Traveling the world from my city
My plan of traveling five countries without leaving Bangalore
I am a traveler. I truly believe that statement. Even though I do not travel all the time, I want to. Specifically, I start craving a new trip exactly five days after returning from one. For those five days, I camp in bed, do laundry, eat home food, and have a great skincare routine. For those five days, I leave the tag behind. But wanting to travel does not always translate to a trip happening. And sometimes there are huge gaps between long trips.
To still satisfy my itch, I decided to start a passion project. To try and explore the world by staying in Bangalore itself! No, I do not mean books or movies, though those are wonderful ways to travel to another place. I plan to try out experiences that I would do if I were in that specific country. The world is such a colorful and diverse place, surely my city can give me a glimpse of it.
I got the idea after reading about an event at BIC that brought Swedish musicians to perform an English opera. I often get astonished at the variety of things happening under my nose as I head to my familiar pub to dance and my regular adda for a chai. So I posted on Instagram, asking people for recommendations for countries to explore. But I established some ground rules lest the passion project becomes too passionate and overwhelming :
I did not want to burn myself out or get bored, so I settled on the number five, with one country for one week.
I did not want to pick countries that are not very popular because of the low probability of finding a relevant event/ experience for that. So while I would love to travel to Tuvalu one day, I did not pick it.
I did not want to pick a country that I had already traveled to. An actual travel experience can not be compared with my project so it did not make sense to seek authenticity. I am seeking novelty.
I picked countries from the countries my Instagram friends suggested to me. It ensured there was no bias in my choices.
I hope to find amazing experiences related to the specific country, both culinary and cultural. But even if I do not, I will read and learn more about the country.
After a lot of sifting and seeing what sparks my soul, I ended up on the list below :
China
Bhutan
Africa/Ethiopia
Australia
Scotland
Now of course I have no Idea about any of these countries (Except the capitals, probably the most useless piece of information I remember is the capitals of all countries) but there is no evident Bangalore connection, or that I know of. So I am going to be surprised (yay!) and maybe disappointed (How would I ever find Ethiopian cuisine in my city) but let’s see.
I believe in the power of research and how constraints lead to unexpected things. But more than that, I believe in wasting my time for aesthetic rituals, so I created a calendar of sorts. Thanks to Canva for making me live my designer dreams without being skilled.
As I send this newsletter out, I have already found SO much exciting stuff about China. Sometimes you just need to type the right keywords. I can’t wait to try things out and share in the next newsletter. I will be one country richer, one week at a time:)
