20 countries before 2020

It has been a 5 year long adventure! It hasn’t come to an end, but this marks a milestone.

I started my blog “Exploring Life” with the intention of penning down my thoughts and add my experiences to my book of memories. My blog quotes curious everyday episodes, opinions and my travel tales. What started as an ‘itinerary keeping’ to share with friends took its own form over the years and now I can fondly look back at travels years later.

I am from Madurai, the temple city of India. Hailing from a small town and spending my first 17 years of my life there, the idea of travelling around the world intrigued me. After finishing my bachelors at IIT Madras my parents told me the next step in life is to get married. After spending a month on Matrimonial websites, I decided to break to monotonous tick-boxing attitude in life, get out of my comfort zone, discover the world and pursue my long term desire for travel. (See: Modern Indian’s Struggle with Arranged Marriages )

I love budget travel,backpacking, meeting new people while travelling, hearing their stories and blogging about my experiences. Travelling has changed my view of life for good. I have seen incredible sights I never thought existed, I became more open minded to people from various backgrounds, I started appreciating different cultures for what they are and most of all learnt to live at the moment without worrying about the future! (Quora Answer)

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone! This is something I always had at the back of my head during my adventures. There is life outside that safe secure space we build for ourselves.

Here are some best highlights of my adventures around the globe!

My first scuba diving experience

Living in London.

It was a dream come true. Honestly one of the most stressful and exciting periods, just as the city itself. Had a lot of mishaps; Learnt a lot from them. It changed me as a person.

Solo trip to Barcelona

This was the first time I had traveled to another country solo. Beaches, Gaudi architecture, royal buildings and streets, football and beautiful churches- Barcelona had much to offer.

Brazil sojourn

It took a while to get this Brazil internship. It was a funny story. A friend mentioned to me in a pub in UK, that there was an opportunity to work with a company in Brazil for the MBAs. I tracked it down and applied. They told me they needed 3 interns. I found just one more willing from the business school. I interviewed some people, found two willing to go with me and those the company felt were a good fit. Our Visa got rejected once and the second time it got approved. We couldn’t believe it when we landed there. We had one hell of a time!

Visiting Game of thrones locations

Being a massive GOT fan, I traveled to Croatia in September 2016 to explore the locations where the show was filmed!

Italy adventures

I visited Italy twice. Been to Venice, Capri, Sorento, Amalfi, Pompie, Naples, Florence. It is one of the best places to travel.

Flash Mob in Amsterdam

First International flash mob 2016- The same choreographed songs were performed in 10 countries- 17 cities on 19th March. 2016, 11- 12:00 Local time in each country participating! Amsterdam was one of the participating cities and out motto was “One Love” in support of refugees. Danced in front of the Rijksmuseum