The journey: " From Chartered Accountancy to Travel Blogging
- Neel Writes
- Aug 18, 2022
- 4 min read
1. What do you enjoy the most about travelling? What were you doing before becoming a travel blogger?
Travelling is my Ikigai. The idea of planning a trip is much more exciting to me. Also finally landing in a different place, meeting new people, and trying out various cuisines are all very exciting and rejuvenating.
I am not a full-time travel blogger. I work in the financial sector in our finance capital Mumbai. Sharing my travel hacks and tricks for a budget travel through my blog is my hobby.
2. Please share a few facts that most people don’t know about travel bloggers.
Most people feel that travel blogging is all about going to a place, clicking a picture and uploading it on social media. However, it's not as easy as it seems. A lot of time and energy goes into Travel blogging. I write detailed blogs on my website www.touristtotravellers.com and each blog is of approx. 1000 words which are time-consuming.
Another misconception is that every travel blogger either on social media or having a blog makes money but that’s not the case. You need to have a certain number of followers to start making money and for brands to start noticing your work with you.
3. Share a story behind your own website, we would like to know a bit more about it.
I was known in my friends and family circle to always plan trips on a budget.
For e.g. I planned a 7-day Thailand trip with my friends at a cost of 55,000 all-inclusive.
I planned a 9-day trip to Turkey covering 4 locations for my husband and me for 150,000 all expenses included. This budget planning finally led to the advent of my website www.touristtotravellers.com
Now I cover additional topics such as hotel staycation/review (mostly resorts around Mumbai & Pune) and write about my adventure experiences such as Skydive in South Africa, Bunjee Jump in South Africa, Paragliding in Turkey etc
In fact, if any of your readers plan a stay at any of the properties mentioned in the blog and if they mention my website name to the resort/ hotel then they will be entitled to an additional discount.
4. Will you share with us about your favourite travel bloggers on Instagram and why they inspire you?
I would say that I have been lucky to come across some amazing hard-working travel bloggers who are creating some amazing content. They don’t seem to be in the rat race to increase their fan following but they are following their passion for travel/photography and doing a splendid job at that. They are;
1. mytravellingstilettos
2. Reverse. wanderdiaries
3. Northstalgia
4. Joyofjourney_
5. Insane_filters
6. Shuttertrail
7. Adventureonavenger
8. Finding. destinations
9. The_travel_monster
10. I_anamikagupta
I would have loved to list more but then the list will go on 😊
5. If I am a new travel blogger, what should I write in my first post or blog?
That depends on whether you are pursuing it as a hobby or want to make something out of the blog and add revenue streams.
If it’s a hobby then you can write about any topic
If you want to make money out of the blog then you need to learn about SEO. Find out about topics where you can rank better on google and then write about those topics.
It’s a slow journey where one has to be consistent and patient.
6. Share about your family and support systems
I am lucky to have a great family that supports my hobby. I have recently had an addition to my family with the birth of my baby girl so life is revolving around her of late 😊
7. What was the most challenging day of your life as a traveller?
I am glad you asked this question. Not everything you see on Instagram is true and not all happy faces have an awesome life. Life is never perfect and we all have our ups and downs.
I won’t speak about a particular day but will mention a particular trip where a lot of things went haywire. We were headed to Istanbul and we had read that a lot of theft happens on the tram and metro however never did I anticipate that after taking all precautions my wallet would be flicked on the tram! That too was on the very first day in Istanbul when we had just headed from the airport. Luckily, I have a habit of always keeping my money in an envelope instead of my wallet so when my wallet got flicked, I didn’t lose any significant money.
Another incident took place wherein our hotel cancelled our reservation a day before we are to arrive at this place called KAS in Turkey. Luckily the hotel sent someone to pick us up from the bus stop and checked us into a 5-star resort (we were lucky to get an upgrade). Though we had our heart set on the hotel where the reservation got cancelled, we were thankful to the hotel for being considerate towards us.
8. Share about your favourite destination with our readers?
My favourite is hands down Turkey. Being from India one has to consider the conversion value of the currency v/s the Indian rupee. Not only is Turkey not a very expensive country but unlike the normal impression of it being a Muslim country, it's very diverse. It's rich in history and culture, its cuisine is exquisite and they use a lot of spices like India. It gives you the best of both Asian cultures and is known as the gateway to Europe.
9. On this note, please share your success mantra and social media ids, links to our readers
I don’t really have a success mantra. I would say do as you please and follow your heart and that will lead the way.
Instagram handle: https://www.instagram.com/touristtotravellers/
Website: www.touristtotravellers.com
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