Avantika Chaturvedi

If you’re spending one (or a few) nights in Kuala Lumpur, you MUST stay in a hostel in an apartment complex with a rooftop infinity pool overlooking the city line. There are a number of such hostels and service apartments around the city. The tricky bit is to pick the best location/ neighbourhood: 💚 I would suggest against Bukit Bintang. It’s one of the most popular choices but I feel like there’s a LOT going on here ALL the time. It’s fine to spend a few hours/ half a day in, but to sleep, I would find a more peaceful location. 🩵 KLCC (city centre) would be nice but it would be more upscale and expensive and not always backpacker/ budget friendly. 🧡 Chow Kit is a nice balance between the two. It’s very centrally located, a short metro ride from all main attractions. But it’s also quiet and peaceful and not expensive either. 📍 My pick: Regalia Exclusive Hostel in Chow Kit. ✔️ It’s got a female and a mixed dorm, super clean and comfy. ✔️ It was $8.5/ night so decently affordable. ✔️ It’s got a pool on the 37th floor with stunning views of the Petronas Twin Towers and surrounding buildings. ✔️ There’s a mall with a decent food court 300 meters away and a well connected metro station 500 meters away. I think it ticks all boxes! Have you stayed in a hostel like this before? Give me some more hostel inspo in the comments please 💌 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #kualalumpur #malaysia #backpackerlife #solofemaletravel #indiangirlswander #girlswhotravel #hostel #budgettravel #indiantravelblogger #travelreels

No, you can’t sit with me. Fun fact: I actually did end up getting the entire row to myself on this overnight red eye economy. Manifestation works, babygworls. Keep at it 🧞‍♀️🧚‍♂️🪄 ✨ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #travelhumor #girlswhotravel #solofemaletravel #travelreels #flights #indiantraveller #backpackerlife #economyclass

Salam Sejatehra from Malaysia 🇲🇾🩵 For the past six days I have been roaming around the capital city, going on the most random, spontaneous adventures, meeting incredible people and eating incredible food. After spending my first day solo, I was taken in by two wonderful women I connected on the @hostasister Facebook group. These five days were spent exchanging meaningful conversations and discovering the city the way not many tourists get to…from the eyes of a local 👀 I have already left Kuala Lumpur for bigger adventures but for now, here is an out of context photo dump before I actually begin a chronological account of this past week 🎥 Stay tuned 🤙🏼

Who needs first class when you’ve got a whole empty row in economy to yourself? After struggling with 12 hours in transit, the last leg of this journey really pulled through and how! Also big ups to @malaysiaairlines for@providing blankets and pillows even on a 4hr economy flight! Not pictured in this video is my sleeping like a baby through the night on my mid-air bed-bench. (Check cover image of this reel) As comfy as comfy gets 🫂✈️ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #flights #redeye #travelhacks #travelhumor #funnyreels #indiangirlstravel #solofemaletravel #malaysiaairlines #travelgirl #budgettravel #backpacker

Visiting Uzbekistan soon? Hit up waywardwayfarer.com to know everything to prepare for this gorgeous wonderland! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #uzbekistan #indiantravelblogger #travelblogger #indiangirlswander #girlswhotravel #solofemaletravel #traveltips #indiantraveller

Woke up thinking of that one time when I started a hike uphill at 2 am up Sri Lanka’s holiest mountain through some 5500+ stairs to catch a sunrise. No sleep, no food, way out of hiking practice. One of my most physically and mentally challenging experiences so far. And yet extremely cathartic and liberating. So a pilgrimage indeed!? 📍Adam’s Peak, Sri Lanka. I just wrote a detailed guide on my blog on how you can also plan and do the famed Adam’s Peak hike! Hit up waywardwayfarer.com to read it 👩🏻‍💻

It took me six years to finally be able to visit Tabo Caves 🏔️🧘🏻‍♀️☸️🪷 When I first came to Tabo in 2019, I saw the caves up on the mountain and was so curious to try and find a way to hike up and spend some time exploring the area. But back then I was on work with a travel company which organised group tours to Spiti Valley. So a fixed itinerary meant not being able to have spontaneous adventures, especially ones that your clients weren’t interested in. So I quietly told myself I’d be back here. In 2024, I finally made that happen! Things have changed a lot since then, though. There used to just be a dirt trail up the mountains that you had to hike and scramble to make it to the top. And now there’s a concrete staircase leading up the way and iron benches to sit and rest so there’s not much room for struggle and exploration the way I like it 😅 But despite the paved path, there were still far fewer tourists here even in peak season than I would’ve imagined — which both makes me happy and saddens me at the same time lol. I am extremely fine with having such beautiful places to myself but I sincerely wish more people took up slowing down and going on hikes instead of making everything a touch and go picture stop. But, oh well 🤷🏻‍♀️ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #mountainlife #spitivalley #tabo #himachalpradesh #hiking #indiangirlstravel #himalayas #indiatravelgram

