All Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By Nitin Gairola
Looking at the title you might be wondering what I am babbling about. Since I am on the India mini-series, I really only wanted to write about the first part of the title i.e. on the challenges of travelling the world with an Indian passport. Ours is of course not the weakest passport but it is definitely nowhere close to the ones held by Western Europeans, Americans, Canadians, Aussies, New Zealanders, Japanese and those from Singapore (I find it difficult to say Singaporeans for some reason). In fact, just the other day a travel YouTuber and Instagrammer (OnRoadIndian) cribbed quite a bit about the weakness of the passport in a video after a few bad experiences in Egypt.
In a very different story, I couldn’t help but belly laugh or let’s call it ROFL (Roll on the Floor Laughing) as the Gen-Z write in their WhatsApp talk. This ROFL moment took place when I read how the popular pop singer Katy Perry has been trolled for her Blue Origin space flight that lasted all of 11 minutes. This happened because of the hype she created with this space flight which had an all women crew and the fact that she acknowledged being an astronaut (and not just a space tourist). Katy Perry basically made it appear to be an inspirational and monumental achievement for all of mankind (which definitely means womankind too but I am not too sure why we call it mankind). This is besides her using the opportunity to promote her upcoming ‘Lifetimes’ concert tour. Just to add to the melodrama of the buildup and to the cheesy in-capsule videos taken, she very dramatically also kissed the ground upon landing. The internet couldn’t help but giggle and cringe at the thought that she thought this was some path-breaking space flight for humankind (there, that’s much better than mankind).
Let me now get to the point of this article. I always wanted to tell my western travellers that I meet on the road about how different and difficult it is for an Indian to see the world when compared to them. And that it really isn’t fair to compare their world travels to those of an Indian. But is that even a topic that matters since we all leverage the modern economy and industry to make our travels happen and there is very little of intrepid travel left now. In that case, is money the only difference between those who can travel extensively and those who can’t? And besides just comparing the travel realities of western and Indian travellers, after reading Katy Perry’s space flight ‘heroics’, I decided to add ‘space travel Vs. world travel’ dimension to it as well. This is since, in my humble opinion, the only deciding factor for space travel is indeed money (and a bit of courage that may come after 10 or so vodka shots, which may explain the Russian space program in the 1960s).
So let’s first take a look at the different world travellers and their realities. Basically we have the lot that can’t afford air tickets (Dunki route?), the lot who can buy their flights but otherwise budget it out and those who need not necessarily budget it on tours & activities but don’t have unlimited funds either (maybe people like us). Finally there are those who can splurge on everything including over-the-top tour operators designing curated itineraries with personal armed bodyguards and military entourage to navigate dangerous lands and the only thing limiting these people are the priorities, their fears and their bodies. So regardless of your nationality, the amount you can travel is definitely linked to the amount of money in the bank, since money doesn’t just buy miles but courage too.
But then, you can’t really forget the angle of nationality, can you? As per the Henley Passport Index, India is ranked 85th in the world out of a total of 199 countries with a passport. Our rank has slipped from 80th position in 2024 and we now have visa free access to 26 countries with quite a few others being visa on arrival or e-visa as well. If as a world traveller you don’t have to worry about getting the visas and all the pre-planning of international and internal flights, trains, buses, halting stations, hotel bookings and basically the entire itinerary, then I believe you can plan travel a lot more ‘on the fly’. If you are in a given country you can just hop over the border without the need for necessary documentation and travel bookings. I can only dream of such privilege when I am out there in the world. However the biggest hack on this front that I can tell you is to get the 10 year US B1/B2 visitor visa at only 185 USD or 16,000 INR. So while we may have only around 70 plus visa free, visa on arrival or e-visa countries, with the US B1/B2 visa, you can take that number to three digits. The beauty of this US visa is that it is cheap, it’s for a very long duration and it basically means you can go anywhere in North and South America (except Canada, Brazil and Argentina) without any pre-visa application headaches or any planning for that matter. Imagine travelling all of Central America and the Caribbean hassle free and footloose, not to mention all of USA and Alaska as well.
The other incredible parts of the Earth to make your own as an Indian (for around 90 days) are the 29 European countries that come under the single Schengen visa besides all of the humongous Russian landmass in the north of our planet via their new simplified e-visa for Indians. But other than these amazing visas, if you are like me and don’t want to stop at 50-odd developed countries, then goodluck with the planning and intense organization that you will certainly need. I have been to almost every major country on Earth and I can safely vouch that it is not all roses and cupcakes. And just to take this a step further, how about not stopping at all countries and instead leaving their capitals and going deeper into their deserts and jungles i.e. the natural world. Now I can assure you that this is a tad bit harder and you have to go on unpaved and bumpy roads if you are lucky and then on no roads if not so lucky. Having said that, this too can be eased with money but not all hardships can go away when you need to see the entire natural world. There is only so much you can do about not being able to bathe for days on end or being bitten by blood sucking mosquitoes or having creepy crawlies crawl on your arms & legs, depending on where you are. However, with sufficient funding you probably will not have it so bad and I am certain you will avoid being the meal of a hungry carnivore, unless you are terribly unlucky.
Now this leads me to our dear Katy Perry and her 11 minute Blue Origin ‘odyssey’. While one may debate the ‘achievement’ in seeing the entire political world as a westerner or as an Indian, but just tell me the achievement in going to space as a tourist, on an 11 minute rocket ride? And within those 11 minutes, spending just 4 minutes at the edge of space (105 kilometers above) before touching down on familiar terra firma? Sure it takes an undisclosed sum of money (in millions of dollars) and surely it takes some courage but I am certain Jeff Bezos would have assured Katy that his rocket had made it past all safety audits, besides this wasn’t the maiden flight either. Post the ‘ground kissing’ return home moment, the ensuing online comments are hilarious, with some writing that Sunita Williams and Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore didn’t kiss the ground after being away in space for 286 days, so why would Katy Perry do it after 11 minutes. Drama queen alert perhaps? I would tend to agree with some of the comments since this was surely no achievement of any kind for humankind. It was simply a case of a human’s wanderlust to see what lies beyond and that in itself is a good thing. Only thing is we need to keep both world and space travel in perspective and not see these as achievements of explorers, which they certainly aren’t. But trust me, seeing the entire political and natural world in one lifetime is far more difficult and enriching than taking an 11 minute vertical ride fueled by technology alone. While space is infinite, we only see it for a fleeting moment during this short ride. On the other hand, while we constantly say it’s a small world, just try to see it all in one full lifetime and tell me if you still think it’s a small world.
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/
