Of late, I’ve been feeling insanely selfish and protective of many of the places I’ve been fortunate enough to visit over the past few years. Stunning locations that are close to my heart, mountains that showed me the life-saving power of wilderness, places where I’ve made warm memories and close friends. Places that are now slowly being dragged out of the safety of anonymity, ritually drowning in litter, noise and Insta-fame.

I just did a quick Google search on “Instagram ruining places” to find the search pages filled with never ending articles and stories of people being stupid for the sake of likes on the current darling of social media platforms. It is clear Instagram is here to stay and it is also clear Instagram is ruining places. Take New Zealand’s Wanaka Tree or Norway’s Trolltunga or Greece’s Santorini Sunset Point or Sweden’s Broccoli Tree among many others. All these places hit their peak popularity on Instagram and have already paid the price for being Insta-famous.

This new medium to show off perfect lives, score brownie points for daredevilry and brag about how clued in one is to the current zeitgeist of being an “intrepid explorer”, is coming at a great cost. Not only are our beautiful places are being lost to irresponsible tourism, lives are also being lost in the process. I cannot dictate how much one should be invested in their vanity but what I’m really concerned about is the environmental cost of this new obsession.

Closer to home, I can offer Ladakh’s Chadar trek, Maharashtra’s many dizzying fort hikes in Sahyadris, Himachal’s Jibhi as examples of places “discovered” on Instagram that are now facing the unmitigated wrath of the masses. If the rest of the world is on one level, India is on another level altogether when it comes to our population and the mind-boggling potential we have in unleashing swift destruction of the places we love.

I can't believe it has come to this that *I* am giving career advice. But given the number of emails I receive on "how to be a travel writer" or "how to fund my travels", even from students as young as in high school, I'm inclined to issue a warning and perhaps some helpful advice. Because what worries me is that they want to jump right into it as a career option without bothering about the nature of work that could sustain this lifestyle.

(Full disclosure: I have quit my corporate job to travel more and I fully recommend it. But my warning is to consider the issues I discuss below before quitting.)

Brace yourself, long post ahead! If you're contemplating quitting your job to travel the world, this is for you. If you're not but looking to travel, head straight to this section - What you could do instead of dreaming of quitting your job to travel.

Lifelong travel is a means to no end. Seriously!

All those who seem to travel forever, do some kind of work. (Ridiculous that some people think they don’t work, they work very hard!) These people, they’ve hustled and found ways to sustain themselves while on the road. But hustling for a year or two or five, is absolutely great. Anything beyond frankly is tiring and pointless in my opinion. 90% of those Internet people who pontificated quitting their jobs to travel the world have gone back to steady jobs and the few who didn't they have hit the jackpot only by creating businesses and innovative sources of income out of their addiction. So you see, people cannot travel the world forever; you'd be mighty bored and will run out of money before you get there! Heck, even Nomadic Matt has thought of settling down and started a hostel for crying out loud! Maybe you'd go around the world in 8 years or in 80 days but only wanderlust isn't going to sustain forever.

While it is an enticing idea to go on an endless vacation, the reality is much more boring and the idea equally asinine. If travel is the cure for ennui, endless travel without an agenda will bring back the same ennui you tried to escape in first place. If you’re wondering this is not true, look back at your own travels. What amazed you on your first trip most certainly wouldn’t amaze you the same way now after 20 trips.

It isn't always practically possible, to live a life of constant travel

I can't peddle a life of travel because some of us might be privileged enough to have no responsibilities but that's not the case with everyone. The way people speak about this makes me very uncomfortable. What is going to happen tomorrow if everyone starts quitting his or her jobs and travel? The few of us who have these glamorous jobs writing about travel is only possible because others are doing their so called "boring" jobs and paying for our indulgences. They are busy running the world!

Encouraging people to follow their dreams is noble. Asking to do so by brushing off the circumstances in one wide stroke of laziness or reluctance is downright cruel. I see this happening time and again over social media and in all those gushing blog posts proselytizing quitting jobs to travel, and this gets on my nerves to no end. By all means, encourage people to follow their dreams. But before doing that, acknowledge your own privilege. A person from the slums and a middle class person do not start from the same rung of the ladder; let's not even act as if it is anything else. Our troubles are the worst, but only to us, let's not make a mountain out a molehill. That's one reason I do not share much about my life or struggles after quitting my job. I need time to make sense of what's happening, of my future and also to understand how to project it in a realistic way.

