Q&A With Forum and Shiva

travel experiences

Q: How many countries have you travelled to?

Forum: Ummmm… let’s cut the chase with this one: we despise country counting and haven’t tracked countries we’ve visited. No. 1 reason for this is because of its shallow and consumptive nature – especially with social media, it has become a competition of sorts to show off the places you’ve been to. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just transited through an airport and still counted THAT country, or you’ve just visited ONE city and still counted the country. Let’s take travelling in India for example: if a traveller has only been to Mumbai or Bangalore, and then counted that as “checked” for India, it would be such a shame. Because the scale of India is insane, and so is its diversity – in religion, food, languages, ethnicities, landscapes, culture, fashion, you name it. Yes, it’s true that growing up I didn’t have the privilege to do international trips, and now being able to travel to so many international destinations, my inner child jumps in joy each time we step onto a new territory. But that’s about it.

Shiva: I totally echo this mindset. I also think country counting takes away the nuances of a place: Paris for instance, has so many of these arrondissements (districts), and each of them feels like a world apart. The kind of green, cozy Paris we saw and experienced was so much unlike what we commonly hear from people who’ve supposedly “been” to Paris. I also love revisiting the same destinations over and over again; you’re also a different person each time you revisit a place. The city that totally thrilled you in your early 20s can feel completely chaotic in you early 30s. Plus, it’s wondrous to see a place in different seasons – winter in Lapland would be so different from summer in Lapland, and so on. 

Q: What are your dream destinations?

Forum: Oh! So many…. but the very first one that comes to mind is Japan. I would be very delighted to spend months or a few years in different parts of Japan. Slow travelling across rural Punjab, Leh & Ladakh is certainly on my Wishlist. I also dream of the Arctic Lapland, French Polynesia, many parts of East and South Africa. It’s funny how Shiva and I created this “bucket-list” of travel experiences in our early 20s – the kind of stuff that we’d love to chase in this lifetime. And many of those have already been ticked off. Ya, I’d rather check travel experiences over countries.

Shiva: If I gotta be really honest, most of my travel dreams are linked to wildlife and natural (or nature-inspired) landscapes. Some of my top ones include the one and only Amazon Rainforest, the Masai Mara, the Galápagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef. On a completely different note, watching a home derby game (Liverpool vs ManU) at Anfield naturally gets a high priority (I’m a huge Liverpool fan)! Also, one of my simple wishes is to be able to slow travel in northeast India, spending months together there – playing a bit of football with the local kids too 😀

Q: Any tips for first time travellers to Europe?

Forum and Shiva: First and foremost, Europe is A CONTINENT; not a country. And each country here is distinct, independent, charismatic in its own ways. So don’t rush through them all to do 5,6,7 countries in 10 days. We’d suggest to do slow down and spend a meaningful time learning and understanding the places deeply. Spend a week in Paris if you will, or hike the German, Swiss or French Alps, or just spend time slowly exploring Italy’s art scene.

Second, please don’t bring food packets from your respective countries. Try local food instead, even vegan and vegetarian is easily available in most parts.

Third, bring sturdy walking shoes – very much required on cobbled streets.

Fourth, try renting bikes in cities and explore the place slowly on two wheels. Love this! We’ve biked in major destinations we’ve visited. It’s such a cool experience!

Fifth, use efficient and affordable public transportation – best part about travelling through Europe is noticing how seamless its borders are through bus journeys and rail trips.

Sixth, check out thrift stores for some antique, second-hand shopping instead of buying plastic souvenirs. Even better, carry home food souvenirs.
We should definitely write a blog on this, haha! 

Q: How do you usually prefer to explore a destination?

Forum and Shiva: To begin with, given a chance we would love to give a minimum of one month to explore any destination as such. It’s such an honour to immerse yourself in the local community of the place you’re visiting – learn about their everyday lives, their struggles, what is home like for them, what is their relationship with the landscape, and so on. We put in a great amount of time and effort into researching local initiatives of the destination, and do our best to support the local economy while there. A cruise expedition or an all-inclusive resort stay may not be for us. But, spending a night under the Saharan stars with an Amazigh or cycling through million-year-old gigantic rocks of Greece might sound like our style. Btw, we’ve experienced both, and a 100% recommend you. 

Not to forget, we make the maximum use of public transportation or walk 21k steps a day while travelling (We believe in a car-free world).

Q: Don’t you guys get bored of travelling with each other? Don’t you travel in groups?

Shiva: I don’t get this question really, the first part that is. One of the first reasons why we fell in love is to be able to experience life together. It’s now (2026) ten years since we met and even today nothing excites us more than when we sit down to make the next travel-plan. In our everyday work-lives we barely get time for each other, while on the road it’s 24×7 “togetherness”. And that’s exactly what we love and want more and more. Many have told us how lucky we are that we share so many beliefs and interests. But if you ask us, isn’t that how a relationship should be? 

That brings us to the next question. Since we both have very similar ideologies, we tend to plan our travel itineraries on our own. But we wouldn’t really say no to a certain group travel if one comes up to our liking. 

Q: What do you like and hate about travel?

Forum: I absolutely love that we all have this privilege to travel. And when we have that, we should certainly not take it for granted. Meeting new people, trying new vegan dishes around the world, experiencing beautiful cultures and traditions, and getting mesmerised by nature’s beauty in different parts of our planet are all things I love about travel. 

I do dislike some things about the tourism industry, though: spoiling fragile ecosystems by littering or geotagging these places on social media, exploiting wild animals for a few minutes of entertainment in zoos, forcing indigenous people to “perform” in front of wealthy tourists eventually commodifying their sacred cultures, and so on. We’ve actually made an instagram post on this: Read it here. 

Shiva: For me travel is firstly about discovering just how wondrous this planet we are born into really is. And the second part is how travelling to new places immediately rewires your brain, in ways you cannot really explain. Who I am today is shaped a lot by the places I have been to or lived in. And this is the unspoken beauty that I cherish. 

Things that we hate – we hate together 😀 So there’s not much to add.