Kolkata based content creators Joyeeta and Kunal’s journey started with a simple idea in college- to remain in touch when it’s over and they did. Initially what started out as a travel blog to document their travels, it took a drastic turn in 2019 to combine what they are most passionate about: travelling and making videos. Kunal’s interest in cinematography motivated them to start creating content on YouTube, which, in turn, gave them access to a whole new platform for sharing their adventures with the world.
As they have full-time jobs, they have established a process whereby they are able to make time for their travels and effectively fund their trips. They mention that they keep Monday to Friday for work and the weekends are reserved for Feet Outside. The duo begins working on their videos on Friday nights and brings it to a close on Sundays by publishing their videos, which are shot, edited, and finally published over the weekend. In order to maximize the utilization of their time to the fullest capacity, there is a tremendous amount of planning on their part to club their holidays and organize their schedules.
While travelling to a new place they make sure to do their research and go through videos online to come up with a list of places they want to visit. Most of the places they visit are offbeat and they avoid touristy areas as much as possible so that they can enjoy the place and get good pictures and videos out of it. They enjoy going to beautiful, offbeat places in Manali like Gulaba. As much as they enjoy being in the heart of the cities they visit, they also want to escape from the hustle and bustle of city life to relax in offbeat places where they can get their peace and quiet. One thing they abide by and want all the travelers to understand is that to never have rigid plans when travelling, there will always be roadblocks, and this is why they believe travel plans should be flexible.
Joyeeta: A notebook because I love writing and making notes. For Kunal, it would be books because he enjoys reading.
Joyeeta: To be honest, every time you are planning a trip somewhere you hear the name of the place, and you start imagining what the place would be like. We always think about how the place will be and when we visit the place it’s totally different. For instance, we went to Arunachal Pradesh where one was a touristy place and the other was offbeat. Both of the places were completely in contrast to each other.
Kunal: The first place we visited, Tawang, was touristy and filled with snow covered mountains but when we visited the offbeat side it was all valleys, lush green mountains, and people were kind. The vibe is totally different in each part of the state.
We had a major bad experience that we encountered before we had even started vlogging. This was back in 2018 when we were travelling from Varanasi to Kolkata in sleeper train. Our gears went missing and the bags were gone. Around 1 lakh worth of gears was gone. It was an overnight journey on the Amritsar Express. In the morning we reached Patna we were busy with breakfast and after we finished our meal, we thought of going through our videos and photos but couldn’t find our phones and gears. It was a nightmare.
Kunal: When travelling and vlogging we don’t document everything, so what goes on behind the scenes is actually the funniest part. One incident I’d like to share is that whenever I go to the mountains or any cold places I don’t shower for a couple of days. I let my body get accustomed to the atmosphere and then I make a decision. Unless it’s not very cold I won’t take a shower.
Joyeeta: Another funny thing is that I sleep a lot during road trips. If I am in any moving vehicle, I will be sleeping all the time. You know, all the ideas Hrithik Roshan and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara have given us about travelling and road trips. I don’t follow it. I sleep throughout my road trips because I enjoy sleeping. It’s beneficial for your mental state if the roads are bad and we have to kill time, it’s the perfect thing to do.
Joyeeta: We make sure 20-25% of our earnings go into our investments, just because we enjoy travelling doesn’t mean we are not saving up for our future. Then coming to expenses of our trips- we have our flight, train, hotel expenses. We make sure to plan everything 3 months prior to our trips. First, we book travel tickets (flights, trains) which comes to around ₹ 12000, then we book the hotels which comes to ₹ 10000 and then comes the transportation and food costs which brings to ₹ 30000 as our total. The 30k is then divided into 3 months so it doesn’t seem heavy in one go. If you plan it in advance and do a little bit of research, you will find good deals and discounts. We are budget travelers. We make sure to plan it well in advance because we travel 6-7 times a year and can’t afford luxury places. We have to keep all factors in mind. We also survive on Maggi for 3 meals to control our budget when we have extra expenses.
Kunal: As Joyeeta mentioned, we are budget travelers. We are not looking for luxurious options for travelling. We carry dry fruits and food on the go to cut our costs and save time.
Kunal: We have 2 cameras- one is for A rolls to shoot for our vlogs and the other one is for B rolls to describe the atmosphere of the places we visit. One camera is operated by Joyeeta and one by me so we can save time and can shoot simultaneously. Other than that, we carry a gimbal for stabilizing shots, extra batteries, chargers, memory cards, and data cables. We also carry our laptops to transfer footage of what we shoot on the same night.
Gokarna, Goa. It was a workcation trip from Bangalore. From Gokarna we visited Canacona, South goa. We basically explored offbeat places of South Goa and Gokarna.
What are you doing this weekend?
We have no plans this weekend. After working 9-5 full time when the weekend comes, we are not always motivated to make videos. We feel like chilling and spending time with our families. World cup games are coming up so we will be relaxing working on our videos coming out on Sunday.