Wish you all Happy New Year 2017. ‘Stable’ would be the word for 2016. It was quite a balanced year with no major ups and down. Life moved at a nice and comfortable pace. Travels were interspersed with ample time at home. While at home, we had a constant stream of guests coming over from around the world. It almost felt that either we were traveling or the world was traveling to us through the year.
Looking Back At 2016 – Happy New Year 2017
Travel
Travels this year took me to Ladakh in Winters. Daman, Sikkim, Bengal, Landour & Pench occupied the Summers. Last quarter had me in Lucknow, Varanasi & Bikaner. In between, there was always – Goa.
Internationally, the only new country that I visited was Indonesia. However, 2 weeks in the country and I fell in love with the diversity its islands have – though I visited only a handful of its thousands of islands.
Singapore happened twice in a matter of one month. I had visited Singapore earlier but never wrote about it. So, it was kind of a debut of Singapore on IndiTales.
Unesco World Heritage Sites visit
Between all my travels, I got to see 5 new UNESCO World heritage sites:
- Singapore Botanic Gardens
- Darjeeling Himalayan Rail
- Borobudur Temple
- Prambanan Temple Compounds
- Subak System of Bali Island
Keeping my fingers crossed for some more this year.
I think this very balanced year gave me an insight into where I want my travel life and this travel blog to go. I know the kind of travel I want to do, the kind of work I want to do but most importantly the kind of impact I want to leave behind.
Commercially, the blog is doing well. I know it can do much better if I let go of a lot of constraints that I have subjected it to. I do not see myself letting go of those constraints as I see this blog as my legacy that I would leave behind. My biggest ROI would always remain readers comments like this – I am learning more from IndiTales than I have ever learned in school. Hope I am able to maintain the fine balance between creativity, travel & commerce.
Guest Bloggers
This year I invited a few guest contributors to the blog. Sucheta Pai wrote 4 stories on Rome, Amsterdam & Marine National Park. Harsh did a beautiful story on Ramayana Temples in Sri Lanka. My dear friend Barabara wrote a story about her inspiring travel life & so did the mountaineer Neelima about her tryst with Everest. Delhi heritage specialist Vikramjit Singh Rooprai wrote on his favorite monument Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. I am thankful to all of them for sharing their stories. Numbers tell me that you as readers also enjoyed them.
Going forward, I plan to invite more people to contribute. Who these people would be and what stories would they tell, only time will tell.
The biggest challenge for the blog comes from my being based in Goa. You have to live in a small town in India to know how much of this country’s professional activity is centered around three cities – Delhi, Mumbai & Bangalore. It pains to see the rest of the country ignored by the Government as well as private enterprises. When PR agencies of Global Tourism Brands say we only work with bloggers based in Delhi, Mumbai & Bangalore – I wish I could tell the brands what they are losing out on. Hope one day, they would get the message across and small-town India professionals would bloom.
Finally, hope I am able to channel the energy of this blog to leave an impact on the tourism economy of India in particular and the world in general.
Tell me, what do you want to see more on IndiTales.
Here is wishing you a very Happy New year!
May 2017 be full of meaningful explorations that enrich you and nourish you !!
Wishing you a very Happy New Year
Greetings 🙂
Thank you Rupam. Wish you the same.
Wishing you a very happy new year!!
Thank you Aravind G. Wish you a fabulous 2017.
Happy 2017 Anuradha!! Wish you another splendid year ahead!!!
Thank you Shweta. Wish you too a wonderful 2017. May you get to do all that you want to do.
Wishing you a happy new year 2017 thank for all .
Thank you Vijay & wish you a happy happy 2017.
Have a fabulous year ahead, Anuradha!
Thank you, Niranjan & wish you the same.
Hi ,
This blog is really an inspiration. I have saved all your daily/weekly email alerts, to one day read them. Hopefully I will, for the ones I have read, they intrigued me. I am a traveler at heart and want to start something of my own one day. Is there a start of your journey blog?
Wish you all the luck.
Vikas, I remember how I started the blog,but I have always been travelling. I guess I inherited travelling genes from my parents.
Blog just began as an experiment and its the feedback like yours that keeps me going. So, please keep encouraging. Wish you a happy new year.
Wonderful roundup ma’am, your energy inspires me. Hope you have an enlightening 2017!
Thank you, Jatin. Your words encourage me, so keep sharing your thoughts here. Happy New Year.
I wish you a joyful and peaceful new year.
Thank you Roy. Have a memorable 2017.
Thank you Anu for your blog. It is wonderful and such an inspiration for anyone who is interested in traveling knowing that you have gone there before. You have really come a long way from the beginning and opened people’s eyes, both Indians and foreigners to the wonderful possibility of interesting travel within India. Happy New Year to you, your husband, and family and keep making the significant contributions you love.
I don’t agree with you at all about having to live in major cities. Travel writers can live anywhere!
Thank you so much for all your love & encouragement, Barbara. You are a huge inspiration for me.
I agree, where you live should not make a difference, but believe me in lot of people’s mind it does make a difference. Just yesterday, a PR person told me how can charge rates similar to or more than Mumbai rates. She had no idea about my work, she only thought because I live in a smaller town, I need to be paid less. Having said that, I am going to change that soon 🙂
Wish you a very happy new year.
HI,I’M senuri from sri lanka
Hi Senuri, good to have you here. A very Happy New year.