Travel and Work Simultaneously – Yes, it’s possible !!

Ever dreamt of a job that lets you travel as much as you want to?


Do you feel your job doesn’t let you travel often?

I bet these questions do cross your mind whenever you are sitting on your desk, working; while your friends are travelling across the world posting beautiful pictures of exotic locations. Well, worry no more now you could too manage work with your travel goals…

Going by a very simple mathematics,there are 52 weekends in a year and 2 days (sat-sun) per weekend that gives you 52x2=104 travel days!! Add to it 16 paid holidays provided by almost every employer i.e. 104+16=120 travel days per year!!! Almost 1/3rd  (365/3=121.6) of a year can be utilised for travelling.

Now how to utilize these precious 120 days so that your work doesn’t get hampered.

  • Choose a job that lets you travel

    – Many travel bloggers and travel companies employ full time photographers to join and travel for them. These trips are fully sponsored in return of the pictures you click for them. Also some firms (like stay on skill) are coming up with the idea of providing free stay in return of your talent, be it wall painting, interior designing, photography, musicians. So try and find a job that lets you travel to places you have your bucket list set at.

  • Create long weekends

    – Try to take week offs on Fridays or Mondays. Not only will this save you from your Monday blues, but also you will have an extra day to spend instead of rushing back the previous night. Some jobs require manpower on Sundays and gazetted offs too and the employees get compensatory off for the same which they can claim any day of the month. Don’t waste such opportunities, instead club all your compensatory offs and create a 4-5 day long weekend!!

  • Travel solo

    – Don’t always look for a company or a partner to travel with. Waiting for someone to tag along will lead to last minute cancellations and frustration at most of the times. So don’t look upto someone to travel with you, go solo and make most of your time. If you are uncomfortable in travelling solo, then you can choose any group in which like-minded strangers join to travel together. Yayavar Club is one such group which lets like-minded travelers connect and go for tours directly through locals without any involvement of trekking companies.

  • Plan

    - Use wasted time like travel time to office to research and plan for your next trip. Planning is one of the most important steps of each trip if you really wish to know the place along with exploring. You may research about places nearby to explore, the geography of that area, historical and mythological importance of that area based on your interests. It's necessary to take care of your health while travelling.

  • Work

    - Work extra shifts before and after a trip to cover for your work so that your team members don't mind your frequent leaves/holidays. In-fact, if you do this, you will find that some of your team members would even go extra miles to help you go on leaves.

  • Save Time

    - If you are a travel blogger or a photographer, document your thoughts while travelling everyday before going to sleep or process your images daily so that you don't need much time on these things once you return. Instead, you can spend your time planning the next trip and reckoning the learning from this trip.

  • Save more

    - Since you work full time, you have a stable source of income... But to use that money wisely is what you can do best... Try to travel to offbeat places, ditch hotels and prefer homestays, travel during nights... So the trip would not cost heavily on your pocket and at the same time you could travel and explore new places while saving more. Find step by step guide to do your trips at dirt cheap cost.

  • Stay motivated

    - Most people loose their motivation to follow their passion because it is not appreciated by the society. It’s easy to get bogged down by your parents’ or relatives’ or colleagues’ constant reminders that you spend more than saving on travel. So, it is important to look for a constant source to get motivation. Get your work recognized to keep yourself motivated. Join some community as a part time blogger /photographer and post content actively to get recognition for your work from the audience. Trust me, this small activity can keep you motivated to travel and follow your dream.

Interview with Dr. Garima, founder of SHE Organization

'2019-08-04 10:35:24', '2019-08-04 10:35:24',

What would you like to tell us about yourself?

I am Dr Garima Shrestha from Kathmandu , Nepal  . I completed my MBBS from Manipal Teaching hospital , Pokhara in 2018. I am currently working as medical  officer at Manmohan Cardio Thoracic Vascular and transplant Centre ( Teaching Hospital) ,Maharajgunj Kathmandu . It’s been few months since I have started this campaign. I had this concept since I was doing my internship at my hospital Manipal Pokhara , where females from different background used to visit hospital with poor menstrual hygiene and it’s consequences, which made me realise if I could do something which could improve their hygiene and every woman could afford sanitary pads . 

You are successfully running a campaign combating taboos related to Menstrual issues and reusable sanitary pads. How and where did you come up with the idea for this campaign? 

