Mar 072016
 

Inspiring Women Travel Bloggers to follow on Women’s Day

This month’s desi Travel digest focuses on bloggers and not on blog posts, and to celebrate the International Women’s Day, I am including only Women Travel Bloggers from India.

The good thing is we are celebrating Tuesday, March 8 International Women’s Day 2016, or in short Women’s day. The sad thing is we need to celebrate, recognize and push forward Women’s day to highlight that everything is not hunky dory with the way our world looks at Women.

Unfortunately like everything else in this selfie-obsessed world, where hashtags are greeted with the same reverence that was once accorded to scriptures from holy books, today nobody has time to go even one level deep & does a reality check.  Let me come to the point rather than trying to preach.

So as they say – “ Hashtags ka hai Zamana “ and we have reduced Women’s day to a hashtag and  celebrate various hashtag in our overzealous cheering on Facebook and Tweeter.


From a time when it said “ Zo dikhta  hai Who Bikta hai”, we are now in the age of

“ Zo Trend Karta hai Who Saccha Hai”


So I am always amused by all these new age trends, hashtags, and bracketing of  everything around us. But let me focus on only one thing that I have some experience with that is travel.

Every year I try to write a post about Women’s day highlighting some of the women travelers / entrepreneur whom I admire / met and you can read the earlier posts here

2013 – Women Who Travel and lead

2014 :  Women Entrepreneurs  I met during Travels

2015 :  Women Leaders of GHAC – Most active adventure club in India

But this year I want to write about women travel bloggers who have either been traveling for years much before it became the buzzword and hashtag and who continue to travel as they have evolved in their professional and personal life. I do not want to bracket them in any kind of tags like Solo Travelers, women travelers, family travelers or mommy travelers, but simply Women who travel because they love to travel and they also share their journeys on their blogs for all of us to learn and get inspired from.

As I am combining the desi Travel digest and the post on Women’s Day, I am sharing some of the most popular bloggers from India who write about their travels. The only criteria as always I have chosen was that I read their blogs regularly and ( there is always  an and ), they are tough to slot in any bracket but for sake of my convenience how about calling them Women who travel with Family ?.  But like I said that is maybe just another hashtag.

Before we begin let me share what Albert Einstein wrote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”  So each one of us is unique, our travels are unique and my humble request to all is that in order to eulogize one let us not forget that there are others also who travel and just because you cannot bracket them in popular buzzwords their travels or contribution to the world of travel is any less.

So dear reader in alphabetical order I give you some of my favorite women travelers, who write about their travels with their families or solo or adventure or spiritual, but you cannot slot them in anything except that they all write travel blogs that we all love to read.

  1. Anuradha Goyal : To call Anuradha Goyal a travel blogger is actually only part of the story, as she is a traveler, blogger, author of a book ( Mouse Charmers ) that is prescribed as text books in IIMs  and she is regularly invited as a speaker at various forums / organizations etc. for her inputs on innovation, travel, startups etc.  From cold deserts of Spiti and Ladakh to discovering little nuggets on walks in old cities like Hyderabad, Delhi she will surprise you with what you missed right in front of you. Check her post about the story behind various names of localities in Hyderabad, this single post tells us so much about the history of one of my favorite cities.  The biggest thing about Inditales, her blog is that it goes beyond “Kya Khaya, Kya piya, types of posts and encourages you as a traveler to explore places you visit.
    anuradha goyal Travel blogger

    Blogger, Author, Innovation Consultant, Traveler- It is tough to define Anuradha Goyal – Pioneer of travel blogging in India