Before heading straight to the "quit your job to travel" section, I would highly suggest keeping a tab on reality too. Perhaps you need to spend time with family or take care of a loved one or work on a dream project that requires your time, being on the road constantly is highly overrated not the only way to see the world. Do what we do best, adapt and make best use of what's available to us instead of dreaming of hitting the road indefinitely. Hustling to travel constantly sounds fancy, but what it is in reality is the same old drudgery packaged with different rewards and issues minus a cubicle, office politics and perhaps ennui.

Sense of accomplishment is crucial to our happiness, choose wisely!

We spend a better part of our life doing work, whatever it is that we choose to do. If it's not enjoyable, if it's not motivating, if we're not proud of what we're creating, we'll be hopelessly lost in the long run. Looking back at the last few years of my life, I do not want to look at a string of influencer marketing deals that made me richer but left nothing but a trail of product recommendations in my wake. Neither do I want to see a binder full of clips in high-end magazines telling people where the hottest luxury hotel has just opened or gush about a well-worn tourist trail. Either way, I could've made a lot of money if I so wished and would've travelled a lot too. But there would've been the same void that I failed to fill in my corporate life - a bottomless pit of discontent at not creating something that I considered useful.

Money is important to our general well being. But the most important thing that gets swept under the rug for some strange reason is work satisfaction. When you come to me asking for advice on how to quit your job to travel, it shows that you have given no thought to the work that you want to put behind it. What's the worst you are willing to do to travel? Do you have a threshold and how long can you put up with meaningless jobs? Do you have a particular liking to one aspect or kind of travel? You need to consider finding work that aligns with your interest and liking. For instance, even though I'd get to travel, I'd be downright miserable writing luxury hotel reviews for even a reputed publication because it is just not what I want and it's just not the right fit for me.

So while a life of travel might sound enticing, at the end of the day, you need to feel proud of the work you are putting out. You'll achieve lasting satisfaction when you find a worthy reason to wake up every morning, when you find a meaning to your passion.

What you should look for instead?
Some sort of purpose that intersects with your passion.

It might look like I'm veering into boring philosophical territory here, but stay with me because if you're contemplating quitting your job to travel, this is pertinent. I remember having many conversations with friends and strangers fraught with anxiety and disenchantment of the "normal" lifestyle. These people were so depressed, they were happy to join any company and do anything that would allow them to travel. But you cannot lead a lifetime with a purpose as shallow as "traveling for fun".

So many of my friends started something dreamy, quickly realized working in the travel industry too comes with the same old constraints of routine grunt work, along with the insane rollercoaster ride of emotions and conflicts thrown in as an entrepreneur, and have now settled comfortably in their lives. But they’ve done so with the added contentment that they at least tried. Few have gone on to make a living out of travel. Those who succeeded had a passion that went beyond travel, an underlying motivation that pushed them through the infinite hurdles.

If money or time was no consequence, what is it that you'd want to do every single day of your life? After lounging on the beach or a hilltop for months, you'll want to do something of consequence. So even though it may seem like money or travel or luxury makes you happy at the moment, once these things are achieved you'll be looking for something more.

Ever since I realized this, I’ve changed how I travel. I now exclusively pursue novelty and stories instead. Why? It makes me feel alive and it gives me something to tell. Here, this is a passion that could translate into a tangible result instead of something as fleeting and generic as seeing beautiful places or traveling for fun. Novelty is the fuel to my passion and sharing that story to the world gives purpose to my passion. Life has been so much simpler ever since I realized this. (The reason I enjoy writing for reputed publications more than my blog is this, I enjoy reaching as many people as possible.)

Find what fuels your passion and what gives meaning to it.

Here's what being a travel writer entails.

Travel writing is a lot like unrequited love. You go through a lot for a very little in return but you do it anyway because you love it. Not because you get to travel, but because you get a high from publishing. I'm going to expound this more in another post in future but take this on face value for now - getting into travel writing hoping you'll get to travel is going to be the sure-fire way to kill your interest in both travelling and writing.

Here's what being a travel blogger entails.

You could put in the same kind of work, writing wise, into your blog and succeed as a travel blogger without the insecurities of publishing industry. But again, you'll succeed only if you're driven to create quality content consistently for absolutely no return while bootstrapping, interacting and engaging with your followers, creating an illusion and feeding their curiosity persistently, and marketing your lifestyle or life story obsessively. As you see, if you don't have a passion for blogging, social media and a certain affinity to self-promote to begin with, you won't succeed here either.