When I knew about Chhaupadi Pratha, a trend which is forced to follow by Nepali  women during menstruation , where females are isolated , they are forced to stay at cattle shed. They are not allowed to enter kitchen , temples , they are not allowed to go to school, works , they are not allowed to consume healthy nutritious diet, they are not allowed to take shower, they are not allowed to touch their brothers, father during menstruation. As I heard about it where people lack knowledge regarding menstruation and menstrual hygiene and being involved in medical field I saw many females not knowing about menstruation, sanitary pads. I had very bad feeling and thought if I could do something and I shared my experiences with my parents and with their support we are successfully running this campaign combating taboos related to menstruation and Reusable sanitary pads .

Please tell us  more about SHE organisation. What is it all about? What challenges do you face regularly?

SHE - it is purely volunteering organisation as SHE itself means a female and SHE - S stands for sanitary pads (Reusable ), H stands for Healthy and Handmade , E stands for Environment friendly. it’s diffucult to make people understand about eco-friendly because we human don’t care about environment , we care about our satisfaction, In Reusable sanitary pads we have to focus on sterilisation technique and the material we have choosen , healthy , handmade , Reusbale and Eco/friendly so if we give small effort , it’s good for us and good for environment because this Reusable Sanitary pads are made of 100% cotton material as we haven’t used non-biodegradable products like Plastics and artificial fragrances.

Being from a medical background myself and taking out time for travel on a regular basis, i know how hard it gets to take time out and follow the heart. How do you manage time for passion and professional life?

What I feel is, if you have interest you can manage time and can balance your life . The schedule of doctors life is really hectic where we have duties for 24 hours and we don’t even get post duty off but during weekends and during non-duty day I travel, I hangout with friends, because social life is also important and family and friends are equally important .

Doctor by choice or by chance ? What future plans do you have in this field?

Doctor by choice. I am always fascinated by medicine and humanity. I have always dreamt of being a doctor since I knew what ambition meant and worked for it. I have further plans to do MD to make my career strong and specialise in a particular subject so I could gain more knowledge regarding that subject and further plans to help patients .

As safe menstrual practices and availability of sanitary pads is a global issue. How  do you plan to spread awareness on a global scale with your organisation. Do you have global ambassadors for the same?

The taboo or stigma of mesntruation is not only followed in Nepal , its followed worldwide where people lack knowledge regarding what is menstruation and how to maintain menstrual hygiene. First of all I want to spread awareness in Nepal and really want people to stop following the trend Chhaupadi Pratha and globally people should have knowledge regarding mesntruation and Reusable Sanitary pads to think about future by thinking about environment  and to think about healthy habits. 

Your interview will get published in India and we believe will reach a wide range of audience. What message would you like to convey to all of them?

India being our neighboring country , we are really helped by the friendly act of India economically as well as politically . And as I heard about menstruation. And menstrual hygiene as far as I know most areas of India still have this trend where people lack menstrual hygiene what I feel is if we spread awareness and work for it , menstrual hygiene can be improved . Miss World Manushi Chillar worked for Sanitary pads distribution which is really very good initiative. So every people in their area should spread awareness , because it will take more time for a single person to reach every single region of their country . Thus , People who are aware about menstruation should spread awareness in their area, because every single drop counts . I hope if Nepal and India work together for it , it will be more effective because both of our countries have this trend during menstruation where females follow unhygienic practices during menstruation .  

We finish the interview and you find a lottery ticket that ends up winning $100 million. What would you do? 

If I find a lottery ticket of $ 100 million , genuinely I would spend for social service. Because  the money that I win from lottery would be as similar as of free cost so I would spend for social service. But if it was money that I had earned from my hardwork obviously would have love for my money and I would have spent for myself first and then to social service.So the money if I get it from lottery I would fully 100% donate in social service , I would have opened small hospitals in areas where clinical services haven’t reached such areas and spread awareness to people regarding diseases and consequences of not treating diseases.  

Apart from this, what else do you like to do in your free time? 

Apart from my profession , I love traveling , I love to know different cultures , I had played in few Nepali music videos , I hangout with friends , I read novels sometimes. 

That's amazing!! Anything else that you would like to share with us?

I would like to Thank  you & Yayavar Club for featuring my issues. I am thankful for all this support and I hope you guys will join me make my campaign successful  by spreading awareness in your area as well by letting people know about Reusable sanitary pads and menstrual  hygiene. As  "I alone cannot cross river , but I can cast a stone across water to create a ripple", Join me and help make this campaign successful. Join me to help females better place to live in by completely eradicating this trend . 

“I code and I talk to mountains” – Diksha Tripathi

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Well in one line if I need to describe u201cA girl who is trying to live her dream along with the real life responsibilities.

I am always striving to do something different especially those things that make me alive and travelling brings out the better version of myself.

