It was a hot summer morning when I mailed Ishita Khanna, the co-founder of Ecosphere, a social enterprise in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh. At that point, I was a desperate traveller at my workstation in Mumbai. After an exchange of 42 emails across months of planning, my first solo trip to Spiti was finalised. It was…
Read More
As the wheels touched the runway of Leipzig/Halle Airport in Saxony, eastern most state of Germany, I could sense the cold weather outside from within the aircraft. My face, however, was gleaming like a spring blossom. I was ecstatic to finally be in Germany. Leipzig was first of my three destinations in Saxony. On assignment…
Read More
There is no dearth of places to stay on the Indonesian island, Bali. But there are some places that set the tone of our travel no sooner we enter them. The Anvaya Beach Resort in Kuta was one of them. On a humid afternoon, I landed on Bali’s Depensar Ngurah Rai International Airport, which was a…
Read More
A late evening flight from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was scheduled to take me to one of my top three dream destinations—Japan. I have read about the Land of the Rising Sun since childhood and obsessed about its art and food most of my adult life. Like all superstitious travellers, I warded off any…
Read More
About 110 kilometres away from the state capital, Patna, Bodhgaya is a popular pilgrimage destination for Buddhists. The first time I visited this dusty town in 2013, I didn’t know I would return thrice over and it was deepen my inclination for Buddhism manifold. As I concluded my fourth travel to Bodhgaya, I knew I…
Read More
After my session at a panel discussion last year, a number of women came up to me and asked what motivated me to travel by myself. I found myself giving various reasons why travelling solo works for me—it is liberating, I can wake up early, it helps me fish out personal stories of locals and…
Read More
