Smart travel to Greece

Greece has always been my dream country. I have this childlike glee when I think of Greece. My experience in Greece has to be magical. This year, visiting Greece is one of my goals and I am pretty sure I will!

While I have never travelled abroad I have a fair idea on how I will save money and enjoy my stay in my dream destination

Plan way ahead!

Travelling right is also about planning ahead and doing your research. Sites like exploroo and Planapple help you plan itineraries and connect you to other travelers. I have also used

Frommers which makes it easy for people to share 

their own experiences and itineraries. Doing your research before hand helps you save so much headache. Since I plan to travel to Greece this year, I have already started planning my holiday dates and itineraries and after a lot of thought and research have zeroed in on Mykonos, Athens and Santorini as the priority places to visit.  I am also finding out all the tourist attractions in these cities so that I don’t have to depend on hotel staff to direct me to the right places.

Book in advance

Anywhere I travel to, it makes sense to plan and book major things like tickets and hotels much before the intended travel time. That saves a lot of money!

Travel off season

I don’t like clichés and I don’t like crowds. You will most likely see me at a touristy spot at a time when most people don’t visit it.  The foremost advantage of going somewhere off season is that you have more options for accommodation. Hotels, guest houses, inns AND tickets will be much cheaper if you go off season. But there is a also a disadvantage- many touristy spots are completely closed to the public during the off season- so everyone needs to be careful about that.

Look for cheap deals

Another thing I am doing now is exploring different travel sites and agencies and comparing their deals and packages. Many tourism agencies keep offering deals which turn out to be way more reasonable than your original budget. All you have to do is look out!

Know the culture

For me travelling is not just about going to a place and ticking it off in your check list. For me travelling is about experiencing a new culture; understanding it; soaking it in. Getting to know new cultures is one of the major reasons I want to travel. I believe in the old adage-when in Rome do as the Romans do. When In Greece, do as Greeks do! Find out about what is expected behavior and what is not. Try to stick to it. That way you don’t alienate the locals and they are more accepting of you and therefor open to the idea of helping you out. Get a phrasebook. Make the effort to learn atleast the catchphrase in the local language. Even though Greece is essentially about beaches,  I won’t dress in beachwear everywhere, expecting it to be the norm. Here again comes the keyword- research. A little cultural knowledge about the country you’re travelling to will go a long way.

Get a local sim

This is a tip I picked up from A. When he went to Vietnam he bought a local sim which made communication with his friends easier and much much cheaper. He also bought skype credits so that we could talk on a daily basis. I too plan to do the same when I travel to Greece, I think it will save a lot of money and hassle. 

 Find out best ways to travel within the cities- 

 I also need to save money on local transport. Once I’ve planned my itinerary I will find out what the best way to travel within the cities is. I think the biggest mistake people do is use expensive transport. They end up paying much more than required. Many times public transport is cheap and yet very comfortable. In some countries you can hire cycles or bikes to move around the city and that becomes a big bonus as you don’t need to depend on the local transport. Getting to know bus routes in a new country can get tiresome so I will  prefer to find out beforehand.

Food! (very important!)

Tasting local cuisine is a big part of understanding Greek culture. I will definitely want to try local cuisine but don’t want to pay a bomb for it. So my research will also include what kind of food is available. Think of it this way- if someone comes to India and tries street food in a restaurant he will be paying for it much more than he intended to. He may have been unaware that he could have had the same thing at a much cheaper price. I don’t want to make that mistake. So research for food options will also be a priority.


So I think I have covered all bases but there is one more thing which I learnt from my dad-when you're at a new place be prepared to be ripped off and pay extra knowingly. You never know what could happen. More importantly, relax and enjoy your hard earned holiday without any worries!


I have always wanted to write such a post and Indiblogger's new contest tie up with skyscanner was enough motivation to finally do so.

Check out Skyscanner for smart travel plans. Click on the link here

Attention everyone!

The deed is done. I have gone and nominated myself for IndiBlogger awards. More precisely The IB Indian Blogger awards.

Not that I am going to win or anything. Just saying. 

Dating sucks: My entry for the Get Published contest

"Love is a four letter word with infinite power"

I don't like cheesy love quotes but I like this one. I can relate to it. Love definitely has a lot of power. Things change when you fall in love.