In the same vein, to be successful as a travel photographer, you need to be really passionate about photography first and also be good at it! And be prepared to be a one-man army in running your business.

It's not all hunky dory. It is work. Do you have passion for this kind of work? If not, how different is this - doing any job for travel that is - from choosing a meaningless job for the reward of a salary or travel? You'll be back to resenting your life in no time! The only difference is now you're both miserable and penniless. In your corporate job, at least you were not penniless.

I couldn't put it any more eloquently than Mark Manson who elaborately explains you need to be in love with both the result and the struggle required to get to the result, to succeed in an unconventional pursuit. Travel is the reward and the drudgery you're willing to put up with, is what you have to figure out. "Our struggles define our successes, so choose your struggles wisely my friend", he says. Couldn't agree more, go read his superb piece linked below and come back to see what you could do about travel.

The most important question of your life - How do you choose to suffer?

(While you're at it, see if whatever you have in mind is going to pass the litmus test of positively getting through these questions? 7 Strange Questions That Help You Find Your Life Purpose)

***

Here's what you could do instead of dreaming of quitting your job to travel:

1. Find a suitable job that allows you to travel and pays you well

Look no further than fellow traveller Anshul Chaurasia who I profiled on my blog earlier. With a well paying corporate job and meticulous planning, he’s on his way to seeing as much of the world as possible. If you even remotely enjoy the work you do, this is the best approach to fund your travels. Read: You don't have to quit your job to travel. Here's why!

2. Find a passion that also allows you to travel

Passion's the operative word here. That passion could be storytelling, videography, photography, research, conservation, science, activism, documentary filmmaking or even teaching! Then it wouldn’t be like you are travelling to feed your passion, your passion itself would take you places. This is the kind of work that sustains over a long period, very long period.

3. Work towards a location independent lifestyle

I cannot recommend this enough. It's a miracle that we're now in a place that allows us to work remotely. In my opinion, this is one the best things to come out of Internet proliferation for the common public. Take out all the horrible work things that ties you to a location like long commutes, useless meetings, constraints that require to you to be present physically and your work no longer is the noose around your neck. Instead it is now your ticket to freedom!

4. Sort your priorities. Do a SWOT analysis. Make a plan.

List your goals and work towards them. Travel cannot be an actionable goal. X amount of money and Y days of vacation is. Think hard, figure out what’s important to you and also what’s acceptable to you - and then find some middle ground.

5. Hustle or Save up. Then go for a gap year!

Earn and save up. Travel for a year or two. Get back to your job and life. Repeat. For this, hustle away to glory. From SEO links to influencers ads to barter exchanges to random “flavour of the season” neo-digital media campaigns, everything goes. But be warned, don’t think of this as your long-term strategy because in the long run, this sort of hustling sucks big time. Hustle to find your path, not to stay on it forever.

Travel. (Work) Satisfaction. Money.

If you’re not intent on arriving at this winning trifecta at some point in your journey, I would suggest to not bother with quitting your stable job to travel the world forever, because you might end up in the same old rut you tried to escape and it’s only going to be much worse this time.

In the end, all I want to say is there is no need to mix travel and work. If you do, do it wisely and it can be immensely gratifying. Or keep them separate and have the best of both worlds!

Related reading:

A comprehensive primer for Digital Nomads & location independent entrepreneurs by Legal Nomads

When will you travel out of India?

It is one of the most frequent questions I get asked. How long will you keep wandering here (in India)? Seems the entire existence of my blog has been a lost cause! I started this blog when I started (re)discovering India. I wanted everyone to know there was so much to see here. I have ranted here before and there's a very good chance I might get into that mood by the end of this post. :) Let me warn you dear reader, this post addresses those who keep insinuating that I should travel out of India to really “travel”. If you are just curious, by all means do read the post but don’t get offended because I am not really addressing you when I say “you”, it is the insinuators!

Is this really in India?

As I grew up, I had dreams like most. Seeing the snow capped peaks of Switzerland topped the list, deserts, pyramids, Eiffel Tower and what not! In fact so much so that, I thought India had no marvels so to speak. Even up till three years ago, I was still dreaming of that Phoren Trip! Then I started traveling within India. Then I met the Mountains!

In the very early days, when I was just posting travel stuff on the internet from my treks, I was asked many times if this was in India. Such great confidence we have in our country or perhaps it was plain ignorance that no place so beautiful can be in India. I still see this question being asked on many photos from many people. Of course it is India, if you ever cared you would know!

