We have travelled to places far from home, sometimes spending several days exploring unfamiliar cities and landscapes. But we have also realised something rather amusing: we have probably explored more places in Berlin than we have in Bengaluru. We can have detailed memories, photographs and stories from a journey halfway around the world, while places just a few kilometres from home remain unexplored.
That got us thinking. Why not start exploring Bengaluru and its surroundings with the same curiosity with which we explore places far away? A morning walk through Basavanagudi, an afternoon in Malleshwaram, breakfast somewhere we have never tried, or a half-day trip just outside the city can become a journey in its own right. We want to have as many fond experiences and memories in Basavanagudi as we have in Berlin. That is the idea behind Travelbugs.
From Berlin to Basavanagudi: The Travel Podcast That Never Happened
The idea actually goes back to 2017. At the time, we were thinking about creating a podcast around travel. We had travelled to quite a few places, accumulated photographs and experiences, and collected the sort of stories and anecdotes that naturally emerge when you travel. We thought these journeys could make interesting stories, and for a while there was even a plan to turn them into a dedicated travel podcast.
The podcast, however, never quite happened. Other projects took precedence, other stories demanded attention, and the travel podcast became one of those ideas that was discussed, planned and then quietly put aside. The travelling itself did not stop, though. There were more journeys, more photographs, more conversations and more memories, and the archive of travel experiences continued to grow. In particular, from around 2024 onwards, we have accumulated considerably more video, including short clips, travel footage and small visual narratives. So rather than waiting for the perfect travel podcast, we decided to bring the idea back in a different form. Travelbugs is that idea in a new avatar.
ब्लॉग सारांश
‘Travelbugs’ इस विचार पर आधारित है कि यात्रा का मतलब केवल सात समंदर पार जाना ही नहीं, बल्कि अपने आस-पास की जगहों को भी उसी उत्सुकता से देखना है. अक्सर हम बर्लिन जैसे दूर-दराज के शहरों को तो गहराई से छान मारते हैं, लेकिन बेंगलुरु के बासवनगुड़ी या मल्लेश्वरम जैसे नजदीकी इलाकों से अनजान रह जाते हैं. 2017 में शुरू हुआ एक पॉडकास्ट का विचार अब एक नए अवतार में सामने आया है, जो केवल औपचारिक गाइडबुक बनने के बजाय अनुभवों, किस्सों, तस्वीरों और वीडियो को संजोता है. चाहे महाराष्ट्र का लंबा रोड ट्रिप हो, शहर के बाहर की एक दिन की सैर, या फिर किसी आम सुबह पुरानी गलियों में नाश्ते की तलाश—यहाँ यात्रा का दायरा नहीं, बल्कि उसे महसूस करने का नज़रिया मायने रखता है.
ब्लॉगचा सारांश
‘Travelbugs’ ही संकल्पना आपल्याला आठवण करून देते की भटकंती म्हणजे केवळ दूरवरचा प्रवास नसून आपल्या परिसराकडेही एका नव्या नजरेने पाहणे होय. परदेशातील बर्लिन शहराची बित्तंबातमी असणाऱ्या आपल्याला अनेकदा बंगळुरूच्या बासवनगुडी किंवा मल्लेश्वरममधील गल्ल्यांची नीटशी ओळखही नसते, आणि हाच विरोधाभास दूर करण्याचा हा एक प्रयत्न आहे. २०१७ मधील ट्रॅव्हल पॉडकास्टची ही मूळ कल्पना आता लेख, छायाचित्रे आणि व्हिडीओच्या एका नव्या रूपात समोर येत आहे. महाराष्ट्रातील एखादी मोठी भ्रमंती असो, शहराभोवतीची एक दिवसाची रपेट असो किंवा बंगळुरूमध्ये घेतलेली सकाळची फेरी—प्रवासाचे अंतर कितीही असले, तरी त्यातील अनुभव, अनपेक्षित वळणे आणि उत्सुकता हीच खरी प्रवासाची गोष्ट ठरते.
What Counts as Travel?
We don’t want to define travel simply by the distance covered or the number of nights spent away from home. Sometimes a journey lasts a week. Sometimes it lasts three or four days. Sometimes it is a half-day excursion from Bengaluru, and sometimes it is simply a morning spent walking through a part of the city that we have never properly explored. All of these can become travel stories because what matters to us is not just where we went, but what we experienced along the way.
