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December 2025 marks 20 years of India
On December 4, 2005, I faced a moment of sheer terror. I was about to board a plane in Toronto, Canada bound for Delhi, India. My return ticket was dated for June 2006. And I had no idea what would happen in those six months in between. I had never been to a place like India, never travelled alone for such an extended period of time, and had absolutely no idea what to expect. I had given up my apartment, put my stuff in storage, gave my cat to a friend for safekeeping … and with a feeling of anxiety bordering on dread, took a flying leap of faith. It felt like I was stepping off the cliff into the unknown, with a bottomless abyss opening up before me. But I also felt I had to go …
My plan was to travel across India for six months, to study Yoga in Chennai, to volunteer in Dharamsala, to see the Ganga River and the Himalayas, to seek wellness in Kerala, to visit the forts and palaces of Rajasthan and walk the storied streets of Delhi. But most of all, my plan was to recover from depression, to heal, and to start again.
I was what is now called a “digital nomad” and “solo female traveller” – but at the time, I just considered myself a traveller on a personal / spiritual quest trying to literally and metaphorically save my life. This was before Eat, Pray, Love, before social media, almost even before blogging.
To say the plan was a success is an understatement. I found a new life in India, underwent a spiritual renewal, discovered a passion for travel writing, and started blogging. Though the grief I felt over my Mother’s sudden death lingered, the sights and sounds of India catapulted me from an entrenched depression.
The journey continues
After my first trip, I was hooked on travel writing, blogging, and travelling in India. I returned again and again to India, almost every year, and sometimes for up to six months. In 2018, I decided to give up my apartment in Toronto and move to India. I rented a flat in Rishikesh with a view of the mountains from one balcony, and a view of the Ganga and the Beatles Ashram from the other.
I started travel writing and blogging just before I left in the fall of 2005, which makes me one of the very early travel bloggers, especially in India. In August, 2009, I started publishing Breathedreamgo, my first professional travel blog.
Blogging about travel was a passion and labour of love. There was no money to be made, and no one cared what you looked like back then. It was all about the stories and the adventures. When my blog crossed 1 million views, I couldn’t believe it. I never expected it to be that successful! After it crossed 5 million, it seemed like a miracle. But still, making money was a struggle.
During these years, I made my living as a freelance writer. I was very lucky to land assignments in many Canadian, Indian, and international publications, both print and digital. You can see a partial list on my portfolio page: they include BBC Traveller, The Toronto Star, CN Traveller India, Vogue India, National Geographic Traveller India and more.
Career highlights… and awards!
Though I was a precocious student and always got high marks in school, and though I was relatively successful in my career as a copywriter in Toronto for many years, I never won an award until I started travel writing and blogging. I have won several for writing and blogging over the years, but I was especially pleased to win an award for this story about Niagara Falls from Ontario Tourism. (My sister, artist Victoria Ward, went to the event for me as I was in India — and I was very glad she didn’t go for naught.)
In 2019, I won a National Tourism Award for Best Foreign Photographer / Writer / Blogger from the Ministry of Tourism in Delhi, India. I was the first blogger to receive the award, and it was a high watermark in my career. It is one thing to achieve international success, but another to receive approval from India.
Also in 2019, I started India for Beginners custom tours along with my business partner Anjani Nandan. Because I had built a solid platform and was well-known for my Indian travel expertise, we were almost instantly successful. To date, in about 4 years of operation altogether (we lost two years because of the pandemic), we have run tours for hundreds of travellers.
More recently, I have started to develop Breathedreamgo Bespoke. This is a curated travel service I am offering to those travellers who have the time, interest, and budget to take a deeper dive and discover India with me; the India I have come to know and love over the past 20 years.
One of the dearest highlights of my career as a travel blogger was when this story, The River, was picked up by the Gujarat school system and it became part of the curriculum. In the early days of social media, students would occasionally find me and tell me they loved the story.
Career lowlights … and a lucky break
My career lowlights section could easily be much longer than highlights. It’s been a bumpy road! Of course, I learned a lot and would do things much differently if I knew then what I know now. I have always been torn between being a creative person (a writer) and an entrepreneur, and it’s been very hard to balance these two approaches because they are very different. Operating as a creative person is personally rewarding, but it is very challenging to make a living. In fact, I became extremely disheartened, and burned out. Society values the products that creative people make — the essays, songs, art works — but generally doesn’t value the artist. I found it demoralizing to have to beg and scrape to get paid as a creative person. And I have seen freelance writing rates plummet during my career. As a blogger, it took me a very long time to find my footing, and to figure out a business model that works for me. I saw other bloggers who started at the same time as me succeed, make money, and reach their goals while I was still struggling. I made a lot of mistakes and missed a lot of opportunities.
The truth is that while I was trying to have a successful career as a writer and blogger, I was struggling with personal issues that held me back. Grief and lack of confidence weighed heavily on me, as did a thyroid condition. I wanted more support, but didn’t know where to look for it, or how to find it. Sometimes when you need help most, you feel the least able to ask for it.
