Author’s Introduction
Col Ashish Raisinghani has been in service with the Indian Armed Forces since last more than 25 years that gives him lot of opportunities to travel and see new places. He has been travelling since he was a kid, the „Travel Bug‟ been transferred to him from his parents who themselves are avid travellers. He has done a number of Backpacking Trips, some with his friends, few on his own, with his wife and even with his small daughter. The Colonel loves to see new places, meet new people & learn everything about that place – his area of expertise being Trip Planning & Budget Travel. He does not prefer organized tours & package trips, and feels the true essence of travelling lies in experiencing that place with the locals, living & eating like locals in the bargain. He has covered almost entire India and more than 35 odd countries across the globe, but his quest has not ended, in fact his hunger for Travel keeps increasing with each trip.
The Colonel is an avid Traveller and passionate Biker who loves to write about his travel experiences. He has been married for 18 years with an eleven-year-old daughter. He has induced the Travel Bug to his wife, as well as to his young daughter as well. They have been travelling as a family now both within India and abroad, and their daughter has already visited more than fifteen countries in her initial years, which included backpacking trip to Europe when she was 15 months old and a bike trip to Bhutan when she was just 6 months old. Col Ashish Raisinghani has been penning down his own travel experiences in form of Travelogues since last more than 18 years now. These travelogues cover not only his own trip experience in detail, but also give an insight about the place along with few practical tips for fellow travellers to plan their trip to the same region or place. Thirteen of these personal travel experiences have been compiled by the author in his maiden Travel Book – “Confessions of a Traveloholic”.
Since past seven years, Colonel Ashish Raisinghani has been participating in varied kinds of literary and other events, giving out talks, having interactive sessions, conducting panel discussions and motivating others by introducing them with the core essence of travelling and its inherent advantages. His motivating talks and interactive sessions have been received extremely well among the audience of all age groups, wherein the Colonel has attempted to induce the aspects of travelling as the most effective form of learning. The highlights among his participations in various talks and literary sessions have been the „International Confluence of Eminent People at Holistic Insight Forum‟ at New Delhi, his motivational talk at „Jaipur Rotary Club‟, Author‟s Interaction at „Pune Book Fair‟ and being the main moderator-cum-panelist at New Delhi World Book Fair on the topic “A Journey Within and Outward through Literature”.
A Word about the Book
“Confessions of a Traveloholic” is a compilation of Thirteen Travelogues within the frame of a Travel Book, which the author wants to share with rest of the world. The aim of publishing the book is to share his experiences with like-minded people and fellow travellers. The author has himself experienced that when he plan his own trips, going through travel experiences of others have assisted him to make his own trip much better & easier. The book is an interesting read, as the Thirteen Travelogues included in this book are of varied nature and written in a manner that any reader would be able to relate to the travelogue. There are plenty of photographic illustrations as well, to actually give the reader feel of the place and relate to the text they read in it.
The travel experiences of the author are of regions / places both within India as well as outside. He shares very important aspects about the destination along with practical tips for a hassle-free trip to these locations. The Travel Book – „Confessions of a Traveloholic‟ is available on all major online portals such as Amazon, Flipkart, Shopclues etc, both in Kindle format as well as paperback form. The book was launched about five years back and it has already sold more than 2000 copies worldwide. It has received very good reviews across the reader‟s forum, including reviews from few well-known people in travel and literature fields. The highlight among the reviews has been a detailed review received by the author from none other than Mr Amitabh Bachchan. The book has been showcased in numerous Literature Festivals and Book Festivals, including the NBT organized Pune Book Fair earlier in this year and the coveted New Delhi World Book Fair since past four years.
“Confessions of a Traveloholic” is his first attempt at writing a book and it definitely live up to its title, as these thirteen travelogues are more of his personal journeys rather than being structured travel articles. The title of the book comprises of two important words and is true to the meaning of both these words. All the travelogues in this book bring out the author‟s travel experiences which were hidden somewhere in his heart and the „Travel Tips‟ he has inserted in between are very practical and realistic in nature, so these are more of his „Travel Confessions‟ than anything else. Moreover, after going through all the travelogues, the readers will understand that somebody who is passionate about travelling will do so in any condition, any situation and with anybody – be it solo, with a friend, with family or even with a 6-month old baby. So yes, the author is surely a „Traveloholic‟, and that justifies the title of the book.
So go ahead and „Live these Trips‟ through the author‟s eyes. From his bachelor trips to trips with family; from challenging bike rides to backpacking trips with a baby; from trekking expeditions to exploring exotic foreign locales – it‟s all there in these Confessions. Even the great Amitabh Bachchan has said after reading this masterpiece that “This book for the traveler, knows where it‟s at”.
Concept of Travelling
“Tourists visit – Traveller‟s explore”
This line actually brings out the true essence of travelling and sums up the entire book ‘Confessions of a Traveloholic’. It also brings out the very important difference between being a Traveller and a Tourist, which has been aptly brought out by Paul Theroux in his quote – “Tourists don‟t know where they‟ve been, Travellers don‟t know where they‟re going.” Each of the thirteen travelogues in the book brings out how tourists usually opt for conventional hassle-free organized package tours, while travellers plan their own trips which would not only take more effort and time, but will also bring lot of uncertainty in their travel plans. However, this uncertainty in the travel plan is what gives us the true happiness of exploring a place and being a traveller in the actual sense. After all, the traveller sees what he sees, while the tourist sees what he has come to see.
In the opinion of the author, travelling is an art in itself, which everybody does it differently, but one common aspect remains in case of travel of any kind, and that is the fact that it is a continuous learning process from each other‟s experiences. The most experienced traveller would also look for some kind of advice or suggestion from fellow travellers or from travel guidebooks, before planning a new trip. There is no dearth of travel material or guidance available today with internet being a powerful tool and travel websites in plenty, still there is always a different kind of assurance, which one gets, from personal „first-hand‟ travel experiences of fellow travellers. Travel blogging is a very common thing these days but these travel blogs are restricted to being either very brief in giving information about a place or a trip, or they cover only few specific aspects at any given point of time. Therefore, this calls for investing additional precious time to search for travel blogs of varied kinds for one single trip, and then extracting important aspects from all those blogs to plan our own trip effectively.
This is where the book „Confessions of a Traveloholic‟ scores over the rest, as each of the travelogues included in the book not only gives out a very personalized experience of a real traveller, it also gives out details of the destination and also lists out few important practical tips for better assimilation and realistic travel planning – all of this compiled together in every chapter of the book. The book by Col Ashish Raisinghani conveys a very important message that “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you Richer”.
