains at night, you hardly get to enjoy the view, but the ocean still offered the peaceful rhythm of its waves.
I was famished and really needed something to eat before driving back to my hotel in Porbandar. I skipped going to Somnath since I had already been there with my parents when we visited my sister and nephew. I sat at a small roadside shop beside my car on the highway and ordered some chai and a plate of Maggi, sipping on a coconut while my food was being prepared.
I looked up some highly rated restaurants in Porbandar for food and stopped to finally get some proper food. The restaurant turned out to be a beautiful place with vintage architecture, and they served an incredibly tasty masala papad topped with tomatoes, onions, and coriander. I had to order another one just to savour the flavour a little longer and etch it into my memory.
The Gourmet Masala Papad
As I was leaving, the guard uncle greeted me while using his high beam torch and I complimented him on how far its beam could reach, and with a smile, aimed the torch at the windmill next to us. Just a little something that stayed with me.
First Shooting Star of My Life
On the drive back from Madhavpur beach to the restaurant, I witnessed a shooting star for the very first time in my life.
I couldn’t believe my eyes for a second and then felt lucky to have actually been looking up while it came crashing. I had stopped on a kind of bridge that had the ocean under it to look at the boat lights in the ocean. After a while, I sat on the side wall of the bridge with my feet on the back tire of the car, and songs from my playlist on the speaker.
I was acknowledging and being grateful for the fact that I am here, all by myself, doing what I love (travelling solo in an unknown city) in the middle of the night.
I couldn’t shake the thought that only a rare few would get to do something like this. And as I usually look up at the sky to stare at the moon and it’s magnificence, a few minutes later, a shooting star goes by, only visible for a tiny moment, you blink and you miss it.
And before I could process that, another shooting star blesses my eyes and existence on this planet. I wished for something which I will probably never have but hope, hope is what keeps a man going, isn’t it?
The high beam light pointed at a nearby windmill
Reached the hotel and crashed for the night since I was exhausted and wanted to wake up early to watch the sun rise over the ocean. First sunrise by the coast, let’s go! Well… turns out the sun rises from the opposite side of the ocean here. Pretty basic Geography knowledge honestly, no idea how I forgot that 😂
The Porbandar Beach and Local Food Hunt
The Porbandar beach was really peaceful though. There’s a cemented pavement built along the beach which felt perfect for a morning jog, and a lot of locals were already out running and walking there. There were a number of Seagulls and a few other kinds of birds which were flying in and out, waiting for the people who came to feed them, some of them were toying with the ocean waves, funny to watch.
I also remember buying a Pikachu toy and some bubble syrup from a street vendor for my nephew and storing them in the boot of the car.
I usually stick to the food I like while travelling but I make it a point to try atleast one local speciality wherever I go. Since I had already experienced Gujarat’s famous breakfast - "fafda" on my previous visit, I found myself craving it again this fine morning. So, up came the search query: "famous local food near me". Most of the shops were still closed. So I decided to stop wherever I saw a decent crowd gathered around a local street vendor. I parked the car by the roadside and went to check out the menu - which ofcourse was spoken rather than written. Almost everyone was having the fafda along with aloo poori(though the sabzi goes by a different name in Gujarati), so I decided to order the same. And boy, was it worth it - the entire meal was absolutely scrumptious.
Fafda & Aloo Poori
Day-2: Porbandar → Dwarka
Went back to the hotel and had a refreshing shower before checking out. The next destination was Dwarka, so I started driving towards it with a good pace since the highways in that region are absolutely top-notch. On my way, I stopped on a bridge to click a picture of a boat. That’s when I spotted a temple on a cliff far away, and decided to take a diversion to check it out first.
This is why I love solo travelling, you stop when you want, for however long you want. You go wherever you feel like, regardless of the destination you had originally planned for. It brings a different kind of freedom - the freedom from adhering to set itineraries.
That freedom of stopping wherever you want — I'd first truly felt it on a motorcycle trip to Harshil Valley earlier that year. Gujarat gave me the same feeling, just at sea level instead of 11,000 feet.
