Month: November 2017

solo female travellers

Safest Indian Cities For Solo Female Travelers

Published by Dev

This post on safest Indian towns for women travellers has been written by a guest blogger, Purvi Kamaliya, who has been on her solo adventures in India for the past 4 years. She has been hitchhiking, camping, trekking, cycling and exploring the offbeat and unseen places around the country, while regularly articulating her experiences in her blog Travel Hippies. Speaking on the issue of women travelling and safety in India, this is what she has to advise. 8 Safest Indian Towns For Solo Female Travelers The safety issue is the first thing that comes in the mind of solo female travellers planning to explore India but according to me, such considerations are completely pointless as the crime against women exists everywhere in the world. You might need to be as vigilant in India as you need to be in any other country. I have travelled to the interiors of certain towns tagged as ‘unsafe’ and I realised that the scenario was completely opposite.  However, consider a few curious stares and creepy smiles common if you …

How To Approach Tourism Boards For Travel Blogging Sponsorships

Published by Dev

Of late I’ve been fielding questions from bloggers and non-bloggers alike about how to score travel blogging sponsorships from tourism boards. So before anything, let’s understand a few things: Tourism boards are the government organisations responsible for the tourism of a particular town, or a country. A city may have its own tourism board, eg. Zurich city has Zurich Tourism Board, despite the country, Switzerland, having one — Switzerland Tourism Board. For a travel-blogger, working with a Tourism Board is as much an achievement as playing in the national team for a sportsman. The more you have worked with tourism boards, the more successful you will be considered as a travel blogger. Media Trips organised by Tourism Boards are called FAM trips, or the Familiarization trips. Now, if you’ve just started blogging and are wondering if your profile is strong enough for a tourism board to sponsor you, remember that there’s no ‘magic number’, that, when crossed, makes you eligible for scoring FAM trips. As long as you send the right pitch to the right tourism board, …

Different Ways Of Making Money Travel Blogging

Published by Dev

One of the frequently asked questions that travel bloggers come across is how do they make money from blogging, and it is only natural for someone to ask so. I mean travelling is an expensive hobby. You spend a week-long holiday in Goa and you end up bleeding a couple of thousand Rupees, at the very least. So how do full-time travel bloggers keep travelling eternally, without having a permanent source of income, or a day job, rather? Well, the answer is, they make money from their travel blog. If you dedicatedly work on your blog, you eventually start making money out of it. Most bloggers who blog full-time start making money during the first year of their blogging-stint. Though of course, the money generated is often never enough, and most bloggers have to rely on other sources of income (for example, I initially relied on freelancing to make money, and now I have a travel business established in the mountains that contributes to my travel needs — Read: How I Make Money Travel Blogging) there …

Rügen

How To Create A Media Kit For Your Travel Blog

Published by Dev

When I started blogging in 2016, I had no idea what a media kit is, and how crucial can be if I want to travel the world as a travel influencer. I remember for the initial few months of blogging, I contacted about a hundred travel companies and wrote them emails without a media kit attached to it, and it either gave me no positive response or no response at all. Though back in days, I thought it was because of the fact that I was new at blogging and my readership wasn’t impressive enough, now that I  look back at it, I know that I didn’t get any (positive) response from them because my email spoke of my inexperienced blogger-self. A 500-word long email with no media kit attached was, in fact, the reason — consider sending a 500-word email to an employer with no attached resume. So, having a media kit is important, particularly if you’re looking at blogging as a long-term plan and want to gain travel sponsorships and even make money …

coorg pictures

5 Must See Holiday Destinations In Kerala

Published by Dev

Kerala holds enough charisma with its stunning beaches on the Malabar Coast, green patches of coffee and tea plantations in the east, and the many intertwining backwater canals that can be found all across the state. Rich in heritage, abundant in wildlife and tropical charm, Kerala will give you that relaxing, laid-back vacation, that you are looking forward to. And for some quick assurance, here are my top five hand-picked destinations in Kerala: Bekal: Located in the Kasargod district on the west coast of Kerala (about one and a half hour drive from Mangalore) Bekal boasts of many scenic attractions and an offbeat holiday experience. Attractions like the Bekal Fort, a feisty beach and calm backwaters moreover always add to the experience. Enjoy the sun-kissed beaches from Bekkal Cliff and coconut palms that sway in the breeze with a view of the emerald ocean on the horizon. And if you’re planning a short visit only, look no further than staying at Taj Bekal. Spread across 26 acres of beautiful open space, with an amazing view of the sea & backwaters, Taj Bekal is a visual delight. Periyar Tiger Reserve: Thekkady is home to Kerala’s largest …