City Explorations
Travel can begin right outside the front door. A morning walk through Basavanagudi, exploring Malleshwaram, visiting Lalbagh during the flower show, discovering an old market or temple, or simply stopping somewhere for breakfast on an otherwise ordinary weekday morning can all become stories. These may not look like conventional travel itineraries, but they can produce photographs, observations, conversations and memories just as any longer journey can. There is a certain irony in travelling thousands of kilometres to explore another city while leaving parts of our own city unexplored, and Travelbugs is an attempt to correct that.
Half-Day and Day Trips
Then there are the places close enough to visit without taking a holiday. Maddur, Melukote, Devanahalli, Lepakshi and many other destinations around Bengaluru can be explored in a few hours or over the course of a day. These journeys often begin with a simple question: where can we go today? The journey may be short, but the places we discover, the people we meet, the food we encounter and the unexpected moments along the way can make it every bit as memorable as a longer trip.
Short Trips
A little more time opens up more possibilities. A three- to five-day journey gives us enough time to slow down, explore more than one place and allow the journey itself to become part of the experience. A trip to Kolhapur and Belgaum, for example, is not simply about visiting two destinations. There is the road, the food, the temples, the people, the unexpected stops and everything that happens between leaving home and returning. These are the journeys that sit somewhere between a weekend outing and a major road trip.
Extended Journeys
And then there are the larger journeys. A five- to seven-day road trip through Maharashtra can involve several towns, historic sites, temples, landscapes and long stretches of road. The destination is only part of the story. The route matters, the detours matter, and sometimes the unexpected stop becomes the most memorable part of the journey. These longer journeys may become substantial travelogues, collections of photographs, videos or several related stories.
International Travel
And, of course, sometimes we travel much farther. An international journey can produce a thousand-word story, or several of them. Berlin, London or another distant destination may seem very different from a morning in Bengaluru, yet the fundamental questions remain the same: what did we see, what did we experience, what surprised us, and what stayed with us after we returned? The distance changes, but the experience of discovering a place does not.
Revisiting Older Journeys
One of the pleasures of bringing Travelbugs back now is that we don’t have to start from scratch. There are older journeys sitting in photographs, memories and conversations. Some were documented carefully, while others exist mainly as photographs and recollections. Some may have appeared briefly elsewhere, while others have never really been written about. We want to revisit some of them and bring those experiences together in a form that allows us to tell the stories properly.
That does not necessarily mean turning every old trip into a conventional travel guide. A journey experienced several years ago can look different when remembered today. Places change, circumstances change, and our own perspective changes. The photographs may be old, but the story we tell about them can be new. Some Travelbugs articles will therefore be new stories about old journeys, while others will document journeys that happened only recently.
And Then There Is Video
The original idea in 2017 was a travel podcast. Today, we have many more ways of telling a travel story. Since around 2024, we have accumulated considerably more video, including short clips, travel footage and visual narratives from our travels. Some of these may eventually find their way to YouTube, not necessarily as podcasts, but as travel series and visual stories. That means a Travelbugs journey might eventually exist in several forms: a written travelogue, a collection of photographs, a short video, a longer YouTube story, an audio recording, or some combination of these. The website can bring those pieces together rather than forcing every journey into one particular format. The story comes first; the medium can follow.
The Journey Is the Story
That, ultimately, is what Travelbugs is about. We don’t want to create a catalogue of destinations or pretend that every journey is a travel guide. We want to record experiences of travel: the places we visit, the roads we take, the people we encounter, the things we notice, the meals we remember and the stories that remain with us after the journey is over.
Sometimes that experience will involve a seven-day road trip across Maharashtra. Sometimes it will be a three-day journey to another part of India. Sometimes it will be a half-day excursion from Bengaluru, and sometimes it may simply be a morning spent walking through a part of the city we have never properly explored. We could spend a week travelling through London and write a thousand words about it, or spend a day at the Lalbagh Flower Show and find ourselves with two thousand words to tell.
The scale of our travels may be different. The curiosity is the same.
And perhaps that is what having the travel bug really means. You don’t necessarily have to go far. You just have to want to go somewhere.