    the-mouse-charmers

    Anuradha Goyal has also written -The Mouse Charmers now a textbook in IIMs

  2. Anuradha Shankar: Housewife, Mother, Traveller, Bookworm, aspiring Freelance writer….. These are just a few of the words that Anuradha thinks, describe her. One of the most accomplished travel writers we have among us is Anuradha Shankar, and she regularly travels with her son Samhith, who is also her inspiration. She writes about the family travels to various places that I as a father and MBBS MD traveler love to read. The surprise package in her blog is Birds from my Window  , pictures of birds that she clicks near her home in Mumbai. I am sure not only her son but a lot of her readers are enjoying her bird pictures and getting sensitized to nature around us.
  3. Arti Shah: Arti must be the most famous travel blogger you don’t know about. I have never met her but read every single post that she writes. Far from the conveyor belt churning of posts, she waits to write in batches, once she has soaked in the experience of the spiritual journey she takes with her family. Once she starts writing about a place you can be rest assured the post is bookmark worthy and as good as a print guide. Read her posts for her lucid writing that takes you through a spiritual journey to some of the most revered places in India. If you have not check her post about Rameshwaram and my absolute favorite her series on travel to Japan
  4. Divya Nambiar: Divya is what some people would like to call a Mommy Blogger, but she is a lot more than that. Widely traveled in India and US she writes about her journeys with her husband and kids. They travel as a family to places like theme parks, beaches, road trips, farmers market and everything that families love to do tougher. Think traveling solo is tough? Try traveling with 2 kids and an IT professional husband and then write about it!! Here is one of my favorite posts on her blog about a Beautiful Beach in Karnataka.

    dnambiar travel blog

    Family travel is not easy and has its own joys and challenges

  5. Indrani Ghose: Another mom here and she travel with not just kids but teenage daughter!!!  But this is about Indrani, who have been documenting and sharing faces of India for many moons now, much before it became the in thing. Check her series on Faces of India, where she has been documenting your everyday Indians and sharing their stories with us all. Each of the story introduces you to an Indian from different part of country and shares a snippet from their life.

    indrani ghose faces of india

    Faces Of India – A series by Indrani Ghose

  6. Manjulika Pramod: She must be most versatile travel blogger from a range point of view as she writes from her Burka aka Abaya clad visit to Saudi Arabia to travel and living in Scandinavia. In her own words, “Indian blogger- travels, eats, reads and dabbles in experiences and Blogging makes me feel powerful!” and her experiences are as wide as imaginable from attending a film festival in Dubai to jumping from plane, she has been there and done that and continues to do more of this. She sometimes travels alone for work as well as for experiences and also with her husband. But solo or family travel there is no limit to travel and experiences of this electronics engineer turned traveler.
    Dubai-International-Film-festival

    Covering the Dubai International Film Festival – Manjulika Pramod

    Blogger-at-Dubai-International-Film-festival

    Manjulika Pramod: Kyoki Blogger Bhee Celebrity Hote hain 🙂

  7. Mridula Dwivedi: So you trek to the Himalayas? Wonderful. Mridula has done that with her 5-year-old daughter. So you have been to Goa and explored the beaches? Well, she has done Goa with her family & In-laws!!! You clicked a selfie with school kids in Leh? Well, she taught college students for years and clicked pictures of kids in Leh too. Beat that!!! So you quit your job to travel? Well not only she traveled keeping a full-time job teaching in a private University, she is one of those few who graduated to convert her passion of traveling to a profession. She regularly writes for her blog, contributes to magazines and newspapers, and now leads women only trips too. Soon she will be leading a Women-only tour to Spiti.

    girl-gang-goa

    You think Solo Travel is Tough ? Try traveling with these Divas in making

  8. Nisha Jha: When some of us take pride in declaring ourselves Solo Traveler, (carefully hiding our travel companion out of frame), Nisha who has traveled solo for many years, and is the original Fab and Fearless Girl, that is now re-branded as Solo Women traveler, proudly declared that now she will travel more with her husband, now that he too has quit his job. I wonder why she declared this. She could have gained a lot of mileage by saying she travels solo as that is what the trending Hashtag is. But no sir, when people are traveling solo on their honeymoon, Nisha Jha who has been to most of Europe, India, South East Asia declared openly in a blog post – Meet My Partner in Crime and introduced us Vasu Sir.

    lemonics the poetic travel blog

    Nisha – One of the original Solo Traveler, also travels with her husband

  9. Sushmita Sarkar: Sushmita is one of those travelers who started it young I would guess during college, sometimes for fun, sometimes for work. Post marriage she continued to travel and goes to remote places as her job demands her to travel to places where even locals don’t go unless you are working on that remote infrastructure project. And in-between all this she squeezes time to click pictures, visit places of interest and call her toddler daughter, who I am sure has inherited her wanderlust. If you want to follow the journey and evolution of a travel blogger as a writer, professional and in personal life from a girl to becoming a mom herself and continue the journey called life to follow her passion and profession, My Unfinished Life is the travel blog you want to follow.

