“There is nothing worse than living a life unfulfilled. The world is big and life is short. Go out, take risks and live your dreams.”
The Inception
I was interested in seeing places and learning about people since my childhood. There was this time when I had bunked classes to go around my city all by myself. I was eleven then and there were no such thing called smartphones. I had gone around the city on buses and auto-rickshaws. That was the first time I was travelling alone. Before that, the only opportunity I used to have for travelling was when my parents would decide to take a trip to Nainital where my maternal uncle lived.
Growing up in Bombay, I often used to travel on local trains and get down at random stations. That was how I used to see places. It was only after I got into high school that I went on an organized trip. That was the time when I was getting more and more interested in exploring places. I remember how I used to note down the names of places and landmarks on a diary. I would even draw maps on them so that I could come back to the places I visited.
The Turning Point
After college, I took up a job as a travel guide. I wasn’t great at academics and therefore I decided to do what I was good at. I would use my knowledge about the places around me to enlighten my clients. While I was doing this job, one day I happened to meet a person from Norway. Unlike other clients, who left after paying me, he showed some interest in my life.
He asked me about my future plans and told me about his. I was surprised to know that this man had travelled more than 30 countries till now. He was planning to travel the whole world. This small talk with a stranger had initiated some new hopes in me. I wanted to see the world too. The only thing that was stopping me now was lack of money and the right knowledge.
However, I didn’t let that stop me from doing something. I started to think a lot and worked extra hours to save money for travelling. The money I earned was enough to take me across half of India. But, I had become obsessed with the idea of travelling all around the world. So much so, that I spend more time working and didn’t travel anywhere for more than a year.
The Belief
Eventually, I understood that this was not going to help me. I had to start travelling and do some work while doing so. I created a YouTube channel and started shooting videos of my travel across India. Initially, I didn’t see any results from my efforts, but gradually I noticed some positive feedback. After six months from the day I started filming videos, I had learned a lot. I improved upon my skill of video editing and learned how to reach out to people on the internet. I learned about how I could increase my channel’s reach through social media. All these had made me more and more interested in doing what I was doing.
At one point of time, I firmly started believing that my dream of travelling the world would come true soon. This made me work more smartly and I managed to get 1 lakh subscribers within a year. I earned enough from my channel to start travelling to foreign destinations.
The Medium
A lot of people keep asking me how I travel the world and how I manage to keep track of everything while travelling. Some ask me how I manage to travel to places where I do not know the language. I tell them just one thing – take the help of the internet. This is one of the most powerful mediums we have today. There is nothing that you cannot learn from the internet. For instance, you want to know about the strongest currency in the world, just do a google search. You want to know about the best travel destinations in the world – just do a google search. That’s it. You get the answer. The strongest currency in the world is the Kuwaiti Dinar. Instant answers. It’s just amazing.
That is how I learned about travelling the world and that is how I still travel the world. Although there are paid sponsorships that come my way from time to time, I pay for my travel and do things my own way. That is what makes travelling more interesting.
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