Bangalore to Tirupati - Kalahasti

Here is all the information you need to know about how you can reach Tirupati or Kalahasti by road from Bangalore. There are two routes you can take to Tirupati. The pros and Cons are given below:


Route 1:
Bangalore - Hoskote - Chintamani - Madanpalli - Pileru - Chandragiri - Tirupati - Kalahasti
Distance = 321 km

Pros:
(1) You probably can travel faster here. Most roads are 2 lane only but there is very little traffic. After Madanpalli especially traffic is so thin and you can maintain really good speeds.
(2) There are some really spectacular sights after Manadanpalli until Chandragiri. If you take your family along you might have some good places to take snaps.
(3) This is also a better route now considering the work going on in NH4. You probably can travel to Tirupati faster than on Route 2.

Cons:
(1) No good hotels / eateries. You do find restaurants around Mandanpalli but dont expect too much quality in food.
(2) After Madanpalli until Chandragiri there are not much signboards (fewer in English). This can be a problem. However anyone should be able to guide the route for Tirupati or even ask for Ranigunta in that case.

Route 2 :
Bangalore - Hoskote - Kolar - Mulbagal - Chittoor - Nendragunta - Tirupati - Kalahasti
Distance = 296 km

Pros:
(1) You get good number of restaurants / hotels. You have Kamat Yatri Nivas as well as CCD just after Kolar. There are a couple of good restaurants in Chittoor too.
(2) Roads in AP are spectacular. NH4 in KAR is bad now because of the widening happening all along until KAR border.


Cons:
(1) As of July, 2009 there is road broadening work going on on NH4 starting from near Hoskote until Karnataka border. Though this is the route even state buses ply along for Tirupati - Kalahasti, dont expect this route to be any good until this project gets over. Infact when i went along a couple of months back, we really regreted this route.
(2) Not safe compared to route 1 in case you want to drive in the night. This is also becuase of the ongoing work on NH4. There are way too many speed breakers which are unmarked adn absolutely no signboards all along till KAR border.

I have travelled on both the routes and are tested ones. At the moment i would prefer to travel by Route 1 and would even recommend the same to others who want to travel by car/van.

Please post your comments if you have something to say on this.