About Infitin
Hey, I am Ipsita, a Physics graduate and an MBA, who wanted to be an astronaut as a kid, but somehow landed up in the corporate world.
A lot has changed in the last decade - ambitions, bucket lists, people and relationships, but there was one constant throughout and that was my curiosity and passion to explore new places and meet new people. Travel for me is all about pushing myself outside my comfort zone, beyond what everyone sees, does and experiences, just so that I can come back to tell stories that no one has ever told or experienced before.
After having travelled to ~50 countries on mostly biannual breaks between work, I started Infitin - Infinite Itineraries. Here, I wish to tell my travel story, share my travel itineraries and want to bring together everyone who want to share theirs.
So, if you are an avid traveller, passionate about telling your story, I would like to invite you to write on Infitin.
A lot has changed in the last decade - ambitions, bucket lists, people and relationships, but there was one constant throughout and that was my curiosity and passion to explore new places and meet new people. Travel for me is all about pushing myself outside my comfort zone, beyond what everyone sees, does and experiences, just so that I can come back to tell stories that no one has ever told or experienced before.
After having travelled to ~50 countries on mostly biannual breaks between work, I started Infitin - Infinite Itineraries. Here, I wish to tell my travel story, share my travel itineraries and want to bring together everyone who want to share theirs.
So, if you are an avid traveller, passionate about telling your story, I would like to invite you to write on Infitin.
What kind of a traveller am I?
Love the paths less taken
I prefer to spend my holidays, travelling to the country side or to offbeat locations over a city any day. If a place has an airport, or a train connectivity it's not offbeat or remote enough. And to top it up, if it's in the trending places to visit over social media, I am surely not going there.
There are a few exceptions though like Barcelona, Istanbul or New York that I simply love, don't ask me why.
I prefer to spend my holidays, travelling to the country side or to offbeat locations over a city any day. If a place has an airport, or a train connectivity it's not offbeat or remote enough. And to top it up, if it's in the trending places to visit over social media, I am surely not going there.
There are a few exceptions though like Barcelona, Istanbul or New York that I simply love, don't ask me why.
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Roadtrips fanatic So most of my travel on vacation now, happens with my husband. In continuation to my love for exploring remote and offbeat places, we have come to realise that roadtrips are our way of travelling. They help us explore and experience the untouched that come packed with surprises be it with local people, food, culture or landscapes. And most importantly road trips give us the flexibility of time and pace, exactly what we look for in our vacations. Confession: I am not a driving enthusiast. So 90% of the driving on our trips are done by my husband while I chill, take pictures and ofcourse navigate. The remaining 10% I drive out of guilt. But in my defence here, my husband is a terrible navigator, so I have no option, but to give directions while he drives :) |
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The masala chai type A vital role to make our road trips enjoyable has been played by masala chai (Indian tea). The unlimited access and the ability to have masala chai anywhere, anytime just adds the extra zing to these roadtrips. How? On every trip of ours we have the company of our hot flask, 2 ceramic mugs and some ready to drink Girnar tea powder sachets. They are as vital to our trips as are our passports probably. Ok bit of an exaggeration there. But seriously, a lot of our trip memories that are etched in our minds today, are from the times we stopped in the middle of no where, took out our flask and mugs and just chilled and admired the surroundings; be it in the Scottish highlands, or in the Lofoten islands in the Arctic. |
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No meat, no fish, no fish sauce or fish oil Yes, that's what I tell the waiters in the restaurants when I am travelling. Till 5 years back I was a pure vegetarian, no not even eggs, but thanks to my husband, now I have one more option in the menu to select from. But but but, I am a hassle free eggitarian traveller, though a pure one. That means, although I do not have gravy of the meat dish or eat the fries of the fish and chips plate, I am quite adventurous when it comes to trying local dishes as long as they are vegetarian. I like exploring local cuisine, find out the best places that serves non vegetarian fare for my husband, and at times while he enjoys his fish at the best sea food restaurant in town, I have a glass of wine, and then he accompanies me to a little more vegetarian friendly place for my meal, while he sips on his glass of wine. A have heard a lot of people ask me "how do you manage when you travel?", and most times I wonder why. Honestly, I have rarely faced an issue with vegetarian food while travelling. Confession: I must admit that for our Norway trip, I carried a few packets of ready to eat vegetarian packets from home, because I did not know what to expect, but then surprise surprise, we landed up giving all of them away to one of our homestay hosts towards the end of the trip:) The picture here will tell you why. |
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Pack it up with some adrenalin rush I call myself a water baby. I have jumped into a lake at freezing temperatures, jumped out of a boat in the middle of the ocean to just float and chill, but I must admit, I thought I would die when I jumped into the Devil's pool of Victoria falls in Zambia. I like to push my boundaries and get outside my comfort zone when I am travelling. In our daily life at work and home, there is not much scope of adventure in the commute, video conferences, calls and meetings that takes eighteen hours of the day. So I fill up that vacuum of adrenalin rush when I am travelling on my holiday. Most of our vacations are a good mix of trekking, a couple of adventure sports like kayaking, glacier hiking or something offbeat that the place has to offer, all of these interspersed with some relaxing breaks. The less confident I am about being able to complete an activity, the more excited I get about it. In Africa, I once boarded a plane and was even ready to take off, knowing that only one of the two engines was working; borderline foolish I know. |
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A planner to the T What I love most about travelling apart from actually exploring the place, is the itinerary building part. As a kid, one of my favourite activities online was to go on google earth and zoom in to a place and learn about it. And if google earth had 3D images for a places, voila! With all these years spent on google earth, I have a super long list of things to do and see, and planning my travel to the t is the only way I can do these places justice in the little vacation time we get. Confession: Building itineraries is my absolute favourite hobby. I build itineraries for places in my free time, even if I do not have any plans or sanctioned leaves to travel there in the near future. Back in 2011, I had a 7 year travel calendar ready to cover 25 countries. No, I did not stick to it 100%. |
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