On my first trip to Goa as an adult, my partner and I stayed at an “offbeat” beach that had already been invaded by overtourism. That experience, filled with characterless beach shacks, multicuisine food and hordes of tourists, turned me off Goa. Much later, I returned to experience slow travel for the first time. I’m grateful that the universe conspired to have us stay at Cancio’s House, a 500-year-old traditional Goan homestay in Aldona, with its own well for drinking water, jackfruit trees for shade, and a courtyard around which three generations of the Amaral family have grown up. It was h ..read more

Ecstatic dance? Me? No way. Over the cumulative time I’ve spent in Goa, Guatemala and other ‘hippie’ spots, the idea of trying out ecstatic dance has never crossed my mind. I have two left feet, and tend to tread lightly around the edges of alternative therapies. But while passing through Goa and catching up with a friend a couple of weeks ago, that resistance unexpectedly gave way to curiosity. The next thing I knew, I was on an outdoor dance floor, under a canopy of trees and some faintly shining stars. There was no alcohol, nothing to smoke. Just music and an eclectic mix of people, moving ..read more

The world of travel storytelling seems to be going through a weird flux. On the one hand, my explore tab on Instagram is full of wannabe-viral videos on how creators are getting paid to travel. But on the other, I’m constantly meeting or interacting with travel ‘influencers’ with thousands and sometimes millions of followers, who still work on barter collaborations – getting hosted but not paid to travel. I recently discussed this with a travel blogger friend, and we both felt sorry that good creators with powerful storytelling prowess are being taken for a ride. So I decided to write this pos ..read more

On a late afternoon, after sailing down the Rio San Juan for nearly 4 hours, the public ferry finally deposited us in El Castillo. I felt weary from the weeks we’d spent travelling on packed chicken buses across Nicaragua. But as we deboarded and wandered in search of food, it seemed like it wasn’t just the landscape that had changed. The sky shone a little brighter, people were chilling at street corners, and upbeat music followed us everywhere we went. We had arrived in the Nicaraguan Caribbean after all! But we hadn’t yet reached our destination. We were yet to sail further down the river ..read more

Since we left Goa for Himachal earlier this year, life has been a rollercoaster. After three blissful months at our dream homestay in the mountains, we unexpectedly got kicked out. A dreamy piece of land we *almost* took a long lease on didn’t pan out. Our search for a longer term abode left us with two choices: Pay through our nose to stay at a creatively furnished Bnb, or find an affordable longer term rental and furnish it ourselves. You’ve read in my last post that I have very mixed feelings about signing a one year rent agreement. But in the process, I’ve learnt so much about minimal desi ..read more

Since we left Goa for Himachal earlier this year, life has been a rollercoaster. After three blissful months at our dream homestay in the mountains, we unexpectedly got kicked out. A dreamy piece of land we *almost* took a long lease on didn’t pan out. Our search for a longer term abode left us with two choices: Pay through our nose to stay at a creatively furnished Bnb, or find an affordable longer term rental and furnish it ourselves. You’ve read in my last post that I have very mixed feelings about signing a one year rent agreement. But in the process, I’ve learnt so much about minimal desi ..read more

A few weeks ago, I unexpectedly happened to catch up with a friend in Morocco. When she innocently asked what I’d been upto, I blurted out that I felt like a complete idiot. Ever since the pandemic, I’ve been making these big decisions, only to reconsider them a few weeks or months later, and make polar opposite ones. You probably know that I had lived out of two bags since 2013, until the pandemic hit. I guess I was pretty content slow travelling the world as a digital nomad – blogging and freelance writing at the intersection of immersive and sustainable travel. Two or so years of being in l ..read more

The idea of teaching what I’ve learnt over the years – about meaningful travel, impact storytelling and making a living from a combination of the two – first occurred to me when I was travelling in South Africa. A travel blogger friend in Cape Town confessed that she felt lost in the clutter of creators. How could she stand out without losing her soul to Instagram trends? How could she get noticed by brands without having millions of followers? Could she ever make a comfortable living through her passion for travelling? I walked out of that conversation feeling an unfamiliar urge. I suddenly w ..read more

Guest post by Dhruv Khanna (with inputs) In the summer of 2022, I had the opportunity to volunteer travel to the remote Sarmoli village in the Uttarakhand Himalayas. Along with the local organizations Himalayan Ark and Himal Prakriti, I was to organize workshops on visual storytelling for the local community. Before I arrived, my main aim was to share what I had learnt about social media, especially how to reach a wider audience with a meaningful approach. But once I got there, I quickly realized that teaching is always a two-way process. Over the next few days, I was exposed to a whole n ..read more

The idea of teaching what I’ve learnt over the years – about meaningful travel, impact storytelling and making a living from a combination of the two – first occurred to me when I was travelling in South Africa. A travel blogger friend in Cape Town confessed that she felt lost in the clutter of creators. How could she stand out without losing her soul to Instagram trends? How could she get noticed by brands without having millions of followers? Could she ever make a comfortable living through her passion for travelling? I walked out of that conversation feeling an unfamiliar urge. I suddenly w ..read more