The boat I stopped for
This turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip. The road stretching beyond the temple tempted me to see where it led, and what I found at the end was an incredibly peaceful, secluded beach-like spot. It almost felt like I had the entire coastline to myself: like owning a private sea-facing bungalow with its own beach haha.
Nageshwar Jyotirling Temple and Rukmini Devi Mandir
The Nageshwar Jyotirling Temple had a very peaceful atmosphere to it. The massive Shiva statue standing against the open sky could be spotted from far away itself, and the calm surroundings made the place feel surprisingly serene. I spent some time just walking around the temple premises, taking in the quietness before continuing the journey towards Dwarka.
The Rukmini Devi Mandir had a simple and peaceful charm to it. Compared to the larger crowded temples nearby, this place felt much quieter and more relaxed.
Nageshwar Jyotirling Temple
Rukmini Devi Mandir
On my way to the most popular beach in Gujarat, the Shivrajpur Beach, a vintage abandoned house caught my eye and I immediately had to make a U-turn to check it out properly.
There’s something strangely fascinating about abandoned houses, places that were once filled with people, conversations, and moments that must have meant everything to someone. Now they stand in solitude, quietly holding onto the echoes of laughter and memories left behind by the families who once called them home.
The abandoned vintage house
Shivrajpur Beach - An Underwhelming Experience
This beach was apparently the one of the most popular beaches of Gujarat and, like all popular places, it was full of people, children, and families. There were heads everywhere, my ears ran tired of all the incessant chatter. It felt like a completely commercialised govternment project to pull in tourists and make them spend money. There were different water activities, none of which really appealed to me.
I was just about to leave when one of the boat operators called out to me saying they were lacking only one person and offered me a decent discount for the ride, so I agreed and ended up clicking a very wallpaper worthy picture out if.
Wallpaper worthy picture
Shivrajpur Beach
I wanted to be somewhere peaceful during the golden hour, so I opened Google Maps, searched for sunset points nearby, and picked one of the highly rated spots. When I reached there, there were still quite a few people around, but nowhere near the chaos of Shivrajpur Beach. I grabbed a plate of Maggi and a cup of chai from one of the small stalls and just sat there for a while.
Sunset at the view point
A famous Shiv Mandir nearby
I hadn’t pre-booked a hotel for my stay in Dwarka that night and, for the first time in my life, I experienced what it feels like to run out of accommodation options in an entire city.
Apparently, it was peak season for the hotels. I checked online listings, visited nearly ten hotels in person, but everything was fully booked. After a long search, I finally found a decent hotel, though it was almost 10 kilometres away from the city. By then, I was exhausted, so I booked the room without a second thought and called it a day after checking into the resort.
Day-3 The Best Hidden Beach and Return Journey
The food at the restaurant was actually pretty good the last night and I wanted to have breakfast there as well, there was no room service, so I mdae my way to the restaurant. Met 2 very cute puppies on the way and spotted a spider on a tree.
Spider on the tree
I wanted to experience the peaceful ocean waves one last time before leaving the coast, so I looked up hidden and underrated beaches near me. Found a beach with fewer ratings and reviews mentioning little to no crowd.
It was the Okha Madhi beach, right next to the highway and just before the exit I was supposed to take for Jamnagar. The beach was completely empty when I reached there. I cannot put into words, the kind of peaceand happiness I felt being the only one surrounded by so much beauty and calm. I stayed there for a good 2 hours, sitting, walking, lying on the beach, watching the ocean waves strike upon stones and make a soothing noise.
Clicked a few more pictures and decided to write my nephew's name on the beach as something to remember Gujarat by, since he was the reason I had come here in the first place.
A small rainbow captured
My nephew's name on the beach
I knew I was always going to look back on these three days - the way I was just me, without any worries, carefree and completely at peace. I was leaving the ocean behind, but with a promise to be back often for its soothing & cleansing propeties for the soul. Made my way back to Jamnagar, and stopped for McDonald's on the way which was the only outlet in the city, picked up some burgers for my sister since she loves them. Sapna called and asked me to grab a few groceries for the kitchen, picked those up from the Smart Bazaar and just like that, the trip came to an end.
Souvenirs from the beach
Parked outside Sapna's quarter
