A thirty-something (gulp!!) couple, self-confessed travel addicts, hopelessly romantic, foodies, unapologetically vain, fashion fiends, we love our life big and good. While traversing across different cities, we travel through time, living all the alternate lives we could have lived, becoming them for the few days we are there. We’re both originally from Mumbai and have grown up on the Indian staple – Bollywood movies! The much mocked film-industry has taken us on many a fantastical journeys, some real and some imagined. Leaving the sunshine behind, we’ve made London our home (for now), an excellent base to hop, skip and jump to the many wonders of Europe and beyond.
Pooja is a daydreamer and calls herself God’s favorite child. She laughs like a boy and gossips like a girl. A chatterbox, she can be found making friends with the shopkeepers, street performers and fellow travelers some of who don’t even speak her language. She is the more adventurous of the two of us when it comes to trying anything new. However, she does have two perpetual fears –first is applying for visas, so I am tasked with managing the paperwork. The other ‘fear’ is that she will grow jaded of travelling and that the new place won’t excite her. Thankfully, the second hasn’t happened yet. She is the best travel companion I could have ever asked for and her wanderlust is contagious.
Viral is tall, dark and handsome with a killer smile, my knight in shining armor. Too posh for his Mumbai suburban beginnings, he is convinced he was born on the wrong continent. His encyclopaedic knowledge about EVERYTHING is all very good till he starts playing six degrees of separation with Hollywood. His two passions are movies and margarita pizzas! But since ‘A-guy-travelling-the-world-eating-pizza-and-blogging-about-it’ was taken, he resorted to reviewing movies at lifein70mm. He is silly, he is kind, he is witty, he is weird; his playfulness makes everything easy. His madness is wired exactly to match mine (except when it comes to waking up early even on holidays). Holding his hand and my journal in tow, I am ready to take on the world.
We are not full time travelers but by artfully juggling our meager 22-days holiday budget coupled with weekends; we make the cache stretch as far as it can go. We travel to lose ourselves and to find ourselves anew. Wanderlust is a big part of what defines us and also our biggest indulgence. For our #GenerationTravel there are travel inspirations everywhere you look, from fulltime travelers to aspirational Instagrammers, we do not want to wait to retire to start seeing the world. CityTrespassers is our attempt at sharing how despite being a fulltime employed, everyday couple we can leave our mark on the travel landscape. It’s more about inspiration than aspiration. Travelling together for two years now, we have many stories to tell. This blog is for us to relive our travels, share anecdotes and ask you to come be a part of our little adventures. There will be nothing sugar-coated and no impossible itineraries, just swapping honest travel tales and tips, and hopefully inspire you to go on that holiday you’ve been waiting for. As Ernest Hemmingway said “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love”. Join us as we trespass the sandy beaches of Bali, glide the desert sands of the Sahara, time travel through the historic city of Prague and cruise the fjords of Norway making memories along the way.