There is a thing called A-G-E-N-D-A!

My first and last love will always be the Mountains. It started with Western Ghats and ended at Himalayas. The world's mightiest peaks are right here, almost like next door. Why in the world would I want to go anywhere else? There's a thing called agenda! Different people have different agenda. While many travel to just go out and have a good time, there are few like me who always have a specific agenda in mind. Few travelers might be on a cultural quest, few on a heritage trail, few on a culinary trail, and few on an adventure trail or more. If you are looking for birds-of-paradise, damn right you are, in saying what are you doing in India, you have to be in some exotic rainforest of New Guinea. And if you love mountains, there couldn't have been a better place! My love of the mountains is indescribable. Just for starters, look at the amazing collection of Indian Himalayas. There are so many treks that I want to do and so many mountains to climb here! Remember? My agenda is not to have a million postcard pictures in front of the Empire State building or Windsor Castle or St. Peter's Basilica or London Eye! I want to climb mountains and they are right here, right next to me. So, sorry to disappoint you but I am not going anywhere outside in near future! Maybe Afghanistan or Pakistan, for its amazing Himalayas again, but that isn’t fancy enough for you I suppose!

I see no purpose in telling the same old stories. I want to tell new stories!

For starters, just google for Nagaland, Manipur, Nicobar or Chhattisgarh and tell me if you found any good information on places there. Now, then google for Rajasthan, Kerala, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and tell me what you found. It is our own folly that we have stereotyped India to be those few states and comfortably forgotten the rest of the states. These famous destinations have been written about over and over again by many publications so far. And it amazes me that such less documentation is available on the other states. I do not want to have a conversation where I say “Taj Mahal was beautiful” and you say “Oh yeah! It is very beautiful.” Both of us know it is beautiful and end of conversation.

Instead, I want to tell you how amazing the lakes of Kashmir were and I want you to tell me how that poacher in Arunachal Pradesh turned into an active conservationist. I want to tell new stories and there are so many of them, untold.

I am not infinitely rich!

I know the world is a beautiful place and there are many many countries that I do want to visit! Trust me! But my priorities are totally different, I admire nature alright. But I do not have infinite resources backing me to take infinite trips to any place I fancy. I don't travel to take a vacation. I travel to learn, to be inspired, to witness nature's glory. So, traveling to New York or Paris or Rome or Singapore or any other fancy location is practically useless for me. I really don't consider going to any of these places travel (in my dictionary). People travel for different reasons. Mine simply doesn't include any cities in the itinerary. If India was all about culture and temples and religion, I would’ve been first to travel outside the country.

Yes, on the other hand I would like to climb some mountain or glacier in Alaska or Chile, if you would sponsor the trip. But otherwise I am not all that rich to spend all my money to just fly down to Alaska, climb one mountain and come back. I could do so many trips to Himalayas with that money. Simple logic, really!

It is an amazing Country. Oh wait a minute, it is your country too, remember?

And it is really not just about mountains. It is about exploring my immediate surroundings, my country. Even a year won’t be enough to see India entirely. Ask any outsider who has visited India and they will all say the same thing. Many have come back and stayed here for years together. Such is the charm of our country. I am just a weekend traveler taking few travel breaks in a year and all my travel days put together won’t be more than 150 days. It’s like just 5 months and how much would I be able to see in such a short time? I haven’t even seen a quarter of India’s glory. I haven’t even stepped into 19 of 35 states and Union Territories of India! The more I have traveled, the more I understood how much more there is to be seen. India is an exquisite country geographically speaking, so much variety it has to offer apart from the incredible people, history and culture. Before I knew any better, Phoren trip was all I ever wanted, but now, all I want is to explore the unseen beauty of our country.

No! Once and for all, no, it isn't all the same!

If "when will you travel out of India" is the most irritating question, another stupid question that comes quite close is why do you keep going back to Himalayas? Why do you keep trekking in Western Ghats? Isn't it all the same? No! Once and for all, no it isn't all the same! Western Ghats is a 1600km long stretch running from Gujarat to Kerala and you think it is all the same? I won't even begin to talk about the diversity of the Himalayas. It is as sad as saying siblings are all same, they all look same anyway to an outsider. Does that mean they are not different persons with totally different individual traits? Only those close to them would know how different the two siblings are. Only those who keep going back would know how different these mountains are.

