The Life of an Indian Travel Blogger

The life of an Indian travel blogger looks glamorous from the outside. After all, I get to travel to exotic places and the bill is footed by someone else! I am immensely grateful for the opportunities too. But travel alone does not pays my bills and therein lies the rub.

There is another aspect of the travel blogging life and relates to making money or even getting those sponsored trips. A lot of my interactions with PR/Digital agencies are thoroughly professional. But that is not the topic for today.

When I am in a mood to laugh, I call them fun interactions. But when I am not in a mood to laugh, this is what an Indian travel blogger’s life looks like!

Recently I was talking to a young person who represented a portal. The conversation went like this-

Guy: “I can give you one way ticket to any destination in India!” I initially thought I heard it wrong!

Me: “One way you said?”

Guy: “Yes”

Me: “No, this won’t work as I need to get back home too!” After all I can not walk all the way back home after flying one way, right?

The actual conversation was a bit longer but what I quoted above was the crux of it.

Most of the digital agencies which contact me for paid assignments also have a particular pattern. It goes something like this-

PR Person: “We have this digital campaign … can you give me the blog post (or whatever else it is) by tomorrow?”

Me: “OK but when will you pay?”

PR Person: “We pay after 90 days!” And most will pay after 90 days and several reminders later! There are only a few exceptions (one actually) who pay on time and I value them a lot.

Then there are mails that invite me to participate in contests. One went like this-

“Dear Influencer, Great news! You have been invited to the Instagram contest…”

I don’t like contests at many levels. But the voting based ones top my hate list. Do a Google search for ‘buy FB votes’or for that matter on any other platform. I know it, the participants know it, the organizers know it, so who are we kidding? I do not like contests at another level too. I have so many people offering me the same thing (a trip, phone etc) without any contests, so why would I take part in one where whether I win or not is not even certain! But it is certain that the organizers will get free publicity!

There, after this rant I already feel better. I have often shown the glamorous aspects of my life as a travel blogger, I thought it was time to show a bit of the other side too!