I am a Software developer, diligently doing my 9 to 5 job,5 days a week and no I don't hate my job(like those typical internet articles) So that's what my bio on Instagram (@travelnama.dk) says "I code and I talk to mountains". Hailing from Delhi, sarcasm and fun run in my blood but what sets my soul on fire without any second thought is travelling!

The first time I realized that travel bug is going to bite me hard is when I went on a college trip to Nainital and those 3 days set the tempo and then I never looked back.

For me travelling is not sight-seeing, it means much more to me.Its looking the world at a different angle, meeting people who are absolutely simple yet they have the ability to shake your inner core and add a perspective that you never really thought about it.Its about seeing this perfectly imperfect world, itu2019s about how to bring out your authentic self, itu2019s about embracing different culture and the diversity of this planet.

But most important is travelling exposes a part of you that you never knew existed. So yes that's why I travel when I feel that because of my responsibilities and duties my energy tank starts depleting I travel to fill that up to keep me going and to stay aligned to myself.

So I make sure to travel at least one place I never been to every month. And yes I always keep track of long weekends and holidays!

What do you like more - Mountains or Beaches and why?

As I am from Delhi, mountains are nearer to me, familiar to me and now dearer to meu263a!!

I love it why because of two things. No three or may be infinity but I will stick to two things which are the most amazing and generous people of mountains and the fresh air and greenery (Break from Delhi pollution!).I won't be exaggerating but I am always that happy go lucky girl with that natural glow whenever I am in mountains.

That doesn't mean I don't love beaches but umm did I mention about Maggi and tea in mountains?

How do you manage your time for travel along with job?

I don't support that quit your job and travel the world perception nor am I judging those who are doing this. Kudos to them. But with time I have realized that this can't work out for me!

So yeah I figured out my own ways to manage my travel along with work...I try to take leaves during long weekends or holidays in order to get the maximum time or take my laptop along with me! I mean company wants to get things done and it doesn't matter whether you are doing it in a cubical or near a beach sipping virgin mojito (Told you I like beaches too).

Your best experience that you would like to share with other travelers?

It's a tough question because every aspect of travelling is just mind-blowing but if I have to pick one then it's a not a place it's the people I met at different places. I met people who just opened up something inside me, people who are living their dreams, and people who are the most authentic one. Like I went to a small village in Uttrakhand where people take one week leave from their work just to be with their nearer and dearer ones and celebrate a tradition together to strengthen the bond among the villagers. In Meghalaya I met girls who are running hotels, homestays and heck whole company without any strong educational background. I met people who went out of their way to help me! So I guess more than places I remember those people who inspired me and thatu2019s how I gave and took a piece of wisdom while travelling.

Have you travelled outside India? If yes, to how many countries? Where do you prefer travelling the most - India or outside India and why?

I haven't travelled much outside India just recently went to Singapore for my work. Although didn't get much time to explore around but still managed to check off few places there and had a great time!

I have travelled mostly in India and would love to explore the whole world. Taking baby steps!

If you had unlimited powers for a day and you were to bring a change in the way travelling industry works, what change would you like to bring in?

I think these industries should encourage more and more woman solo travelers, they should prepare itinerary for them keeping their budget and safety in mind. Not only for single women but also for mothers or married women only trips... Although lots of startups are doing fabulous job in it and it's a big change but solo travelling is still an alien concept in India. I think they should promote it in order to make women independent and empowered! (Oops...My inner feminist just kicked in).

We are sure after reading your interview with us, many travellers would like to contact you. Do you have any Social Media Handle where other travellers can reach you?

People can reach me on Instagram. Link to Instagram Profile: travelnama.dk

Yayavar: Meaning and Essense

There are a lot of questions that come to mind when you hear the word Yayavar, foremost of which is- What does Yayavar stand for? , What is the meaning of word Yayavar?

Well today, I’ll decode it for you...
Yayavar in simple language means being a traveller, one who goes from place to place and travels for the fun of travelling. Yayavar is a feeling; a feeling of being pulled towards something exotic.
Everyone has heard the words vagabond, itinerant, nomad; well yayavar is a synonym for such words only difference being in its essence.

While a vagabond wanders from place to place never settling down, itinerant just means travelling from place to place and nomad meaning, wandering around in search of better lifestyle opportunities; yayavar means travelling around and experiencing local life not just for the fun of it but also connecting with the locals. Experiencing local lifestyle by living with them, getting to know their culture and their way of living; basically not returning back as a tourist but as one amongst them.

Meaning of yayavar can’t be described in words but can only be felt by heart. Where yayavar can be used as a noun, it can be an adjective as well! Yayavar can also be used to express one’s longing to travel to offbeat places and experience a new way of life and also a person can be a yayavar. There are many meanings and uses of yayavar, the only constant being its essence.