All Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By Nitin Gairola
Often times when someone hears of my insane travel destinations or sees my photographs, they ask me about my YouTube channel. I disappoint them by saying I am not really a YouTuber (yet) but more of a travel writer. In fact I was a writer, actually a poet, even before I was a world traveller, so writing comes very naturally to me. But after I became a cuckoo world traveller who decided to see the ‘entire’ planet, I have realized that every time I see a YouTube video on a destination, I am invariably let down when I am in front of the real thing. However every time I have selected an interesting place after reading a book or a column on it, I have been pleasantly surprised by what I have witnessed. So for me the written word still has its charm when it comes to adventure travel. It can transport you to a foreign land but also leave a lot to the reader’s imagination and interpretation as well. And a travel photograph is something of a mid-point between the written word and the video and I am still moved by the stills.
So in a way I am an old school storyteller, but with a twist. The twist is that I don’t write about slow travel or ‘how to soak in a destination’ and ‘to go deep’ into a location. Quite the opposite since I go as wide as possible so as to give a perspective on the whole world and try to connect the dots. Besides it also helps that my world travel angle is education and that too science and geography, since the natural world is as wide as it gets here on Earth. And the final twist comes with the world travel records that I set since I have realized that no one has really travelled so wide so as to visit every natural world ecosystem or biome on Earth. Almost all the travel books on my shelf or any book store that I visit are only a single destination since the harsh truth is that most travel writers are not real travellers. They typically travel for 1 month and write in 1 year whereas I travel for 1 year and write in 1 month. My world travel book, when it comes out, will be on everything and will have stories from all around the world.
I also want to be 100% honest about my travels. I don’t want my column or my future book to feel like a tourism brochure with me waxing eloquent about any person, place or thing. I am not here to sell any destination or for that matter to sell anything since anything genuine and unique will sell on its own. My two cents is that in the cluttered world of travel writing, you need to stand out so the product matters more than the packaging. So my words are simply a recording of my thoughts, my perspective on what I witnessed and more importantly what I felt at a given place & time (how else will it be unique?). I aim to make it as raw and straightforward as I possibly can, but without offending anyone (I do try not to since it’s one of the things you learn when you see the wider world). I was clear about being genuine since the world is full of half-truths or half-lies and we have seen that all too well off late. I wanted to portray my travels as they were – The good with the not-so-good.
Now enough said on the ‘twist’ bit of my travel writing, since for me the more pertinent question really is – ‘why not YouTube’ in this day & age of smart phones and short attention spans. Well, why should I be in that crowded space especially when I won’t be the best at it? You see, professional movie making is not a piece of cake even though it appears to be on YouTube. The first thing with any art is the ability to tell a story. By taking random shaky videos, I am not sure what millions, including me, are doing with their smart devices. They also say the biggest element of a good video is the audio. Now tell me how many use external microphones with a ‘dead cat’ when recording an event (er, the dead cat is the fuzzy grey bit i.e. a wind muff around a mike and not an actual dead cat, which would be quite grisly).
Now this inability of mine to stitch together a proper video story or to keep the camera stable or to have the right audio is what made me certain that travel video making (during travel) was not my thing. And I believe that adventure travel doesn’t have to always be all ‘Go-Pro’ action filming since there is also a heavy aspect of context and reflection. Here extreme adventure doesn’t mean bungee jumping or sky diving since those are sports for an adrenaline rush in a controlled environment. My understanding of adventure travel is going into our wild spaces (in a safe way) but in a relatively uncontrolled environment. This releases a neuro-transmitter hormone called ‘dopamine’ and not adrenaline. Dopamine is a reward seeking-risk taking mind-set found in around 20% of humans and it is found in high dosages in anyone who decides to do a business instead of a job, or undertakes any venture which has a high element of the unknown. As per National Geographic, 20% of population carries a genetic variant (DRD47R) which is associated with curiosity and restlessness and is not linked to traditional ‘adventure sports’. Adrenaline on the other hand is a hormone that is released for preparing the body for exertion & escape and was particularly useful in our stone-age days when we had to escape wild predators on a regular basis.
Coming back to the topic, I can understand the hook of adventure videos since they can capture the motion of an animal, or a lave flow for example, but once you have seen it, the real show will definitely disappoint as per my personal experience. In defence of the written word in the area of adventure travel, I feel every such wild space has a long and colourful Earth story that must be told and such stories can also be told through books. Actually to do them justice, they can be best told through books provided there are enough readers in this fast paced world.
So now you also know why I choose the destinations that I choose. If it were the usual suspects in Europe, USA or Australia then at best it would have been a case of old wine in a new bottle. I don’t want to short change my readers by rehashing material that is flooding the internet already. I want to deliver content that is extremely hard to find and you will know what I mean when I start writing about my next international destination very soon. Here’s to curiosity and a dash of dopamine.
Nitin Gairola is from Dehradun and has travelled the natural world more than almost any Indian ever. He has set world travel records certified by India Book of Records, has written for Lonely Planet, and holds National Geographic conservation certifications. He is also a senior corporate executive in an MNC and in his early days, used to be a published poet as well. More than anything else, he loves his Himalayan home. Reach him at: www.facebook.com/nitingairola/; www.facebook.com/MostTravelledIndian/