Isn’t it strange enough that foreigners have been the first to arrive to most of the spectacular places in India? They were first to arrive at Ladakh as travelers, same with Spiti. You will see more foreigners there than Indians. Kutch always featured in the foreigner’s “India trip” while we ourselves were quite late in even realizing there is something to see in those barren lands. Very recently when a group of Indian Trekkers entered the remote valleys of Kashmir, the army there was surprised to see domestic visitors. Apparently foreigners have been trekking that route regularly but not Indians, and here I was thinking we are exploring unknown lands. India is way too big to be contained in a Lonely Planet guide book or two. I’ve had it enough. I want to discover my own secret destinations, call them our country’s best kept secrets if you will. If not us, who will write about our wonderful Country?

At the end of it, it might seem to you that this could be a case of the sour grapes! But let me assure you, it is not. I want to travel outside of India too, but exploring my home ground would be of a higher priority any day. Imagine sitting with a group of travelers and while everybody is telling great things about their country, I’d be talking about great things of other countries! Something doesn’t feel quite right about that picture. And even if I do travel out of India, it would be to a country whose name you haven’t heard of. Try Kyrgyzstan or Eritrea for instance.

Maybe that is why I am not traveling out of India yet. To answer your question, to tell you that there is so much to see here!

It will be almost a year to the tragedy this July, the Himalayan Cycling trip tragedy. If not a tragedy I can only call it a farce. Now when I look back and think of the things that I did, I was wondering what the hell I was thinking anyway.

The power of a bored mind and a crazy idea is way too great than you and I can fathom. When I was done having all kinds of crazy adventures and the adrenaline wasn't rising high enough, I decided it was time to do something a notch above my usual crazy adventure scale. Out of all the things thrown at me through "The Wall" on facebook, I somehow managed to pickup cycling as my next adventure. Because a friend or two unwittingly posted a video or two on mountain biking, I assumed "The Universe" was telling me something, I was so glad I finally communicated with the Universe, under the guise of listening to my heart I was actually listening to Facebook! 

Well it could've been the funniest thing if not for the other things that went awry on the trip. Spirits were flying high, I put together an awesome team, printed T-shirts with a logo that I personally made, then we went shopping for the missing gear, learned how pack/unpack bikes, transport them and a lot of other things. Well it seems what I forgot in all this was that to bike in the Himalayas, you just don't need some branded imported bikes and stuff. You also need some stamina and strength. Before I fall flat on my nose, let me brag, even if it lasts just for a second.

I have taken pride in the fact that I have never ever entered a gym or went through any sort of physical training so far in my life. Only the treks that I have done are about as much training as I get. I am not even regular on those treks these days because I if I don't write on my blog or publish a photo, the world will end, no seriously! So I was so busy planning the routes, shopping, bragging everywhere of the Great Himalayan Cycling Trip, that I totally forgot to train for the trip, at all! Well this could've been the only funny thing, if not for the other things.

So when we assembled the bikes back and started cycling one evening, I felt the head wind to be far greater than expected, the weight of the backpack on the cycle to be pulling me back and the smallest gradient to be much more daunting. I thought I was just too tired today and I will get used to it. Either that or my body hadn’t acclimatized yet, we were cycling at an altitude of 3800meters directly. Next day when I was feeling terribly weak, the saner thing to do would’ve been to take a bus and go to the next camp, but no, I am the mighty Neelima, how can I give up already, so I went ahead cycling. Only to fall sick immediately, my body temperature was rising and my heart was beating so fast and loud it could be heard back in Bangalore. 

We took rest for a day alright then did some major offroading on a new route, which got me excited. I was still sick but was determined too, I fell, tumbled, got up, and went ahead for the next 12 kms. It was good fun. We continued the ride for another 40kms which was good fun too and I finished the day on the bike.

The next few days everything I did was just a trigger for something that could go horribly wrong. While still struggling with fever and a mild case of common cold, we sat one night to have chilled beer in the cold night. Only after I gulped down one entire bottle, the brilliant mind of mine shouted “Hey, shouldn’t you be having something warm for your cold?” But the damage was done already. Next day, the four of us were so hungover we couldn’t get out of the bed till evening! Days later when I was telling my story to a German, he stopped me and said “So you were planning on biking for two weeks in Himalayas and then summiting a 6000 meter peak and this is how you were keeping yourself fit?” Hmmm. Good question!

