How I Found Myself Addicted to Travel

I was having lunch with a colleague in office and scrolling through the news feed on Facebook. My friend, Nikhil, observed that I looked carefully at the pictures of people who had gone to a vacation. I was not interested in the poses they had made or the cute faces of their babies. I was more absorbed in the places in the background. I noticed each and every detail of the buildings or woods that lay behind the people. Nikhil was trying to have a conversation with me, but when he realized that I was more interested in Facebook, he quietly left after eating.

I apologized to him for not paying attention to him after I reached my seat.

He asked, “Are you getting itchy feet again?”

I nodded and started thinking of arranging my bike and clothes for my upcoming road trip.

“But you have just come from Africa?” he said.

“I know but I have already booked my tickets for Thailand” I said and smiled at him. I told him that I cannot live without traveling to a new place every month. I did not know this truth earlier, but I realized it a few months ago when I could not concentrate on anything in office.

I had become tired of getting restless after every trip, and then I observed that I am addicted to travel. As soon as I finish one trip, I come home thinking that I would sleep for at least a week out of tiredness. However, as soon as two days pass post the trip, I begin feeling irritated with everything. People with narrow mindedness frustrate me, I don’t like being around people with hermit-like tendencies, and I just cannot eat same food every day. I have tried so many recipes around the world that I try to make them at home as well, which in practice has made me a good chef.

One day, I found myself sleeping on a bench in a park near my home. I had come to the park with a family of toddlers. It was fun watching to toddlers for some time, but I was already tired from my month-long vacation in Bhutan. I was scrolling through the MyChoize Car Booking App to get an idea of the prices of the Car Rentals in Delhi. I did not realize when I fell asleep on the bench itself for an hour. When my friends returned from the garden after tending to their toddlers, they clicked photos of me and laughed over me for being a sleeping potato.

Incidents like this make me grasp that I have become a true traveler who does not need the luxuries anymore. There is a huge difference in the interior of my house before and now. Every room in my home used to be chaotic with loads of stuff, which I now understand that I don’t need anymore. I live a minimalistic life and I don’t need to buy expensive things to live a comfortable life.

I am happy to be a traveler at heart. And I intend to be like this for many more years to come!

How I learned new things while traveling in India

Even though I am born and brought up in a small town in India, I did not realize the importance of a few things in life until I started traveling. When I went for my first trip to Haridwar, I did not like the crowded Har ki Paudi, where thousands of people were taking baths at the banks of river Ganga. However, I happened to visit the same holy Indian city again, but we went to a different ghaat that time, and I realized what they call offbeat travel. At that secluded ghat or the riverbank, we could take bath in peace in the pleasantly cold water of the river, sit there for as long as we wanted, and then return to the famous Har ki Paudi to witness the Ganga Aarti. Just because everyone goes to the same tourist place in a famous city does not mean that I also have to do the same.

In the recent times, I keep hearing about offbeat travel, which tells people to go to lesser known places. I smile at such articles when I remember that second visit to Haridwar. While traveling to different cities in India, I try to stay away from things and places that attract a majority of tourists. This is how I am able to explore a lot more about every city. I had heard a lot about Kasol, for example, but I found the place very disappointing as I reached there. It might have been a smoker’s heaven a few years ago, but the place is highly commercialized now. On the other hand, rather than wasting my time in the markets and cafés of Kasol, we hiked ahead to Tosh, where we found the peaceful environment we were looking for.

The same thing happened with my visit to Neemrana this year. When I was looking for hotels in Neemrana, the rooms in the fort palace were skyrocketing, and were certainly not worth the price. So I researched ahead and looked for accommodations nearby because I could not spend more than a night on that vacation. I finally found a hill fort palace in Alwar, the price of which was decent, and I enjoyed my outing with my wife to the core. It was worth spending every penny on that trip because Alwar is a place that does not attract thousands of tourists. Hence, it is not too expensive, still untouched, and people are really humble and nice. What else would you ask for in a weekend getaway when I could quickly rent a car without driver, reach my destination within four hours, and return the next day to Delhi.

Indian villages and small towns have always been my priority when it comes to vacationing. When I got a chance to visit Ujjain, I could not control my curiosity. This ancient city had been on my list of places to visit since a long time. So I prepared a list of the temples I could visit in my two days of stay in Ujjain, took recommendations from a neighborhood friend, and just set off on my road trip to the religious city in Madhya Pradesh. The Ram Mandir ghaat happened to be my favorite place among all mandirs.

The thumb rule of traveling for me is to select untouched places where not many people would want to go. Even if I find a few tourists at such places, they are like-minded people with whom I can discuss the topics of same interest. Once I am done exploring India, I will move ahead to foreign destinations.