How To Find Travel Blogging Sponsorships And Travel The World For Free

Published by Dev

Finding travel blogging sponsorships and travel the world for free isn’t a tough thing to do. You just need to know HOW! When people come across my blog and find out that I’ve been travelling the world for years without having any permanent source of income (no, my dad isn’t supporting my traves!) first thing they ask me is how I fund myself. Those familiar with the business of travel blogging, more closely, rather ask: how I find sponsors for my travels. So first things first: unlike as a fashion or a tech-blogger, surviving as a travel blogger requires a combination of two things: one, making money from blogging, and two, finding sponsors and travelling the world for free. Because unlike with other forms of blogging (take tech-blogging, for instance) in travel blogging, every story requires a bit of money investment. For example, a blog post on the latest Android version may not require you to pay for anything to get the content but just an update in your phone, whereas a blog post on travelling …

solo traveller

My Biggest Solo Travelling Lessons

Published by Dev

When you’ve been travelling for long enough, you start calculating the benefits. You wonder whether your solo travels have made you a better and stronger person and whether all these journeys, that you’ve so far taken, have given you a deeper understanding of yourself – from within, and without. You wonder if you want to keep continue travelling, or is it about time to find some stillness in life and look for a purpose in another direction. I’ve been wondering the same thing, repeatedly asking myself the same question – what is it that I’ve gained through all these years of solo travelling. Has it made me a better person and perhaps a bit stronger too from within. Do I want to keep continue doing it? And the answer that came to me was a sure “Yes!” My Biggest Solo Travelling Lessons Solo Travelling Has Made Me A Decision Maker Before I started travelling solo I was a team player and not a leader. My decisions would wait for others. But as I started travelling solo, …

How To Travel From Kuala Lumpur To Penang

Published by Dev

Wondering what’s the best way to travel from Kuala Lumpur to Penang? Let’s calculate and compare! Penang is one of those rare frozen-in-time places which connects centuries-old history with today’s modern lifestyle. It caters to history buffs, travel photographers and nature-lovers. It’s one of those offbeat, yet equally popular places at the same time that has still maintained its laid-back vibe and an old town charm. In short… Penang is Amazing. And with that fact, comes the hard reality — soaring popularity and increasing tourist inflow. More and more tourists are travelling to Penang every day. The good thing is, however, getting to Penang is easier than you can imagine. You have options to choose from. The basis of time it takes and how much it costs, here’s my way of understanding how to best travel from Kuala Lumpur to Penang, or the vice-versa. If You Want To Travel Superquick, Pay Not So Much But Miss The Journey — FLY  Costs around 700 Indian Rupees (nearly 10 USD) — somewhere between what a bus and train costs. Quicker than both bus and train — total three …

beas river manali

Offbeat Destinations Near Manali For A Peaceful Holiday

Published by Dev

The town of Manali, in Himachal Pradesh, is one of the top tourist destinations in Indian Himalayas. Its close proximity to New Delhi and Chandigarh is moreover continuously making it easier for the crowds to break away from the usual city-madness and experience the peaceful Himalayas. And with the upcoming 4-way highway, all the way from Chandigarh to Manali (with New Delhi to Chandigarh already having one) it is going to be easier than ever for people to reach Manali — meaning, Manali is going to get more crowded, more smokey and bustling with life in the coming years. Recently while travelling to Manali (long story short: I visit Manali and surrounding a few dozen times a year, while staying for a few dozen weeks. I know the place better than my home New Delhi) I realised that Manali isn’t a place I would want to travel to. And it also isn’t a place I would write a Travel Guide for — Things To See And Do In Manali! Not anymore! The idea of having a …

Travel With A Backpack Or A Suitcase?

Published by Dev

A die-hard budget backpacker rolling a ‘pretty’ suitcase on the wild-west Kuala Lumpurian streets, sounds confusing right? That’s exactly what I was doing — struggling between the hard choices of lifting and rolling an 18 kg suitcase — while making my way from Kuala Lumpur to Penang Island. It all happened when I was invited by Selangor Tourism for a 5-day blogging trip in the Selangor region, in Malaysia, and an idea struck my mind that ‘I don’t want to look the odd one in the group, carrying a backpack.’ A quick phone call to another blogger, who was accompanying me on the trip, and my fear turned into reality. Everybody else was attending the trip like a fancy tourist. Reluctantly, I decided to put my hard-earned respect at stake, ditched my backpack behind, for the first time in my previous 2-year travel stint, and carried along a nice-looking suitcase. Yes, I decided to carry a rolling suitcase than my beloved backpack! An Easy Lesson, Learned The Hard Way As soon as my FAM trip was finished, and …