Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Around the World in 10 years!

It is so amazing that how sometimes even stupid sitcoms show you the way to look at life from a different angle. I was watching scrubs last year and in one of the episodes the dying patient regrets how she wished they had taken that elusive vacation to tour the world. I think that if you try to plan your vacation too much it may never happen. My funda is simple - when you get even a slightest chance, don't think much, go ahead and enjoy. In April last year I got a week's break - received my passport in the afternoon at 1.00 PM, booked the flight at 1.15 PM and off I went to Amsterdam at 6.00 PM. This is how the life should be - simple and adventurous. Looking back at the last 5 years of my MBA and professional life the things that I cherish and love the most are some of these trips - like the first 3 days of MBA in serene Lake District where I had to perform adventurous tasks I would never do otherwise. There are more than 185 countries in the world. There is so much to see and life is so short. Well, I think I should be able to cover at least 50 countries in the next 5 years :)
My current tally is at 11 Edit : (Now 17). Edit 2: 21

1) India - yeah I've gone to lengths and breadths of India (UP, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, MP, Bihar, Rajasthan, J&K, Orissa, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, Andaman islands, Gujarat, Goa)
2) Singapore
3) Thailand
4) UK
5) UAE (Dubai, Abu-Dhabi)
6) Italy
7) Vatican City
8) Spain
9) Holland
10) Belgium
11) Turkey
12) Germany
13) Austria
14) Srilanka
15) France
16) Switzerland
17) Malaysia
18) Nepal
19) HongKong
20) Macau
21) Oman

The thing about these tours was that most of the time I travelled as a single traveller or with people I didn't know. But I made some really really good friends along the way and still keep in touch with some of them.
e.g I met with an artist in International film festivals, quite a few people from tech industry like Intel etc.