Freelance travel writer and blogger

Welcome to Breathedreamgo! My name is Mariellen Ward and I’m an award-winning professional travel writer, blogger and editor, based in Toronto. I launched Breathedreamgo.com in August 2009, inspired by my extensive travels in India. Breathedreamgo won a Canadian Weblog Award in the travel category in 2011.
I have a BA in Journalism and write for leading Canadian and international newspapers and magazines such as the Toronto Star, Zoomer, Homemakers, Canadian Living, Dreamscapes, Discover India and for many online travel sites such as Sympatico Travel, Bootsnall, The Matador Network, Travelllll.com, TravelWireAsia.com and Journeywoman, among others (see portfolio below). I am a senior writer at Vacay.ca and TravelandEscape.ca, where I write a bi-monthly Immersive Travel feature.
The underlying theme of my writing is “meaningful travel” — solo, long-term, yoga, spiritual, health and wellness, voluntourism and eco-tourism — and I publish a monthly e-newsletter called Travel That Changes You. In 2010 I published my first book, Song of India: Tales of Travel and Transformation.
I am a founding member of the Professional Travel Bloggers Association and co-founder of the highly successful Toronto Travel Massive, a monthly meetup group for travel bloggers and the travel industry.
To find out “why India” please read My Story. To find out how my skills can help benefit you, please read Breathedreamgo Services and Consulting .
Please scroll down to see a select portfolio of my travel-related writing. I am also a copywriter. You can find out more about my corporate copy writing at MariellenWard.ca or by visiting my Linkedin profile.
Portfolio
Magazine and newspaper articles
Zoomer Magazine
- Happiness: What do they know that we don’t? (PDF)
Toronto Star
- Aging Gracefully: Delhi at 100
Homemakers Magazine
- The Joy of Cheap
Toronto Star
- Mumbai Mesmerizes
Maple Tree Literary Supplement
-Defining Indo-Canadian Writing
Canadian Living Magazine
- Change is a process, not a destination
Toronto Star newspaper
- Life in an ashram in India
Homemakers Magazine
- Sacred Journey (PDF)
Zoomer Magazine
- Lotus Blossom: Turning 50 in India (PDF)
Discover India
- Bengaluru: Impressions of a city (16-page cover feature) (Bangalore PDF)
Asian Woman (Canada) Magazine
- Role Models: Rani Mukherjee, Pryianka Chopra and Seema Biswas
This magazine
- Booming trade in slum tourism dispels some myths, create others
Arrival Magazine: Aeroplan’s monthly magazine and Arrival online
- Winter wonderland: Cool, colourful things to do in India in winter
Acura Style magazine
- Golden Mirage: Jaisalmer (PDF)
The Toronto Star travel section
- India: Journey to the other side
Dreamscapes Magazine : Globe and Mail supplement
- India is Yoga (PDF)
Online travel and yoga magazines / sites
Travel+Escape
Bi-monthly Immersive Travel column
- Comfort and Joy: Three heavenly havens
- Are you a tourist or a traveler?
- New Year’s Eve in Kerala
- Have you found your soul culture?
- A perfect winter moment
- Tom Cruise, lost in Havana and the real Cuba
- Deep in the jungle of Costa Rica
- Exhale at a tropical health spa in Kerala
- A Tale of two Beaches
- India’s sustainable tiger safaris
- Help save India’s most sacred river
- The Healing Power of Travel in India
Vacay.ca
Senior Writer
- India masala in Toronto
- On Titanic 100th, Halifax remembers
- Halifax respectfully honours the Titanic
- Titanic memorabilia in Halifax
Travel Wire Asia
Regular Contributor
- The dust of India
- How to “do” a yoga ashram in India, Part 1
- How to get ready for your ashram adventure, Part 2
- What to expect at an ashram, Part 3
- How to shop in India, Part 1: Top 5 tips
- How to shop in India Part 2: Top 5 things to buy
Mahindra Homestays
- The “Queens of the Hills”
Green GlobalTravel
- On the Trail of tigers in India’s Ranthambore National Park
- Travelllll
- Why India? The advantages of destination specific blogging
Sympatico Travel
- On the trail of the tiger in India
FreshJuice
- The menu ont he Titanic
ZipSetGo
- What is Transformative Travel?
