Today, along with being a YouTuber, I am also an official YouTube Product Expert and host workshops on Vlogging and Video-Editing, wherein I have trained over 300 creators till date.
1. Tell us about your background and journey.
I was born and have been brought up in New Delhi, and have done my schooling from Apeejay School Noida. After that, I directly pursued Chartered Accountancy and worked in an MNC for a couple of years as a Chartered Accountant. As lucrative as the field was, it didn’t align very well with my interests and hence I decided to take the plunge of quitting my job to pursue YouTube and Travel Video Making full-time, in late 2019.
Since then, in the span of three years of doing this full-time, I also tried my hands on running a startup, doing freelance work, and organising trips but none of that worked out for me in the long run. It was then that I decided to put all my focus into my YouTube channel and managed to grow it to 75K+ subscribers with 170+ videos now.
Today, along with being a YouTuber, I am also an official YouTube Product Expert and host workshops on Vlogging and Video-Editing, wherein I have trained over 300 creators till date.
2. How did you manage to bring your travelling into social media? What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them? What was your journey in establishing a social media presence?
I started travelling quite frequently after finishing CA and started randomly sharing about them on Instagram. Gradually, my followers (who were simply my friends back then) suggested I start a Travel channel on YouTube since they found the travel tips very helpful. So, the channel essentially started to share budget friendly travel tips and itineraries but is now about the concept of Slow, offbeat and experience based travel also.
I think the biggest challenge I faced was the pandemic when the Tourism industry was one of the most badly affected. It was then that I diversified my content into educational content, and also when my channel saw the maximum growth. Since then, my journey has been about being true to myself, be it in a travel video or an educational sit-down video, and to provide as much value as possible to the community, in the form of infotainment in different areas.
3. While travelling did you discover anything about yourself?
Yes, absolutely. I recently went on a 30-day solo trip to 3 countries in South-East Asia and have come to realise that there’s nothing like a solo-travel experience that can help you attain SELF AWARENESS.
As an example, during the trip, I understood my style of travel, how I envision certain aspects of my lifestyle, the kind of skills I wanted to develop and so on. In general as well, because of the different situations that travel naturally pushes you in, you end up discovering a lot about yourself.
4. How did you find that this career was the right career or calling for you? Any experience you would like to share?
To be honest, I still don’t know if it’s the “right” calling for me. I still believe I am figuring it all out like I was in my CA days. Except this time I am doing that while doing something I love.
Though, I did try my hands on a lot of things right from hand lettering, studying for MBA and even interning in a cafe in the marketing department (just to get a practical exposure of what that would be like). It was only after a series of experiments in every field that I was even remotely interested in, did I choose Travel Vlogging/YouTube as the one which I wanted to explore the most.
5. What mistakes did you make during your travelling journey and what would you do differently if you could return in time?
I believe I would want to give more importance to my fitness levels since they play a very important role, especially in the case of adventure travel. Secondly, I would also plan my content well in advance so that I can hit the right balance between documenting and actually enjoying the place.
6. What places have you seen till now and could you give a glimpse of them?
I have never kept a count of the number of states/countries I’ve visited but I find true passion in exploring the unexplored which has taken me to different geographies. At the same time, I also believe in the importance of promoting domestic tourism and work towards it via exploring the road less travelled in the remotest parts of the country.
Recently, I explored some remote villages in Uttarakhand, made a travel series around it and ended up having a very unique and beautiful experience at those places.
7. Some of your experiences while travelling that you would like to share?
There are so many interesting experiences but I’d specifically like to throw some light on a recent one in Bali, Indonesia. I was randomly walking by the streets all by myself in hunt for a good vegetarian restaurant, seeking help from a couple who had lived there for a couple of years and in that event, they ended up taking me to an Indian restaurant for dinner as they were heading there themselves.
That’s not the interesting part, the best part was all the stories that they told me about their life, their childhood, what they had learnt, and their kids. I literally had tears in my eyes listening to the heartwarming stories and ended up thanking the moment in time that brought me there.
There are many such incidents where you randomly meet strangers who end up touching your lives that leave an impact that stays forever. And for me, that’s what travel is about. About listening to other people’s inspiring stories, adding value to their lives and sharing them with the world in the form of travel films.
8. Some travelling hacks, which are generally not known by people?
This is more of an advice than a hack and that is to not get into the herd mentality while preparing an itinerary of a place, and understanding that you need not cover every tourist place that google asks you to. So many people visit a place just because it’s a “must-thing” without truly understanding if it really aligns with their travel preferences, leading to disappointment and waste of money at times.
9. How do you afford to travel and how do you get sponsored trips? Do you get the freedom to do anything or do you have to obey some guidelines on a sponsored trip?
After a point in your career as a travel vlogger, you do start getting sponsored trips and even paid to travel. Now while that may seem like a dream job, it has its own share of ups and downs like any other job.
In the initial years, I was mostly spending my savings from my CA job to fund my travels after which I started getting projects that allow me to travel. In most cases, you do get the freedom to travel wherever you want and create content in your own style, but yes there are some guidelines to be followed too.
10. What problems do you face while travelling? What is the hidden cost behind this?
When you have a personal brand, it’s very hard to differentiate your personal and professional life, which is also the case with me. So, I constantly keep working on hitting a balance between the two. Due to this, it often becomes tricky to have a structure/routine to your life be it in terms of staying fit or even catching up with your friends at times.
Moreover, lately, I have also come to realise that travelling and making travel videos are two different things and a lot of times you do end up missing moments while you’re busy recording. And for this reason, I try to show the behind the scenes of making travel videos quite often on my social media handles for others to make an informed decision when it comes to pursuing YouTube as a career option.
That being said, the rewards often outweigh the challenges (be it in terms of the scope of creativity, having a platform to share your voice, or even financially) and hence it works out for those who are well aware and okay with the cons that come with it.
11. How do you want to take your travelling career to the next stage? Do you have any future plans that you would like to share?
There are no structured plans as such that I can share for now. Also, I don’t see my career going only in the travel direction, and do plan to diversify while exploring my other interests as well.
For example, I plan to bring out some detailed workshops for fellow content creators and help them grow their online presence. Thankfully, I have never fallen trap to the number game and intend to keep providing value to the places I visit, people I meet on my travels and of course my online community through my content.
Bio
Visha is a CA turned Youtuber with an impressive presence on YouTube and Instagram collating to a total of over 115K followers. Her journey as a Travel Vlogger has taken her places and she is also a YouTube Product Expert now. She is a self-motivated educator with a zeal to give back, she has so far trained over 300 budding filmmakers in her independently run workshops.
Born and raised in New Delhi, Visha was always a scholar in academics and during her course of finishing Chartered Accountancy in January 2018, she joined a Big 4 enterprise (KPMG) and worked there for ~5 years.
Despite this, her heart lay elsewhere. From trying her hands at calligraphy designs, and event management and even opting for MBA classes, she had explored multiple playgrounds. During this adventurous route, she gained clarity about her calling and gave in to the path of filmmaking, travelling while documenting her experiences and sharing it all with the world. This gave birth to her YouTube Channel.
Interviewed By- Shashank Sehgal
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