I hardly travel any more. Earlier, I travelled because many times I wasn’t able to say no. These days no is my go-to word, and I don’t go anywhere unless I really feel like it. My last proper holiday was Zanskar in 2024, and I haven’t travelled anywhere since.
Part of it is what travel has turned into. Since the pandemic, it feels as if everyone has started travelling, and a lot of people now go to places that don’t really interest them, for Instagram reels or out of FOMO. I’m judging them, and I don’t think I’m wrong. I’ve seen it at Chandratal, at Pangong and at other places I’ve been to, places so remote that just reaching them is hard work. For us, getting there was something we’d planned for years and finally managed with time, money and effort. Others make the same journey, barely look at the landscape, and spend their time shooting videos and photos of themselves, some of them reacting to the place with something close to disdain. At Pangong, a lot of them just want a photo dressed like Kareena Kapoor at the end of 3 Idiots, or like whichever other actress has shot a song there. So much for originality.
The men are no different. They sign up for rides they aren’t really interested in and join trips built around someone else’s dream. I know this is gatekeeping, but some things need to be preserved, and given the reputation some Indian travellers have earned, a little gatekeeping wouldn’t hurt. Seeing this again and again is a big part of why travel slipped down my priorities. Life is too short to travel on someone else’s dream, and over time that’s become my mantra: go where you want to go, or don’t go anywhere.
My own list of places I want to go is short. There are seven on it, each there for a reason of my own, not because of a reel or because everyone else is going. Some started with a documentary or a novel, one with a PlayStation game. Only one has ever got as far as a price. If I see all seven before I die, that will be a fulfilled life in my book. But two of them are stadiums that are going to be demolished, and for those, someday may not come at all.
The first is the Isle of Man, for the TT. For any motorcyclist worth his salt, it’s the mecca. It started for me with Guy Martin in TT3D: Closer to the Edge, and since then I’ve spent countless hours on YouTube watching riders go through those roads at a mind-numbing speed. I have the utmost respect for anyone who races there. I follow F1 as well, and I don’t want to take anything away from what those drivers do, but the TT is what F1 used to be decades ago. It has stayed true to the spirit of motorcycle racing.
Route 66 is the other motorcycle one. Riding it once in my life is a dream. I’d read about it and seen the videos, but what really strengthened my resolve to travel across America on Route 66 someday was an Amor Towles novel, The Lincoln Highway. I realised much later that it’s about an entirely different road. The Lincoln Highway runs from New York to San Francisco, and Route 66 runs from Chicago to Santa Monica. A book about one American highway made me want to ride another, and I’m keeping it that way.
The Louvre is on the list because it’s one of the greatest museums in the world, and I just want to be inside it. I’d like to see the Mona Lisa, of course, but if I don’t get to, that’s fine. Finding the museum in every city I go to is a habit that started at the Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad when I was thirteen, and the Louvre is where that habit has always been heading.
Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest salt flat in the world. I’ve watched so many videos of it. The grandeur of the emptiness makes me wonder how something like that can even exist. I know there are other salt flats, including one here in India, but there’s something exotic about going all the way to Bolivia. It’s so far out that I’ve never even bothered making an itinerary for it.
Iceland is the one I’ve come closest to. I’ve always been fascinated by volcanoes, and Iceland has some great ones. It’s a landscape photographer’s dream, the kind of place where even a mediocre photographer like me would come back with a few good ones. But what pulls me most are the northern lights, that green dance of electric currents across the night sky. A friend of mine is going in January, and I truly envy her. I looked into it myself a couple of years ago, and it was going to cost me ₹5–6 lakh. I know it would cost much less if I planned it properly, but the planning is what stops me. I don’t spend impulsively the way I used to.
Then come the two legendary stadiums, San Siro and Old Trafford. AC Milan came into my life through a PlayStation 2. My brother and I loved playing Pro Evolution Soccer, and in PES4 the best team in the game was Milan. That’s when I started following them, first on the console and then in the Champions League. San Siro came from the same game. When you picked it in the match settings, it felt different. The stadium felt huge, the crowd never stopped shouting, and the ambience was amazing. My brother and I chose it more than any other. I’ve kept track of Milan ever since, not as actively as United, but they’re always there. In 2025 AC Milan and Inter bought San Siro from the city, and they plan to demolish it and build a new stadium in its place.
Old Trafford is the dream I’ve had the longest. I started watching football in 1998, when my father pinned up a World Cup wall chart at home, and became a United supporter a year later. It began with hype rather than any player. The sports channels were full of talk about a team going for the treble. I didn’t even know what a treble was, but I decided to watch the final. United were losing 1–0 to Bayern Munich at the Camp Nou and scored twice in injury time, a textbook United match, as I’d learn later, won in Fergie time. The only United player I knew back then was David Beckham, and not because of his football. He was always in the news, and even the sports pages of Indian newspapers, full of cricket as they were, sometimes ran a story about him.
If I’m going to see Old Trafford, it has to be soon. United are planning a new 100,000-seat stadium next door, and once it’s built, the old ground will be knocked down. I already know who I’d take with me. My girlfriend’s dad is a big United fan, and when it comes to travel, he’s a lot like me. He isn’t keen on going anywhere either, except Goa, where he goes at every chance he gets. Getting him to Manchester would take some doing. But if there’s one place that could make both of us break our habits, it’s Old Trafford, and I’d like us to be standing in it before it’s gone.
