Travel has always been my poison! I have always loved travel and loved exploring places and destinations! Am profoundly lucky to have found a life partner who also loves to travel!
It’s interesting what marriage does to two people! Even if there is a hobby to be shared, two people bring two very different perspectives to the same activity!
I have always been travelling for work and for pleasure and mostly never planned much! Either left it to my whim or to the management of the company from whom I was travelling.
On the other hand my spouse has been travelling widely and planning with even greater zeal and meticulousness! So marriage meant we blend our styles!
Our courtship period was hinged around wonderful treks in the Sahyadris and my! Did we plan!? ! Guess what! Yes! Excel sheets and their versions came to play! I am a big hater of excel sheets but yes they seem to love me n follow me like Mary’s little lamb! Duh!
And then before the big question was popped, we planned this huge trip to the Himalayas and lots and lots of planning and budgeting and excel work went into it! But yes it was fun! I wasn’t really complaining this time round cause I got to spend time with my beau and no one noticed that love blossomed while we dispassionately stared at excel sheets! It was super fun! The whole trip was a wonderful one! Very memorable!
And the super big question was answered again on a trek! So the Sahyadris have literally witnessed our love story!
Eventually marriage meant we begin planning again! This time the journey was no ordinary one! It was a journey for life! Such a long winding one and such a splendid one indeed! And yes we planned our life journey too with excel sheets! (Trust me I still don’t like them! :P)
Then the super journey of journeys was the Honeymoon! And how much did we plan! We scanned the globe, made a study of history and geography of the world, finalized a handful of destinations and literally came up with histograms and graphs of the average rainfall and snowfall of these places! Phew! More than any honeymoon it seemed an unending geography lesson!
But when we actually arrived at the emerald island, it was worth every single excel sheet mulling session! We knew the roads, by lanes and highways, sang the glory of Google maps and our guide was almost suspecting us, when we said we were here for the first time in our lives!
And now again we plan, this time for this much loved continent, the birthplace of my soul!
And how long have we been planning? Nearly a year! But now when we reach the fag end of this planning session and actually await our boarding passes, I recall all our feisty sessions with Google and smile to myself! I learnt to actually plan a trip, book in advance and yes think down to the least possibility! It’s all worth it at the end of it all!
Another impactful angle to travelling is a camera! What began as a hobby has now morphed into a passionate activity for the both of us! Our brand new DSLR is our darling baby! Each new angle, each new lens acquired is so much fun! So many pictures and so many memories of wonderful trips, mesmerizing trips and yes these photos are a proof enough that meticulous planning pays off wonderfully and lets you sit back and relax. Truly lets you unwind on a trip!
Ah this looks like I just followed my hubby’s travel pattern of planning is it? Well not really! The unplanned part comes when we begin our journey, I suddenly find something interesting and we take off! The car takes on a new road and we follow our hearts! We have found so many new places, discovered such amazing places thanks to this unplanned diversion in our super planned trips!
We discovered this plateau full of wild flowers, green grass carpets and swirling mists all in Maharashtra thanks to my impulsive spurts! But yes now as we blend in our styles what I have come to discover is I love travel even more! And now it doesn’t begin when I sit in a car or train or plane but it begins months in advance, with just an idea or a fluttering map page, which is enticing us into its magical realm!