Brave New Traveler / The Matador Network
- Travel is an exercise in perception
Bootsnall
- 10 Ways to Experience India Now
Passports with Purpose
- Why I support Passports with Purpose
Bootsnall
- Five hard truths about long term travel
The Art Gallery of Ontario : Maharaja
- If these walls could talk
The Brooklyn Nomad
- My favourite train rides in India
Travel Writers Exchange
- How to work with tourism boards
Travel Writers Exchange
- The importance of finding your travel niche
Matador Abroad, The Matador Network
~ India, poverty and the fear of traveling to poor places
SoloTraverlBlog
- Getting ready to go: Four top solo travel tips
- Recovering from loss by following a dream
Transitions Abroad
- Yoga as a window into Indian culture
Transitions Abroad
~ Learning to love Delhi
Journeywoman website and e-newsletter
~ She packs for India: packing tips for travel in India
- Top 10 things to buy in India
- Top 10 tips for women travelling in India
- How to dress for social success in India
Trazzler
~ Strolling in Lodhi Garden, Delhi
~ Falling in love with the Jaisalmer desert
What travel writers say
~ Ashrams in Rishikesh
SoloTraveler
~ Recommended: Traveling solo in India
The Matador Network
~ 11 reasons to visit India in the summertime
Humantimes.com
~ What Yoga is
Examiner.com: Sustainable Travel
~ Butterflies are free: volunteering in Dharamsala
The Mindful Word
- How I learned to accept change
Press
Desi News
Wide-eyed Wanderer: A profile
Citizen Lou
Helping Hands
8 Women Dream interview
Breathedreamgo: A mantra for living
Weekly Voice
How one woman found solace in India PDF
Interview: How one woman found solace in India
Interview with Rashi Khilnani, Indo-Canadian Report on CBC
- Blogging about the IIFAs
Appearance on Nat & Marie, Ustream TV talk show
Masti Magazine
- Song of India book-review
Canadian Living Magazine
- Change is a process, not a destination (PDF)
Akshara Yoga blog
- Of Breathing, dreaming and blogging
India-Asia News Service
- Raj Kapoor martini marks IIFA in Toronto
Travelblog
Mariellen’s India Travel blog
~ between December 2005 – April 2009 I spent 11 months living, traveling, studying and volunteering in India. Please visit if you want to share my adventures on the subcontinent.
All material on this weblog is copyright Mariellen Ward 2010

Mariellen – I love your blog! I love all your musings about India! I am a vacation planner by profession with India as one of the destinations I specialize in. Despite being a native of India, I feel you have expressed the details that I find it hard to sometimes prepare my clients with. Here on out I will be sending your link to my clients going to India.
I don’t see much of a mention for South India – are you still in the process of discovering that area? I myself am from there and would love for you to discover that region as well. I think it’s dramatically different then the North.
Thanks for your blog and discovering India and also for sharing!
Hello Mariellen! I met you during the Toronto Travel Tribe meeting which, serendipitously, was being held the night of my photography exhibit opening reception at the Rivoli! I would love to travel to India, and I find you blog very inspiring! I am now following you on Twitter, and hope to attend the future meetings!
Mariellen,
I’m so happy I found your blog. I really love it. I just subscribed and became a fan on facebook.
I’m trying to get in touch with you regarding an opportunity you might be interested in regarding sharing your blog with a larger audience. Would you be so kind as to reply to my email where I can share this with you privately?
Thank you,
Angela Artemis
Hi Deanna, Hi Angela! Thanks so much for commenting. It’s fun to meet people here, on Breathedreamgo.
Mariellen – just found your blog and am so happy I did. I loved your spirit and love for India captured through your writings and photographs. I could feel much in common between us and hence had to connect by leaving this comment. I love photography too and love traveling.
Saw your Holi photo of the ashram in Rishikesh. Would like to know which ashram this is. Also, what do you think of Rishikesh as a place. I have been thinking of making it my summer retreat…
Hugs…
Just stumbled onto your blog! I love your article,”change is a process, not destination”-so inspiring. I have always wanted to go to Indian and study yoga-and I WILL someday. I am currently traveling the US and going after my dream to be a travel writer-Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Wow, I’m also really happy I discovered your blog. Your story is similar to mine in many ways. I came to India after some personal losses, except I’m still here over 5 years later (and I married an Indian guy as well). I also write about India travel — I look after About.com’s India travel website (part of the New York Times) and I’ve written a book about my transformational India experience (but it’s not due to be published until later this year). India has had an amazing affect on me… hard to believe I used to be a very bored accountant.
Anyway, I wish you well on your adventures. Can’t wait to read more of your blog. Best wishes.
Hi Mariellan,
We never got to meet but enjoyed reading your India piece. Stay in touch.
Anita
Good morning Mariellen,
I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation at Meet Plan Go on Monday evening. I own a small literary travel company, Classical Pursuits. We are going to North India this winter, where we will read and discuss Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Edward Luce’s In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, and some classical poetry. I would like to create a blog post with a link to your site and to include some of your fabulous photos (with attribution, of course). I am writing to ask your permission to use some photos, to welcome your feedback on our itinerary, and to ask if there is a way I can list our trip on your website. Here is the url. http://www.classicalpursuits.com/learning-vacations-2012/india-learning-vacation.php
Namaste,
Ann
Thanks Ann, your tour looks amazing! I will add the link to my Resources page. Cheers.
Mariellen,
First of all, you are beautiful
And your writings are equally beautiful and capture India experience very differently.
I hope you like it and also hope you make it to Kolkata on your next visit to India so that we could meet over a cup of coffee.
Manas
Thanks Manas. I would like to spend more time in Kolkata. Bengali culture is so rich. Perhaps we will meet one day.
Liked you blog. Good work
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On the morning of April 14 approximately 10 million people streamed into the sacred town of Haridwar in north India to bathe in the Ganga on the most auspicious day during the 2010 Kumbh Mela. I was one of them. Find out how I found myself alone, and at home, at the world’s largest spiritual gathering.
In Varanasi, where the veil between life and death seems very thin, a boat ride on the river can become a journey to the other side. Come along with me on a boat ride on the Ganges River in India’s oldest, holiest city and pierce the veil.
The Ganges / Ganga River is the Mother of India. The River speaks in many voices as she travels from the high Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. At the source, her song is joyous, full of the the jubilance of youth, the rush of fresh mountain streams, the sincere chanting of pilgrims and the excitement of the onward journey.
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