Travels Talks with Donald and Diana: An Interview

|By Ajay Nair|

It is often said that a journey becomes much easier if you travel with your loved ones. Donald and Diana are those people who are a living example of this statement.

As I was scrolling through my explore feed on Instagram, I found this cool and amazing couple who were travelling to places with each other. One thing that caught my attention was that they were doing this for 15 years! When I got to know more about them I found that they have covered 16 states of India and 3 International countries.

Now they are in this business for a long time. So I approached them and I have to say this they are as sweet, as seen in their picture. Donald and Diana have travelled their journeys together for more than 15 years. They both had a passion for travelling which is seen through their work. They write blogs about their journey and they also have a youtube channel. After reading their blogs, I was more curious to know about them, So I decided to approach them and asked about their journey in the field of travelling. Here is what they had to say to my questions:

1. Is Travelling your only passion and profession or do you work outside as well?

We have loved travelling since we were kids. Donald has been travelling with his family within India as a kid as his dad was in Railways and Diana wanted to join the aviation industry for the pure love of travelling. We have been travelling as a couple since 15 years now while working fulltime with our corporate jobs and have covered around 16 states within India and also a few international destinations.

2. I saw your videos on YouTube and I found that your videos tell interesting stories about your journey. So how what is the process of making these videos? Any specific types of equipment that you use?

We have just started our YouTube channel and still in the process of learning video editing. We are currently using Adobe Premiere Pro software for editing these videos and learning the video editing completely on YouTube channel. As for our equipment, we travel with our GoPro Hero 8, Joby and Manfrotto tripod, Nikon 3200 DSLR and our phones Huawei P20 and Samsung A50 along with the camera accessories like SD cards, chargers, adaptors, power banks and hard drives.

Link for GoPro Hero 8: GoPro Hero 8 Action Camera

Link for the camera: Nikon 3200

Link for Samsung A50: Samsung Galaxy A50

Link to SD Cards and Hard Drives: SD card and hard drives

3. What are your 3 tips for any person who wants to travel or wants to get into this industry?

We only would like to share that if you love travelling, then make it a priority.

Stop spending lavishly on other things like shopping, Clubbing, dining out, etc and use that money towards your travel. Take that trip/trek which you have been wanting to do since years even if it is going solo. Unless and until you don't take that step, you won't know how you feel about travelling.

Set a specific budget aside for your travels and make sure you abide by it. Don't travel because everyone is travelling and because you think that it will bring you money because of it, travel because you love it and have a passion for it.

4. Are there any downsides or negatives to travelling?

Travel is not always fancy like it's shown across on Onstage and other social media handles. There are some downsides to travelling as well like sometimes you miss home food when your travelling for a longer period, travel requires money so saving is key when you want to travel frequently, travel can get tiring when your constantly on the go, there can be a danger at every step you take so one needs to take proper precautions and exercise safety and research that destination properly before embarking on that trip and lastly one needs to confront the issues while travelling by themselves.

5. What is that one incident which happened while travelling that you will never forget?

Well, we have many such incidents while travelling however the recent one which we can remember is when we met with a bike accident at Khardungla pass in Ladakh. Thankfully it wasn't a major accident however we had another 8 days left on our road trip and had to complete the trip in that condition as there was no looking back but all we want to say is that this is the beauty of travel that you will have its ups and downs but these experiences will always teach you something or the other.

6. Which was your first destination and why did you choose it?

Our first destination together was a weekend trip to Matheran when we were dating. We used to love taking weekend trips then to nearby places in Mumbai like Mahabaleshwar, Alibag, Lonavala etc. Our first trip outside Maharashtra was Goa and after that, we fell in love with Goa especially when we discovered Southern Goa.

Since then we have travelled to around 16 states in India covering Goa, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Union Territories of Silvassa, Pondicherry and Delhi and few International destinations like Dubai, Thailand and Maldives being our recent one in 2019.

7. What is your favourite destination in India and outside India?

India is absolutely beautiful and we want to travel more of local first before we explore other parts of the world. Out of the places we have travelled together, Ladakh is definitely Diana's favourite destination and Meghalaya is Donald's current favourite. Our favourite international destination together had to be the Maldives.

8. Since you have travelled to both beaches and mountains. what do you guys prefer?

Well, this is a tricky one, Donald loves the mountains and Diana is a complete beach baby and hence we make sure we cover both of them for our love of mountains and beaches.

9. How is your quarantine going? If you miss travelling, how do you cope up with that feeling?

Well, this lockdown feels like forever especially for us travellers who are so used to stepping out on weekends. We especially miss our weekend road trips and right now we are trying to be sane by shifting our focus towards cooking, baking, learning a new language, creating DIY stuff, reading, photo editing and video editing, playing Ludo with our friends, spending time with family and last but not the least binging on series/movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Couples like Donald and Diana are truly an inspiration to those who want to follow their passion. Their journey so far with each other is an example to many of us who wanted to do many things life. Their passion for travelling and seeing new places has reminded me of a song

Safar ka hi tha main….

Safar ka raha

Follow them:

Website : http://naughtyandcurly.com/

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/naughtyandcurly/

Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/donaldndiana/

YouTube: http://youtube.com/c/NaughtyandCurly