As an entrepreneur (tour operator), I had one lucky break: I met Anjani Nandan. During my early years as a travel blogger, I struggled to get support from the industry. But when I started to think about offering tours, I met Anjani Nandan in Delhi and we started working together. He was one of the only people in the travel industry in India who said, “I would like to take you out for a coffee and find out more about what you are doing.” He was interested, supportive, and helpful. And together we started India for Beginners. He had the on-the-ground expertise as a tour operator in India, and I had the marketing and branding skills. The rest is history, as they say. Shout out to the rest of the team — Ujjwal, Neelanjana, and Dolly — for making India for Beginners a successful and smooth-running operation. I’m still bootstrapping my tour business and dream of doing much more … and I guess this is part of the process. Do you ever actually “get there?”
As a travel writer, I received a couple of early lucky breaks — and this was back in the day when you could actually make money from travel writing. Thanks especially to Jim Byers, former travel editor with the Toronto Star, who gave me my first break. He published this story about Varanasi and put it on the cover. Seeing it on the newsstands was one of the best days of my professional life.
Holi in Rishikesh
Playing Holi with India for Beginners guest Amber at Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram.
Sharing love, inspiration, and knowledge
Both India for Beginners and Breathedreamgo Bespoke are my way of sharing a wealth of insider knowledge and tips I have gleaned from travelling and living in India over so many years. I never intended to be in tourism, but I am proud of my role. From the beginning of my career, I was careful about always showing cultural respect, promoting responsible / sustainable tourism, and empowering women in travel and tourism. I know I have helped thousands of women travel safely and well in India, and through India for Beginners we help support organizations such as Wildlife SOS, local businesses, and female guides.
Now, as I approach my 20th anniversary of landing in India on December 5, 2005, I am reflecting on the many years I have spent travelling in India. I have been to 17 Indian states (out of 28) and 4 Union Territories (out of 8). Several states / Territories I have come to know very well, especially Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, and Kerala.
Female solo travels in India
Most of my travels in India have been solo, I have rarely travelled with anyone else. Also, I have lived alone in Rishikesh and Jaipur. In Delhi, I am always with one of two Indian families in South Delhi. I bounce back and forth between their houses and I am considered one of the family. One of them is the Gupta family of Prakash Kutir (as my followers know!).
But these are just stats and facts. Over the 10 years or so I have spent in India, I have had several lifetimes of experiences. I spent a long time immersed in Yoga at Aurovalley Ashram and Anand Prakash Yoga Ashram in Rishikesh, and have been on many wildlife safaris, mostly in Madhya Pradesh – even studying for one month to become a professional naturalist at Satpura tiger reserve in 2020. I have had many adventures, such as the time I got lost at the Kumbh Mela and the time I went camping in a remote village in the hills of Uttarakhand. I have had spiritual experiences in places like Tiruvannamalai and have volunteered in places like Dharamsala.
And of course, I have made friends, had relationships, lived with a family, and worked with many wonderful people. I am sure I have enough material for a book!
My top 10 favourite tourism experiences
I compiled a list of my top 10 favourite tourism experiences in India so far (personal experiences will be in the book!). This list could easily be three or four times longer, but for brevity, I narrowed it down to:
- Sunrise on Tiger Hill – near Darjeeling
- Seeing a wild tiger for the first time in Bandhavgarh NP – Madhya Pradesh
- Overnight camel safari in Sam Sand Dunes – near Jaisalmer
- Sunset boat ride in Varanasi
- Durga Puja in Kolkata
- Sunrise Yoga in Rishikesh
- Dawn in the Kerala backwaters
- Konark Dance Festival, Odisha
- Dusk in Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh
- Watching the super moon rise over the ruins of Hampi
Walking the razor’s edge
When I made the decision to pursue my dreams about 20-25 years ago, I left behind the known and the comfortable, and I have lived outside my comfort zone ever since.
Living a safe, conventional life most definitely has its challenges. But it’s also hard to pursue your dreams and passions. I wrote this in 2017 in a post entitled What I’ve learned from 12 years of travel in India.
“But to say it’s been easy would be very misleading. It is not easy to leave the well-travelled path and follow your dreams. You have to walk the razor’s edge, and you will be tested. Again and again. This is why so few people actually do it. They instinctively know it will be hard.
“Living waaayyyy out of my comfort zone over the past 12 20 years, and going hammer-and-tongs after my dreams, was perhaps a necessary step in my personal evolution. Something I needed to do to progress. But it has stretched me too thin at times, depleted my energies and, quite frankly, not led to the financial success I would have hoped for.”
All of this remains true, and still, I feel I made the right decision — if it even was a decision. After all, India is the land of kismet and karma, fate and destiny, as well as the popular saying “God knows best.” There is also a belief that India chooses you … I am not sure if that’s true, but I am sure I feel a deep, uncanny connection to India that’s very hard to explain. On my first day in India, walking in a lush park in Delhi, I suddenly felt I was at home. For years, I took this feeling literally … but now I wonder if it was a spiritual awakening, meant to help me feel at home in the world …
The magic of gratitude: Thank you
I’m very grateful to all the forces, all the people, all the friends, and well-wishers along this journey who have encouraged me, supported me, and helped keep me safe. Thank you especially to India for your generosity, wisdom, and hospitality.
This post is dedicated to my sister, artist Victoria Ward, who is always there, and who understands the challenges of a creative life.
