The Mumbai Goa Highway is the National Highway 17 (NH17 of India) is a straight route to travel from Mumbai to Goa by road. The NH17 runs parallel to the ghats, alongside the western coast of India.The highway continues further ahead from Goa to connect the south Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala. However the highway is popularly known as the Mumbai-Goa highway. The distance between Mumbai and Goa is roughly 579 km.
NH17 highway starts at Panvel which is on the outskirts of Mumbai, and connects several towns and cities on its way to Goa, such as Mahad, Khed, Chiplun, Hatkhamba (which is near Ratnagiri), Rajapur, and then onwards to Panaji (Panjim) and Margao (Madgaon) in Goa. This route followed by the NH17 highway is more or less the same route that is taken by the Mumbai to Goa trains of the Kokan railway. (The Kokan railway plies between Mumbai and Mangalore)
The NH17 highway is not only used by tourists travelling from Mumbai to Goa, but also majorly for the transport of goods using heavy vehicles such as trucks (lorries).
Major destinations on the NH17 highway while travelling from Mumbai to Goa are:
Panvel, Pen, Indapur, Mangaon, Mahad, Poladpur, Khed, Chiplun, Sangameshwar, Pali, Ratnagiri, Rajapur, Kudal, Sawantwadi, and then the Goan towns of Pernem, Mapusa, Panaji and Margao.
The Kokan region which is traversed by the NH17 highway has scenic natural beauty with paddy fields and coconut trees along the seaside, as also many hills (with roads running through the ghats) and several rivers and streams whose water is flowing towards the adjoining sea coast.
The NH17 Mumbai-Goa highway is the one used by the private fleet tourist buses that ply daily between Mumbai and Goa.
The other option to travel by road from Mumbai to Goa is by using the NH4 (National Highway 4) which goes via Pune, Satara, and Kolhapur, and from there onwards to Goa. Additional distance of around 80 km gets added if this is the route taken to go to Goa.
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