Though I have written fiction I have not written a lovestory yet. And now I want to. Lovestories seem simple right? Boy meets girl; they fall in love; live happily ever after(or not). But I don't think writing a lovestory is that easy. There is a lot of emotion involved. That is why I have never really attempted one. I think I will, now that HarperCollins has a contest on Indiblogger. Bloggers can write about "Real Love in New India. " Good incentive right? And since I do have a plot...


My story revolves around Kaashvi Sahni, a 21 year old drummer who wants to form her own band. Its about how her journey of discovering love. Its about having to kiss many toads before you even have a shot at finding your prince(Failed dates, first kisses, bike rides, long walks, phone calls, facebook chats. A little hesitation and loads of confusion. That's what finding love is all about. 

Kaashvi's search for "the one" began when she was 18, when she decides to go on her first date. And now, at age 21,  a couple of break ups and countless dates later, she hadn't found her special someone . But she is determined. She decides to chronicle her experiences in her blog. The question she wants an answer to is something all of us have asked at some point of time. Do we need to find love or does love find us? 

When I was  thinking about what kind of lovestory I want to write my mind wandered and I recalled all the stupid blind dates I had gone through, all the jerks I had encountered, all the confusion and all the heartbreak I went through.  Just to find that "special someone". The things we do to find love! I think the whole process of dating is stressful. And this is what inspired me to write about a girl my age who goes through all of this(like everyone else.) Being a blogger myself I decided to tell Kaashvi's story through her blog. 
Sounds interesting? I call it old wine in a slightly new bottle.

Extract: Kaashvi's first blog entry-Dating sucks. It really does. I am not saying that love sucks and that I don’t believe in love. All I am saying is dating sucks, The whole process of dating. The mind games, the trying to impress a person; the trying to understand if the other person as emotionally involved as you are; all this is too stressful. I don’t know much about love but I have been on too many bad dates. I have been in a relationship in the past but right now I am single. I think for the last few years I have been trying to understand what love is. I still haven’t been able to figure it out. In the process of finding “love” I have obviously gone through the motions of dating. I now realise that I hate it. I hate the whole proceed of dating. I used to blog about music and will still do but now I want to write about my experiences and what I feel about love.

This is my entry for the Harper Collins-IndiBlogger Get published contest which is run with inputs from HarperCollins India and Yashodhara Lal



P.S If you think you would like to read my story when it's done, do vote for me here. 

Pyar Vyar; Shaddi Vaddi

Suicide or Murder?
Love marriage or arranged?

That's the million dollar question!

Is the question actually valid? Why do we even need to choose between the two? Why does it have to be so black and white?

Say boy and girl meet each other. They fall in love and decide they want to marry each other. And they do. End of story. 

OR

Say parents like a prospective spouse for their child. Said people like each other enough to decide to get married. And they do. End of story. 

But things are not that simple. We Indians have this need to choose one of the two. Endlessly praise one and criticize the other.

We just like to complicate things.

So let's start again. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They want to marry. Boy meets girl's parents. Girl meets his. Parents disapprove. She is not tall enough. He does not earn enough. She does not have siblings. He has too many. His house is at the wrong place. Her dress is at the wrong place. He speaks differently. She eats differently. She has short hair. He has long hair. 

"You simply can't marry him"

"There is no way I will let you marry him."

"But we are in love" 

"Yeh pyar vyar chodo. Shaddi Karo, Ghar basao." (Forget that . Get married  and settle down. )

There are very few lucky people whose parents are okay with them falling in love and marrying anyone. 

So what about arranged marriage?

That must be good. After all our parents know what is good for us. But ain't they humans too? True, they will look into every aspect of the prospective spouse-family, background, career prospects. But that certainly does not determine a successful marriage. 

Its not about which way of meeting your partner is better.  Its about building a successful, happy marriage.  So why do we need to decide which is better? If you meet a person on your own, well and good. If your parents or relatives introduce you to people when you are ready to get married, that's fair enough. How you meet your spouse should not matter. What should matter is that you are ready to spend the rest of your life with this person.  



This post is written for the Love Marriage ya arranged marriage contest on Indiblogger, organised by Sony Entertainment Television. Their new show Love marriage ya arranged marriage revolves explores the debate between love and arranged marriage.  Check out their facebook page here
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