A New Direction, The New Normal At Awara Diaries

If we continue to go about our lives as we did before the pandemic, we’re sure to bring upon us another calamity. Covid has changed all of us, in a way we may acknowledge or not. But the new normal was always meant to be redefined. And Awara Diaries is no exception. In this post-pandemic normal that we are shaping, with Awara Diaries, we’re hoping to take a more responsible, a more meaningful and a much-needed change in direction. Awara Diaries will no longer just be about the travel life, reviews and guides. We’ll still keep at it. But we want to do something beyond it. Something which is in sync with our life updates or rather our own life upgrade and the elements that we hope to refocus and share through this wonderful platform.

Awara Diaries: In a new direction

Sustainability

The reason I started pursuing my MSc in Sustainable Development, was not just for a Master’s degree from Europe. I felt like sustainability is a topic that we so loosely use. We have limited the meaning of sustainability to not using plastic bottles or opting for organic options or turning vegan. There is so much more to sustainability. Climate change is a real concern. Plastic waste is a real nuisance. But there are many more dimensions to sustainability which include social factors, environmental factors, economic factors. And through Awara Diaries, we hope to deep dive into this system instead of scratching the surface.

For now, I’d define sustainability as a mindful way of living for the past, present and future. By being aware of the impact of our actions and our consumption, and by making conscious choices keeping the consequences in mind.

The Learning Lifestyle

Another key gift of the lockdown for both of us was reconnecting with the learning lifestyle. It is ironic how we come to think adulting means we’ve learnt all that we need to from school and university and are wise and skilled enough to deal with everything in life. That’s the biggest error.

Learning is a process that needs to continue throughout your life. There is so much to learn, so much to know, so much to explore. Learning is the key to keeping your mind open, upskilling and upgrading your life and opening yourself to newer opportunities and experiences and making the most of the existing ones.

To learn does not always mean to excel. It is the process of opening up to the existence of things beyond the usual, the process, the elements, the ways and your potential to succeed and fail through it.

We’ve started imbibing this learning lifestyle back in our lives, and we hope to keep sharing our experiences and learnings with you.

Slow travel

Life is beyond lists and numbers. Number of flights, stamps on your passport, countries visited could give you the bragging rights. But the joy of the same is short lived. Here on, we intend to take our time, travel slow, soak in the vibe of the destination, learn new things, meet the locals, try new things and truly get to know a place and create memories instead of bragging rights. We want to let the destinations inspire us and change us, so that we can live with more than selfies and Instagram posts from the destination.

Remote Destinations

Remote, we believe is the place of endless possibilities, far away from the realms of the routine. By exploring remote and more off-beat destinations, we hope to steer away from the typical, from the prescribes ideas and bucket lists of travel. We hope to enjoy the local essence. Through this, we believe that we can truly enrich our own travel experiences and share the same with you, to make better choices.

Cultural Dive

We’ve always been firm believers of cultural richness and its contribution to what a destination truly becomes for its locals and the guests. As tourists, it is hard to sink in deeper into the real cultural flavors of a place, but we’d like to commit ourselves yet again to exploring this element.

People’s Stories

People make a place. People define your experiences. People bring joy. People create memories. People could people you travel with, people could be people you meet on your life. While all else keeps happening, we barely ever think of people as an element that can shape our travel experiences. But we’re here, hoping to meet more people, talk to them, know their story, and share ours too.

While we hope to travel more often, we hope to travel keeping these various elements in mind. We hope to make our travels more meaningful and create more memories than just ticking of items from our bucket list.

Vienna

Now that Vienna is home, that changes a lot of things of things for us, with regards to our life and our travels. We’re now in the center of Europe and in the center of the world. Which opens up a whole of travel options with added feasibility. But above all, we can now explore a lot more of Europe (much like we did before), at our own pace, exploring hidden gems.

This also means that we will be exploring a lot more of the Austrian capital and sharing that with you here. Hopefully, in good time, we can be your local guides to Vienna.

Expat Life

Since we’re also newly experiencing the expat life, we have a new exciting dimension to explore and experiences to share. Are we truly living the European dream by moving here? What are the advantages? What are the struggles? What do we miss of home? How are we exploring our life in a continent/country/city? Did we find a house? How did we set it up? Is it expensive? What’s the food life? How are we doing with German?

That and a lot more will be discussed here.

Student Life

And finally, a new and a short phase, the student life in Europe is back in my life. And I am so excited to live through this phase, after a big gap of 7 years. New friends (literally from all across the globe), gorgeous University, course learnings and a whole lot of opportunities, events and discounts from student life will be shared with you. In the meantime, I am also hoping to explore work opportunities here and without a doubt, I will be sharing that as well.

Entrepreneur Life

As for Parichay, he’s onto newer and bigger dream ventures that are in process. A European entrepreneur life awaits, and in good time, we’re excited to share the story, the progress and the whole being of this project. (Hint: It’s travel related)

Obviously, the changes and the consistency will take time to kick in. But we’re excited about these life changes, the redirection that it has given us and to see where we are headed with this and with you.

Stay tuned!