12February
Blog - by prathik

Experiencing a Trip

 

How we like to experience a place ?

From our previous blog you would have got an idea of why we like to travel. So now, this article comes to share our thoughts on how we like to experience a place. 

How do we choose a place to visit?

It’s been eight Tripster Buddies trips now, no trip so far had been planned in advance nor do we have a check list of places to visit. In every single trip, moms ask us on the last day of the trip on when is the next trip and which is the next place?
We really have no clue. Our Travels just happen in the flow. Some of the ways in which past travels happened were. 

Either of our children Naitik and Tanvi had a particular question or interest which Lakshana and I liked to expand and dig deeper so we made plans around it. 

When we come across a Festival /Event happening, we propose it to our kids, if kids Like it, we plan there. We attended Navy Day celebrations at Visakhapatnam in Dec,2019. International Kite Festival at Gujarat in January, 2020. 

Friends of us or aTripster mommy invited us to explore her place. Most trips happen this way. Or after us publishing the poster at least two of our Tripster mommies would invite us to visit her place through her lens. It’s a pure joy for anyone to show their motherland, its beauty, its flavours its valour and her stories attached to her place. We experienced this joy through Neha at Gujarat. More about Neha and Gujarat coming up in our future blogs. We had a random follower of Tripster buddies Instagram page who, on seeing our Gujarat poster, invited us to visit her organic farm in Gujarat. We plucked Veggies from her garden and cooked and had the merriest time together. 

So far these were the ways we chose a place to visit. We love to go with the flow. So not very sure of what next or where next. 

How we plan to experience the place? 

We do not go by the Google list of recommendations of places to visit. Our travels are not just to tick off check boxes. We do not like a rush rush travel like visiting 10 spots in three days. The crux of Tripster travels are ‘holistic experience’. Learning in such experience says are inevitable which both joyous for the mother and the child. Either we learn about the place or learn about ourselves, many times both.  The priority of our travel is to enjoy. The word enjoy might speak a different meaning to different people. 

Our meaning ‘to enjoy’ is : 

To be present in the moment. Present in a place with all five senses alive. Soak in the beauty, fall in love with the place, people, animals, buildings, the calmness, the hustle bustle and everything about the place. For this reason there is no time specified in our travel plan poster. The poster is just a tentative idea. A realistic guideline on what things to expect from the trip. But there is no rush in ticking them all off, just for the sake of it. Sometimes the most happiest moments have been spent playing in the mud in the banks of a lake, morning walks, Or even some time just wandering around the place gave a lot of absorption than directing. 

We chuck the touristy and go local. 
Most times we like to take public transportation. There is nothing like chitchatting with auto wala who knows most about the city and its flavours than a hired guide. A city‘s transport system speaks a lot of its history and a great way to explore its heritage. 

Enjoy the process:
Intense preparation goes in curating the trip. The research does not start and end with Google. The research starts with meditation with an intention to enjoy the present, enjoy the creations and the thought to serve more to the world community. We put in a lot of questions to the universe and it answers through thoughts and people. The poster is a reflection of the number of phone calls we made to our friends, family members, bloggers, avid travellers, history enthusiasts, geography professors, naturalist and people from various fields. I would not say that we broke our head to curate the trip it’s just that we meditated on one single place at a time and everything just fell in place. We believe that when the intention is to, give love all be well. 

Eat local. As much as possible we avoid restaurant meals. There is nothing like knowing the place more than having their local cuisine. There is a lot that the food of the region conveys. Its climatic condition, it’s soil, their transportation networking, people who ruled and invaded, its settlements and trading Et cetera. There is a lot about food and we take it seriously with lot of care and love. Food is chosen to be catered by a home run local specifically curated for kids. More veggies, less spice and oil and strictly no processed foods. 

Conversations with the locals
There is no better way to explore the world authentically than by meeting and conversing with local people. By talking to local people we expand our perspective, we realise that there is another way to live life, different from the place we were born from. Fresh thoughts are the greatest souvenirs of every travel. Every time we talk to a localite we get to know the intricacies of the new place, how people interact as a community, how they value life, money, relationship, how and for what they fight, how and what they seek, these are such important and subtle learnings that are that are not found in any textbooks. Only travelling and being there completely gives us these knowledge, so we always make it a point to take time to talk to people around. These talk are sometimes planned and many times happens on it own, just that we are sincerely seeking for it. 

We enjoy the most about a place when we know more about it. After registrations until the date of travel we usually have a month’s time in between. We utilise this time to learn and research. Each family picks up a Tripster suggested topic or off their own to research and study. During the trip the families get to present the topic in the most kinaesthetic way as possible so that it can be understood by children of all ages. The research presentation is not an end but a new lens to look at the place more keenly. At the end of each day we have a circle time were all of us sit together to share our learnings of the day. 

We have seen a lot of love, tears, hugs, gratitude and  laughter during this circle. It is so difficult to be expressed in words about these moments. 

The best part of Tripster is this little nonjudgemental community of love and trust that we witness slowly merging. Coming to the most exciting part of the trip is our late-night mommies sharing session ( After the children are put to sleep). Sharing can be replaced with the word healing. There is nothing more healing than to listen to someone without any judgements and with a lot of empathy. This session is talking  our heart out, about life. I have personally used this session to look within me, clean me and understand myself. Not one session has gone without shedding my tears of ego, arrogance judgement and it has helped me discover me and help me build a beautiful bond with me, people around and with universe.

I sometimes think it is the responsibility of every parent to show children the world around to let them know there is so much to learn and unlearn. 

Tripster Buddies is well prepared to go to a place in an intention to enjoy as specified above.

Comments on this post - 1 Comment

  1. Beautiful.. would love to travel with u guys.. digging so many deep thoughts within me.. thank u is a small word

Leave a comment