    Sushmita Sarkar

    Sushmita Sarkar – Watch this girl, for she is going places

  10. Well, Name one: This list has only 9 names because 10 means completion, and I don’t think any list can be complete or perfect. So like all lists I am sure I have left many a wonderful name, either due to my ignorance or prejudice. Either way, I welcome readers to nominate / suggest additions to the list  and make it better, for every list on the internet can do with some improvement.

If you have liked reading the post please feel free to subscribe by email and like it or share it with your friends on FacebookLinkedIntwitter and Google+ .

I promise that I will not sell, rent, or donate your email to anybody

🙂 🙂 🙂

  26 Responses to “Women Who Travel – Sometimes alone Sometimes with Family”

Comments (26)
  1. It is So Good to see all my Inspirations all together in one post here 🙂

  2. Lovely list and I too read most of them! They really are inspirational women! 🙂

  3. Wonderful post on these lovely ladies. 🙂

  4. Such a lovely gesture, Prasad. I’m sorry I’m here a little to late.
    But thank you so, so much for thinking of me. I’m so honoured that you put my name along with such a prestigious lot.

    Lately, I’ve not been able to give my blog just as much time as I should be giving it and I’m feeling so guilty. This post makes me want to fight for that time and give the blog its due. 😉

    Once again, thank you so much, Prasad. 🙂

  5. Great work Prasadji. And you definitely have a knack for humour.

  6. great post , thanks for sharing !

  7. As I read through this post, it bought a wide smile on my face. Can’t thank you enough for all the kind words you’ve written in my introduction, really means the world to me! Very happy and feel so proud to have connected with such a wonderful travel loving community, here’s more power to all of us!!

  8. More power to women travelers who blog. May your tribe increase.

  9. @Shrinidhi: November 19th 😀

    Great to see a post about the lovely women travel bloggers whom I’ve been following for long. Each one of them inspire me to continue working on my dreams. Thank you for this wonderful post Prasad ji.

  10. Thank u Prasad Sir… The ladies in the list above and some gems like you have always been encouraging and inspiring. I still love the comment where you said, ‘Its your blog, you make your own rules.’

  11. Thanks so much Prasad.

  12. Nice list, been following all these wonderful travellers!

  13. Wonderful post Prasadji…I have all of them for many years and enjoy following their adventures, both to get awed and inspired! Kudos to them and to you for sharing a post with so many details…

  14. Thank you so much for the mention. A great honor to see myself in this list.

  15. What a fabulous list, Prasad and a really wonderful post too.

  16. Great post. Thanks for sharing.

  17. Thank you Prasad Ji.

  18. @Srinidhi Nov 19 🙂 😛

    Comment same as posted in fb 😉 Inspiring bloggers 🙂

  19. I have heard and seen group honeymoons but solo honeymoon is new for me. 🙂

  20. Thank you for featuring us. More to women power. 🙂

  21. I absolutely love this round up. I think out of all the rubbish promos for women’s day this is the best Women’s day oriented thing I’ve read. Some are familiar names and women I deeply respect for what they do. Some are new names so it’s great to see what people are up to. I agree it’s ridiculous to go on n on about this whole solo woman travelling, I feel like it’s beating an old drum to death literally. In fact I have great respect for married women that travel. It’s never easy juggling work, marriage, a spouse and or kids so hats off to them. Thank you for sharing Prasad. A pleasure to read as always 🙂

  22. Million $ question 😉

  23. Let me recommend Sukanyaramanujan.wordpress.com. Good photography too.

  24. Some of my favourite names, Desi. I enjoy reading their blogs because, together, they allow me a wide perspective of everything travel. Anu’s birds and mythology, Nisha’s culture, Manjulika’s musings and Mridula’s adventure are such a complete experience.

  25. Janab men’s day kab hain?

Dear fellow traveler welcome to desi Traveler, I am excited to have you here, please share your thoughts and I will be very happy to reply. Please check our Blog Comment Policy. All comments are moderated and urls in comments end in spam automatically. Happy travels.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.