Tell us a bit about yourself
We are Bhal & Zenia. A couple passionate about discovering their home country- India. We have immense love and respect for our local food and culture. Just like any other couple, there’s love, there are many fights, we strive hard to make ends meet. It’s all the same. In our travels, you won’t usually come across something way too extraordinary or undoable and that’s what makes us relatable! Through our impromptu travels, delicious food stories, and real experiences we want to inspire people to travel more, locally. Our motherland has a lot to offer and we can discover gems even with a short weekend getaway somewhere close to where we live.
We come from basic middle-class families and initially found it difficult to manage travel with our daily jobs, family, finances, etc.. Being the sole earners in our respective families, traveling to places seemed a far-fetched dream. That’s when we started doing weekend trips, one-day bike rides, etc. We discovered our love for travel and kept going, one weekend at a time. Saved for some planned trips and sometimes ended up at some locations spontaneously, when time and money both permitted.
For us, traveling has never been about how exotic the location or the stay. It’s rather more about the experiences we would come across in the entire journey and the value our travels would provide to our otherwise mundane lives. Experiences in some of the remote villages in India have been our favs. It has helped us learn so much more than textbooks ever taught us. Also, the immense love we receive from the people everywhere is beyond explanation. We always go for homestays and Airbnbs or hotels which provide local experiences.
We felt the need to put our travel stories out there so that we could inspire people like us. It’s so important that people take out time from their busy schedules to de-stress and rejuvenate and what better way than to travel? Also, it’s a myth that traveling is always expensive and it needs a lot of advance planning. We mostly do budget trips with little planning. Ours is a small step to show you how we do it!
And, yes the name – BZee(busy) Travel Lovers just felt appropriate as we need to speak to you all, your bustling timetables, and represent our mutual love for travel. We only personalized the name a bit with our initials 🙂
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What’s your biggest achievement as a Couple Travel Blogger?
Our biggest achievement as ‘Couple Travel Bloggers’ would be that, from the time we started putting out our pictures and stories, we have become role models and the go-to people for our immediate family and friends. They come to us for travel advice or ask us about the place we visited and end up at those places. We feel, we have started on the right note. If our family and close friends trust our recommendations, the rest will follow. Also, it’s good to see how we could inspire them, especially couples, to take out time from their busy lives, to go see new places and to enjoy themselves as we did.
How do you fund your travel?
We save for planned trips and do future planning for impromptu ones. For example- Leh-Ladakh was our first dream trip. We knew it that it would require a budget much more than any of our other trips. So we started a recurring deposit and saved an amount every month for a year. Yes, a year. But it was fruitful and we ticked off our 1st bucket list place in an amazing way! There are times we feel the urge to go someplace without any prior planning. At such times we analyze how much we have and how much can we put on credit cards which can be paid off after a month(s). So that’s future planning. In both ways, we avoid the hassle and stress of arranging and spending a big lump sum amount at one time.
Where is your favorite place in the world?
Our favorite place in the world is India. In India, our favorite place to date has been Turtuk, the last Indian village, just 2 km from Pakistan. It’s a serene village, right out of a fairytale. When on a Leh-Ladakh tour, you need to add this place to your itinerary. Trust us, you’ll thank us later.
If you were not traveling what would you be doing instead?
If not traveling, we would be dreaming about it! When I (Zenia) was a little kid, I was always glued to the TV when Dipti Bhatnagar’s ‘Musafir Hoon Yaaron’ came on. I still remember picturing myself in her shoes, touring the world. It fascinated me. Over the years, I may have forgotten about it, but that fascination was reignited when we started traveling again. Bhal also had a similar travel-love. So yes, even if we weren’t traveling today, we would be dreaming about doing it someday.
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What has travel taught you?
Oh, the things that travel has taught us! The experiences and journeys have been so enriching. From the locals of Leh-Ladakh, we learned how to be grateful for whatever we have been blessed with. They live in such a difficult terrain with minimal resources and amenities, yet are forever smiling and so giving. The Bishnoi’s of Jodhpur taught us how minimalist living is rewarding and that protecting our nature must be followed like a religion. Our train journeys and homestays connected us with such variable personalities. I can go on about these teachings, but if I have to sum it all up, the one most important thing we learned is that people in India have very strong roots, they are proud of them. Also, most of us want their stories to be heard and are also interested in knowing our stories. This cultural exchange has taught us so so much and has given us some really memorable experiences.
Who, in your opinion, is the most successful couple travel blogger? and Why do you think that is?
We think hands down it has to be Savi & Vid of @bruisedpassports They are the celebs of this space. They strive hard to create valuable content for their followers. Their following is massive. They influence tons of people to travel to places that they do, use the products that they use and stay positive. They have a niche defined in travel & lifestyle and have created a mark for themselves. Following them helped us realize that we need to find our niche or our area of passion within this whole travel universe. While their exotic locales & travel stories are to die for, we knew that wasn’t our niche. But following them gives us an insight into what we must or mustn’t do. We hope someday, we could influence a similar mass to travel within India and discover our beautiful nation beyond just the touristy places.
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