A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a continuously self-configuring and infrastructure less network of mobile devices. Each device in a MANET is free to move independently in any direction, so it will change its links frequently. Each device can act as both host and router respectively. Hence, routing is the challenging issue in MANET. The objective of this paper is to provide the observations of various routing protocols in MANET, in order to adapt the suitable routing protocol based on their routing characteristics for the efficient routing process.