After advising everyone on the team a thousand times about the importance of taking care of your health in the Himalayas, to me it deemed fit to disregard my own advice. By now I was royally sick. Sick enough that I needed some support to walk long but I still managed. I hitchhiked my way to the subsequent camps while the boys rode and joined me every evening. 

Now it would’ve still been fine if I was continuing what I was doing, hitchhiking my way out of Spiti but how can the adventure end already. I had to make matters worse, so I took my cycle and headed towards Chandratal, on a trail that hasn’t been cleared yet, for yet another true off-roading experience. But my condition was so pathetic, every small stone that got under the tire was giving me a headache and if I fall, I’d fall straight into the valley, tumbling like Jill! So I thought devil may care, I’ll leave my cycle unattended here and walk to the lake. I walked 16kms and then I dropped dead the moment I saw a huge 2km climb to the lake. It was here that my condition took a turn for worse. Since I couldn’t move a group of bikers agreed to take me back to base camp the next day after an agonizing 24 hour wait. During which time I wondered if I should have made that call to home when I had the chance. Later I started coughing so bad I scared myself to death with thoughts of pulmonary edema! Thankfully a group who had been touring in Spiti through BNHS offered to take me back to Manali. 

Sitting alone in Manali, I was still coughing blood and the doctor’s medicines weren’t working either. It was only then that I decided that the adventure was over. I flew back home, rested, cried, recovered, screamed and then packed my bags again for another adventure with a week, which is why I call myself the wandering soul. ;) 

It may sound like it was a ruined trip but to tell you the truth, it wasn’t. Until about the last few days where I fell life threateningly sick, it was great fun all along, the views, the company and the experience. Without all the helpful folks in Spiti, BNHS people, the bikers and my dear friends, it could’ve been a real tragedy, but thanks to them, it is just a story now. 

I have learnt a thing or two about planning an expedition and preparing for it. Next time I will plan another crazy trip and this time I will finish it, or so we hope! And I write this because, this blog is not just about all the sugar coated sweet moments of travel. Half the times when I travel or go for an adventure, I keep thinking why did I ever get into this! I want you to know it is perfectly alright to doubt your sanity when crazy things are happening around you, but I also want to tell you that these crazy things is what makes for a great story years later! Imagine if someone wants to write a book about you, give him some material, won't you? 

It’s no magic, really!

It is surprising how no one will raise an eyebrow when someone says they took two months off from work because of marriage. And if I say I took a month off from work to travel, the first reaction is something akin to utter disbelief. That concept apparently doesn’t exist here! For the past three years I have heard this question time and again, every single time I meet a new person and every single time I meet an old friend. It gets as irritating as it is funny. Travel is perceived as a time pass and not as the life changing experience that it actually is. This makes someone who travels look like an idiot wasting his life having fun instead of doing something important like watching TV or wandering in the mall. They keep telling me, “I don’t have as much time as you do! “. In my head I retort back saying “I don’t have as much tolerance as you do for the mundane!”

If these are the non-believers there are few others who assume things. Assumptions that I get paid to travel or that I get additional leaves or that I am in the travel industry or my personal favorite, that I don’t work at all, and I am on a perpetual vacation(How I wish it were true!).

Quite recently a friend told me, he took a long break of a year or so to sort out few things, during that time he did travel a lot and came back to start afresh with a new job. He cleared all the technical rounds and then came the dreaded HR round, where someone tries to figure you out based on few questions, and how do they really do that anyway? But the point is, he didn’t say he was traveling during the break, he told sob stories of family problems and he landed the plush job! He says they don’t understand. I agree, they don’t understand, after all how is it possible to assume all these things about me when it is really quite simple. 

So how in the hell do I really manage to get all those leaves then? Let’s do some simple math here.

Number if weekends in a year   – 52*2 (Saturdays and Sundays)

Number of public Holidays       – 12

Number of Leaves at work       – 25

Total                                        – 141 days!

There, is the mystery solved?

What this means is, in a given year, most of us are on leave for almost 40% of the time. We can travel for almost three months in a year. If you apply for a leave of 5 days, you are actually getting 9 days including the weekends. This means in a year you can go for 5 major trips of 10 days each. So you can go to Ladakh, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Andamans and one trip home, all in one year! And if there’s a festival or a public holiday around the corner, include that as well and you will get even more! See, it comes down to planning in the end. How well we plan in advance decides how many vacations we get. Now you know what’s the first thing I do at the beginning of the New Year and in case you don’t, I check the list of holidays, weekends etc and already decide when to go. Where to go is decided on go!