Spiti, the place where it all began. My first year of travelling many years ago, I put myself on a “12 months, 12 destinations” mission where I wanted to travel to a new place every month in the limited money I could save from my pocket money back then. On month 8, in August 2018, I travelled to Spiti Valley. Things were different back then. There were no mobile towers in the valley, except for the single bar BSNL network just strong enough to send out SMSes. There were no tour buses after tour buses and the famous “Spiti Valley circuit” was barely known back then. I caught a bus from Manali, struggled with altitude sickness for two nights, slept at the now famous Chacha Chachi ka Chandra Dhaba at Batal, and spent a night in Key Monastery that I’m sure you all know about, even if you haven’t been there yourself. Thanks, Instagram. I serendipitously bumped into a stranger who would later become a good friend and colleague while working for @trekatribe I travelled a lot with these good folks, and came back to Spiti Valley multiple times. I celebrated birthdays in Spiti, saw it become more and more different with each visit and had the most challenging and boundary pushing experience of my life battling minus 30 degrees temperatures in the winter here. I learned and I grew. My aspiration of a remote worker took off because of Spiti Valley. It lay the base for the work I do now, travelling to offbeat, remote areas, writing about interesting things, places and people. Spiti has always felt like an all knowing mother pushing me to be on the path I had manifested for myself. It was a long journey in the making, it still is. I don’t think it ever ends. Last month in June, I came back here after 5 years. So much has changed since. Both within me and in Spiti. Those thoughts are for another time. But this was 12 days of completing a full circle, filled with deep gratitude and contentment. Big thanks to the Universe that put me in the same world as these mountains and valleys 🙏🏼🏔️🩵🪄 Big hug also to @wanderkarna and @silenceinmysoul. No mention of Spiti Valley is complete with the two of you 🫂❤️

Zi*nists go back! 🍉🇵🇸 We don’t want Isr*el’s trash here. Go wash the horrors of I D F somewhere else ✋🏼🛑 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #freepalestine #fromtherivertothesea #indiatravelgram #girlsthatwander #indiangirlstravel #indiantravelblogger #indiantraveller

Just kidding. I’m not trying to tell you I’m better than you. But I am trying to tell you that offbeat, authentic travel is certainly more rewarding than spending all your time in sanitised tourist places. Tourist places are not the real reflection of a country/ region. To truly know a place, you need to know its people. There are several ways to meet and spend time with locals to elevate your travel experiences through a cultural exchange: 🩵 Seek out local hosts or people to simply hang out with on the Couchsurfing app. 🩵 Sign up to volunteer your skills for various local projects on apps like Workaway and Worldpackers. 🩵 Join country specific Facebook travels groups and see if anyone is available to hang out with you. 🩵 Girlies, join the Host A Sister (@hostasister) Facebook group. It’s like Couchsurfing, but only for women. 🩵 Choose to go off the beaten path and stay in villages with local hosts like I did in the Nuratau Mountains of Uzbekistan. Homestays over hotels always! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #authentictravel #offbeattravel #ecotourism #uzbekistan #homestay #solofemaletravel #girlsthatwander #indiangirlstravel #indiantravelblogger

Who’s in? 🤪☀️😴📖⛰️🩵 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #indiantravelblogger #travelreels #funny #readmore #indiangirlstravel #solofemaletravel #girlswhotravel #uzbekistan #naptime

She speaks Tajik, Uzbek, Russian and Greek. I speak English and Hindi. But that didn’t stop us from sharing precious moments together. That didn’t stop her from opening her home to me. That didn’t stop me from making that extra journey to visit her in this remote mountain village in Uzbekistan. We used a whole lot of hand gestures, found common words in our languages (Tajik and Hindi are more alike than I would’ve thought), of course used google translate, but mostly laughed and giggled at our loss of words for each other. And that was enough. Enough for her to treat me like her own daughter. Enough for me to shed tears when we hugged goodbye. Language is important to communicate, sure. But it’s not the end all. Don’t let a language barrier stop you from experiencing this Big Beautiful World 🫶🏼 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #uzbeksitan #language #solofemaletravel #indiantraveller #indiantravelblogger #nuratau #girlsthatwander #indiangirlstravel #offbeattravel #authentictravel

Authentic, offbeat travel over anything else, amirite? Being in the tourist cities of Uzbekistan like Bukhara and Samarkand was definitely fun. I met some incredible people along the way and had memorable experiences. …But it wasn’t as fulfilling as it was being in this remote village in a foreign country where my hosts and I don’t share the same language but still make do because the connection in the heart matters the most! There were no to do lists, no check boxes to fill on the places I “need” to visit. It was simply an unplanned adventure where I threw my trust in the Universe and it rewarded me with my most cherished memory of my 3 weeks in Uzbekistan. 📍 This is Hayat village in the Nuratau Mountains. It’s actually quite easy to add it to your itinerary if you’re going to be either in Samarkand or Bukhara! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #offbeattravel #solofemaletravel #uzbekistan #ecotourism #indiangirlstravel #girlsthatwander #indiantravelblogger #indiantraveller

Couldn’t get to Hyderabad yet, but travelled all the way to Uzbekistan to find their version of the Char Minar! This is the 📍Chor Minor in Bukhara. It was built by a wealthy Turkmen trader in the 1800s, when he returned from India after having traded goods there. The Chor Minor was originally a gateway to a larger madrasah (a school where people go to learn about Islam). Today, the madrasah is destroyed and the Chor Minor is now a souvenir shop run by a woman who charges you a little over a dollar to climb one of the minarets with the staircase to the roof! The view from the top is mostly buildings after buildings in the sand coloured aesthetic that old town Bukhara maintains to date — which I assume is reminiscent of the nearby Kyzyl Kum Desert, of which Bukhara is one of three oases.