Sunday Drive: The app that connects drivers with local driving routes

Beautiful experiences within reach.

Community is the cornerstone of Volvo Cars Waterloo and we take pride in connecting with like minded individuals in our region. That’s why our relationship with Aniket Patel, founder of Sunday Drive, a web app that showcases curated driving routes across Ontario and British Columbia, is so important.

Patel created Sunday Drive as a way to improve his mental health while exploring his community behind the wheel. Today, the database has grown into a full-blown platform that is loved and used by thousands of community members.

“Never did I expect this large of a community to come out of the creation of a relatively simple web app,” says Patel. “The best part is that the community is so positive and wholesome.”

We spoke with Aniket to learn more about Sunday Drives and how motorists in the area are using it.

Why did you start Sunday Drive?
In startup land, they say that the most captivating and valuable products come from people who are trying to solve their own problems. I keep that mentality in mind when pursuing my side projects.

For Sunday Drive, I was trying to improve my mental health. Right now, I’m 28 years old, but I have had my fair share of mental health issues since middle school. Low self-esteem, struggling with self-confidence, imposter syndrome in my career, body confidence, you name it. I neglected all this until two years ago when I sought professional help for the first time with an online counsellor. During one session, my therapist recommended that I seek activities that ground me, like meditation, drawing and reading, during times I didn’t feel great about myself. The point of this was to temporarily distract my focus from my negative thoughts and allow my mind to “reset,” helping me control my emotions and exercise gratitude. A day after receiving that advice, I remember hanging out with friends on the other end of the GTA. I had a late night drive back home on the 401, and it was sheer bliss. I loved the feeling of solitude at night with low-traffic roads while playing The Weeknd on full blast. The whole experience repeated itself after a bad day at work, and I wanted an emotional break.

By the time I came home, I was recharged and confident again. I felt like I was onto something.

I started looking up local driving routes to feel that magic over and over again. There wasn’t much in the way of a website or database for Ontario drivers that compiled scenic and calming driving roads, especially with Google Maps directions links, so I started building it myself, slapped on the name Sunday Drive, and the rest is history. From my first drive to now I have no regrets about the journey and am so thankful.

Going for a drive is such a simple task, but can have such a profound impact on our mental state. Why do you think that is?
By no means am I a neuroscientist or mental health expert, but if you comb through research papers on meditation, you will see that the benefits of regular practice include emotional regulation and improved attention. Core to meditation is an uninterrupted focus on the sensation of the breath, like feeling your lungs expand and contract and settle into a rhythm.

I have absolutely zero scientific knowledge or evidence of this, but I feel as though driving taps into something similar. For me, at least, the uninterrupted focus on the machine beneath me and the road ahead feels calming because it’s so simple. From Point A to Point B, it’s as if nothing else matters. There have been so many times when I have felt confused about life or angry at myself for something, and I have decided to go for a drive as a way to escape. Because of the forced break and attention to something else, I always return home in a better state of mind.

What types of people are currently using the app?
It’s not surprising that the bulk of users are car enthusiasts. Many of these people already go for leisurely drives for the same reason that I do. Everyone else outside this traditional ‘enthusiasts’ category surprises me.

When I started Sunday Drive, I posted one route per week. At the end of the first year I had a couple who owned a Sienna reach out explaining that throughout the summer, they had used my routes as a date night every week and ended each drive at a local restaurant or with a cute picnic. Another user, a friend, told me he went on a Sunday Drive as a first date…twice!

By preaching about this project’s mental health origins, I have also had people reaching out about how other relaxation techniques such as meditation have been hard to stick to, but driving in solitude is a great replacement. There is one particular story about a student who was stressed about finding a job after immigrating to Canada, but after he took a drive on a local route in Scarborough, he realized he was so grateful about life and was determined not to give up. Stories like that are why Sunday Drive will never go away.

How has Sunday Drive evolved since you first launched it?
The feedback has been spectacular, and I love every bit of it. Sometimes it’s as simple as, “Thank you for all the work that you do.” Other times, people dive deep into the story of a recent drive and the mental health revelations that come as a result.

So many improvements have come as a result of feedback. I cannot count how many times a week I get messages about new roads people have discovered and even entire route suggestions. I have a long list of routes in the pipeline due to the generous people willing to share their findings. On nearly every route on the app, there is some attribution to an Instagram user who suggested part of the route. I love that Sunday Drive has, in a sense, democratized the local driving community rather than gatekeeping roads from others.

Sunday Drives was born in the GTA, but has evolved to include routes in British Columbia. Tell us about this expansion.
Most of my routes are in Ontario, but I knew that someday I wanted to expand to other regions of the country. Eventually, I put out a call-out looking for photographers, and an amazing, talented woman named Kylie Ivers reached out. I followed her account well before that because her skills are out of this world; something about her content creation is truly unique. She has done a few routes, with more along the way.

Volvo is renowned for its dedication to family and safety. How do you consider safety when planning these routes?
From the beginning, I wanted to ensure that safety was the number one priority for this community. This has manifested itself in different ways. For example, when users first register for the app, they see a safety notice that tells them to be safe, follow the limits, avoid substance use while driving, and not to drive if they feel emotionally unstable. Look around the Sunday Drive Instagram page and website, and you will see the “Drive Safe. Follow the Limits.” motto plastered everywhere. And that extends to when Kylie and I curate routes as well, such as not including roads that go through residential neighbourhoods or school zones.

What’s your favourite drive on the app right now?
I have been with my girlfriend for some time now, and she has supported this passion project from the beginning. There have been times when I put unnecessary pressure on myself, but she constantly held my hand and encouraged me to keep going.

When I catalogue a route, I usually leave before sunrise and come home after sunset, so I typically don’t bring a passenger along. But my girlfriend has been able to go with me for a few trips when her schedule allowed. Any of those drives are my favourite ones, not because of the roads or the scenery, but because of my memory of her. Sometimes, we would drive in silence while she read her Kindle. Other times, she would blast her latest favourite songs, and I would do my best to sing along. Often, we would be silly together about the most minor things.

Spending time with her, away from the world’s worries, is a blessing for my mental well-being.