Being in Bangalore certainly has its advantages. Most places around here are just a weekend away. The treks in Western Ghats are doable in two days. Friday night we start and Monday morning we are back in office. No leaves to apply here, it is a weekend right?

Saving up the leaves and encashing them when I resign is not an option for me. I use up all my leaves and more if required but certainly wouldn’t let them be unused. My hometown is also just a weekend away, so there isn’t a need to apply leaves to go home either. All the leaves are used only for trips, not because I felt lazy in the morning to go to office or didn’t feel like working. If those were my excuses for taking a leave, then I wouldn’t have been writing on this blog today. I wouldn’t have traveled as much as I did.

You take all these leaves as well, you go home, get married or do something else that ranks high on your priority list. My priority list pretty much consists only of travel and that’s what I use the leaves for. There isn’t really much difference between what you and I do. You take leaves, I take leaves, we all take leaves, just for different reasons so don’t judge me next time when I tell you I am just back from a vacation.

You know when they say if you really want to do something you’ll find a way and if you don’t want to, you’ll find an excuse. That is true! I find my way to travel somehow. What about you?

More rants and related posts:

Top Five Annoying things to say to a Photographer
Travel and the not so pink and rosy side of it!
Food for Thought - Travel and Conscience!

So people see my travel pictures and think I am living a dream. Yea, remember this word dream for later. Have a lot to say on this but later. Travel can affect you in multiple ways, one of those I had already posted earlier – Food for Thought : Travel and Conscience.

If you travel a lot, you’d already know and if not, then know this – travel is not all that like an everlasting fun ride. It has its moments, both good and bad. As you travel more, you see new things, your perspective changes, your understanding varies, you make new friends and you make new discoveries about yourself and others. Bottom-line – you change, both mentally and physically. As we change, the things we used to like earlier might not appeal to you anymore and worst thing to happen is that feeling of not fitting in anymore. Well this and more, I will talk about in this post.

I am certainly not the person I used to be two years ago. Ask my friends and family about it – they’d know! While I changed for good, there are many things that I had to learn/unlearn for the life I am living now. Let’s start on a lighter note and proceed towards the more serious issues.

Living a dream

There are few who take this sentence to mean literally! Literally as in I am living a dream with no serious commitment towards life whatsoever. Oh right, it is okay to waste three years of your life for an MBA but trying to pursue something that falls outside of the so called acceptable criteria is a serious offence. Try it out, tell somebody you are fighting with all you have to get an entry into a premier institution and look out for the reverence you’d find in their eyes and then tell them you are trying to take photos and sell them – yea, exactly that's the look I am talking about. After a degree from such a prestigious institution, is this what you want do is the question I get so frequently by now I am used to letting it not affect me at all. I smile and walk away. I wonder if these people have never heard of the phrase – To each his own! I am screaming to each his own, people!

My company pays me for doing nothing

Taking a good photograph, infact let me go ahead and say making a good photograph [as the pro would say] is just as much of a tough job as carving a masterpiece out of plain rock. Granted that a top notch quality stone and chisel make the job easier but the rock still has to be carved and chiseled. What people fail to understand most of the time is the effort involved in making one such image. That would still be fine if they didn’t come up and say something really stupid but sometimes those very words makes me want to tell them to go to hell!

Here is a list of five most annoying things that I’d never like to hear and a probable explanation to the ignorant critic [The one who usually says these things] why it is so annoying.

1. Awesome camera = Awesome photos; Awesome place = Awesome photos.

Really? Now this would be the most stupid thing to say, ever! I am sure most of us have heard this since the time we have started taking the first of the shots.

This analogy has also been said time and again and yet I would like to mention it here, one more time. For what it’s worth it is like saying to a writer who has written an amazing novel, “wow, it must be one hell of a pen that you used to write this.” The writer’s pen and the photographer’s camera are just the tools. The skill lies with the person not the tools. Even if you get the settings right, which can be done by reading the manual of the camera, what about composition? What about creativity? How can a place or a camera affect the way your mind thinks and preconceives a great shot? Only once you see and envision, you could try and use the camera to capture the thought and beauty. But the point is, to see.

Check out 10 super shots taken from a phone camera proving my point-

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/10-cameraphone-photographs-that-rock

2. If you take 1000 shots you are bound to get atleast one good shot.