These millennials make a living while travelling the world

With more people relying on video guides for travel advice, young vloggers are saying goodbye 9-to-5 jobs, and picking up backpacks and cameras

Deepanshu Sangwan was preparing for CAT when he came across a YouTube video about how to travel with no money. The idea of a life of travelling consumed him, and left him unable to focus on studying or even sleeping. The 25-year-old Gurgaon boy borrowed some money from a friend, convinced his parents that this was the right move and took off on a 105-day trip to Thailand. “My plan was never to make YouTube videos or become a vlogger. It was just a way to travel, while making some money from it,” he says. Today, his YouTube channel, Nomadic Indian, has 170,000 subscribers and his videos have a total of 12 million views. He also manages to make a living while doing what he loves. Though income varies month to month, Sangwan says he makes anywhere between Rs 50,000-75,000 through advertising and sponsorships.

His travelling style is unique — he doesn’t plan his trips and tries to not even Google his destination. “I hitchhike and couchsurf my way through all my travels. I have hitchhiked more than 25,000 km in the past two years. I don’t do cinematic shots like other travel vloggers, but focus on showing people raw footage that they wouldn’t otherwise see.” He also tries to go to offbeat destinations, with his long trip through Iran being one of his most popular series. Many viewers told him that it changed their perception of the country. “In Iran, I would ask people for directions and they would spend an hour talking to me and accompanying me to my destination. Back home, we have certain misconceptions about Islamic countries,” he says, already planning a trip to Afghanistan.

Gone are the days when travellers pored through thick copies of Lonely Planets and Rough Guides, and relied on words and their imagination to bring a destination alive. Now, readers have become viewers who depend on vloggers like Sangwan to give them visual tours of their dream destination.

Many of these vloggers go beyond scenic shots to offering helpful travel tips. Varun Vagish says he makes videos for cash-strapped people like himself, discussing everything from how to get a SIM card in a foreign land to getting ridiculously cheap tickets to Russia and back. Clearly, it’s working — the 35-year-old’s channel Mountain Trekker has over 725,000 subscribers. He says, “I noticed there was a difference in the way Indians and Westerners travelled. We are more into packaged trips, comfort and leisure. The Western model is that of backpacking for longer periods of time, and that’s how I like to travel. So, I thought why not show people who speak my language this way of travelling?”

He balances disseminating information with detailing his experiences, like the time he tried to ask a private airplane for a lift, or when he found a Punjabi trucker while lost in the American countryside. “I want to make videos for those people who travel once a year and show them that they can do 3 or 4 trips in the same budget,” he adds.

Another vlogger, Tanya Khanijow is a 26-year-old Delhiite for whom it has become a full-time job, after a three year stint at a corporate. She’s travelled extensively through north-east India, and says she prefers destinations with a “quaint charm and cultural value”.

Being a travel vlogger is essentially two jobs — one is the travelling, shooting and editing and the other is the business side of things. Khanijow says, “If a brand is interested in collaborating, you can integrate their advertisement within the video. Brands realize that when you have a personal relationship with the audience, it has a better impact. I started breaking even six months into making videos.” The brands she has worked with include travel companies, hotel chains, and local tour agencies. Vloggers are also offered sponsored trips, with Kharijow having been to Taiwan and Sharjah through such trips.

Kritika Goel, a Mumbai-based vlogger, makes more money now than she did with her marketing job. But as glamorous and fun as it sounds to travel for a living, it comes with its own set of challenges. “People think it’s amazing that I’m on vacation all the time, but this has changed my relationship with travelling. I still love it, but when I’m not filming, I’m thinking about what shots to take, and when I’m not travelling, I’m editing at home. Especially when it’s a sponsored trip, there is pressure,” says the 26-year old, who was spending two days at home after a trip to Dubai, where she stayed at a subscriber’s house, before she took off for Sikkim.

Goel argues that her subscriber base of 100,000 is interested to see her experiences as a female traveler. “Travel vlogging is about people exploring new places vicariously through our videos,” she says. These vloggers also serve as inspiration for people to start travelling. Goel says many women have told her that they took solo trips inspired by her videos. For Vagish, a young man told him he saved Rs 15,000 on a trip to Sri Lanka using his tips.

The vloggers themselves say how much their travels have changed them. Sangwan says he has become far more open minded. “I’ve learnt that the best experiences are the things you don’t pay for. When someone hosts you in their home, you know that their kindness comes from the heart. I try to do the same for other people,” he says.