Welcome back to Weekend Travel Inspiration. We love connecting with other like-minded folks, because we are so inspired by their stories. This week, we interviewed Sandy and Vyjay, who we’ve followed online for a few years. Their blog is called Voyager.
Tell us a little about yourself.
We are Sandy & Vyjay, a travel blogger couple based out of Bangalore, India. We travel together most of the time unless circumstances and schedules force us to travel separately.
Bangalore is a city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is also the capital of the state. Bangalore over the last decade has emerged as a centre of thriving IT industry. It is known as the Silicon Valley of India. Bangalore is a modern metropolis but also has many heritage sights to visit including temples and a palace. Mysore which is famous for its royal palace and the annual Dussehra festival is also nearby. Bangalore is the gateway to many fascinating destinations that are accessible easily from there.
What inspires you to travel?
It is very difficult to actually pinpoint what inspires us to travel. Actually it is a burning passion to see new places and savour new experiences that fuels our travels. Nature, Culture & Heritage, Archaeology & History, Adventure are what we look for in the places that we travel to, though as travelers we are always open to different experiences. We have been traveling every month since a couple of years now.
Describe your travel philosophy.
We travel to enjoy every moment of it, from the journey to the destination and back. For us travel is not about checking off names from a bucket list. Travel for us is enjoying the whole experience in an immersive way. We are luxury travelers with a flair for adventure. No, backpacking is not our cup of tea.
What types of things are you interested in while you are traveling?
We love history and culture as well as adventure. We equally enjoy places like the Louvre in Paris and the jungles of East Africa.
We would love to hike amidst nature and be intrigued by the stories that ruins have buried within and then relax on the beach and watch the waves caressing the sands.
What is one funny, embarrassing, cute, or even frustrating anecdote from your travels?
One incident that happened in Florence which was pretty frustrating at that time makes us smile at our own naivety today. Some years back we landed in Florence and were searching for our hotel, we spent almost a couple of hours going around in circles and not finding it. Finally, we realized that the hotel did not exist in Florence at all. It was at a place called Signa which was some 10 miles out of Florence!
What is one travel book or movie that you can recommend to folks?
We are absolutely fascinated by the old classic of Jules Verne, “Around The World In Eighty Days”, which we think epitomizes the spirit of travel.
What is one thing you take with you traveling, no matter what?
Of course we cannot move out without our DSLR and mobile phones, after all we have to freeze some, if not all our travel experiences to be relived again and again.
How did you get started travel blogging, and what would be one piece of advice you can offer newbie bloggers?
We were travelers before we became travel bloggers. After years of travel, we realized that we need to document it and also share our experiences with the world and hence was born Voyager.
We would advise newbie bloggers to first of all enjoy the travel experience and then convert the experiences into unique content. They should focus on turning out good content in their own unique style.
Author Bio: Corinne Vail is a travel photographer, food lover, and a perpetual traveler who has been travel writing for over 14 years. For many years she lived overseas in Germany, Japan, Turkey, South Korea, and the Netherlands teaching the children of the US. military. She’s visited over 90 countries, and she’s not stopping anytime soon.
Pin Sandy and Vyjay’s interview for later reading as well.
