• Save

Hey there, welcome to my blog – Madman’s Journey! :)

Looking to collaborate with me? Click here.

Madman’s Journey is a personal blog as a means of putting out my travel stories and guides. It focuses mostly on budget travel aspect for solo-travelers, teenage travel enthusiasts, and family travel as well.

With most of my travel revolving around Southeast Asia and India, you’ll find most my articles on these countries. Detailed itinerary and insightful travel guides to be exact. When I started this blog in 2018, Madman’s Journey wasn’t like this. It wasn’t even ‘Madman’s Journey‘.

This website was a bunch of random thoughts and personal stories back then – treading with no goal. In the recent years, I decided to bring it to the niche I write best about. Travel.

However, this website’s been through its ups and downs. With the pandemic around, I began another niche along with travel on writing. This makes up for all the writing tips and story writing posts around. The topic no doubt is far from travel.

But it helped the blog sustain through the pandemic as travel alone couldn’t help sustain. Things have gotten better today and traveling is open to people. Still, I’ve decided to keep both the distant niches intact on this blog.

Besides, both help this site sustain financially :)

A little about myself

Hi, I am Manas, it’s nice to finally meet you! I’m an undergrad student pursuing my Bachelor’s in Engineering – and a travel writer. Coming from India, I’ve had the privilege of visiting countries from the age of 6 ever since my dad began working in Indonesia.

I lived in Indonesia for 8 years before moving back to India for my higher studies.

Why this blog? I had a soft spot for writing as far as I can vividly remember. Scribbles were all over the house as a kid – tiny stories in notebooks, essays in school competitions, mini-novels on mystery ideas I had back in high school. When I turned 17, I started this space.

When I started this blog (in June 2018), I knew writing. But blogging was new to me. Blog posts, pages, hosting and wordpress, and the dreaded SEO. Though pursuing engineering, I wanted my writing side to stay afloat somehow.

So I learned all about building a website with everything I could find on the Internet – even took up an online course!

• Save

Things I’ve been doing lately

I’ll be honest – not much! It’s hard balancing between Uni classes, friends, and writing. But I can say I’m persistent with my posts. I often blog on this site and sometimes guest post on other blogs as well. Not to mention, I also scribble on Medium from time to time.

• Save

But I do have a goal for this blog. This blog got listed on the Top 60 Asia Travel Blogs on Feedspot. That was a big deal to me. But I’ve yet a long way. I made a solo trip to Singapore in June, 2022 and visited my parents in Indonesia. Returned to India and traveled to Goa and Kerala up till now. I plan on traveling India whenever I get a chance, as of 2023 :)

Residing in Bangalore and checking out new spots around, I’ve yet to write more about them. I’m taking my own pace on writing. I can promise you this blog will be around for a long, long time :)

Last but not least, other things I do these days are playing the guitar. Work out occassionally. I code sometimes. Oh, did I mention I landed a job as an web engineer in Japan? (I’ll be shifting in a year or so!) That’s about it I guess.

Other Places to find my Scribbles

The idea of travel blogging didn’t pop out of nowhere. Neither did the writing niche. I began my writing journey with stories I imagined in my mind. These weren’t any official works out for display as such. Some were randomly sketched on pieces of paper I found.

Some I typed out and stapled together into a mini novel. You get the idea.

Even when leaping into writing on the ferocious Internet, I didn’t head to making my own blog at first. I wrote a bunch of fiction stuff on Wattpad. Needless to say, it didn’t go well with all the unrealistic fanfiction written by 14 year olds around (was I too specific?).

I stopped writing fiction and began writing articles on Medium. I fell in love instantly with the thought-provoking communities here. Though I don’t write as often now, I have the urge to write here from time to time. It’s a platform where I can reflect and introspect my own thoughts and progress.

With travel writing, I didn’t hit it off right on my own blog. I began as a freelance writer like most bloggers out there. I wrote my first post for the Travelista Club and got my first payment! But I didn’t wish to keep writing for someone else. While I wanted to monetize my writing, I didn’t want rules for my hobby. That left blogging as the last resort.

Later did I realize this blog was the best decision ever :)

*PS That doesn’t mean I don’t write anywhere else now. I still write on Medium, work as a freelancer when I get a chance, and even write guest posts! Here are some of my favorites I’ve worked on (both paid and free):

My Favorite Post Collaborations

Where to Start

Still unsure? Well, start at the homepage itself or my posts page.

Wish to ask anything or collaborate with me? Visit the Work with me page to know more or mail me straight away at [email protected].

Lastly, this site does collect data for analytics and ads. Here’s the privacy policy.