She is 23. She has a full-time job. She is a travel and creative creator.
She is Nidhi Khurana. Or as some may recognize her, Safarnamabynidhi.
She was also our guest for the latest session of AMA with DYT. I sat down with her to demystify how a travel creator coped with lockdown and travel restrictions in place.
Travel has hit pause for 7 months. How does a travel content creator cope?
Nidhi candidly says that she has learnt to accept the situation. To put a positive spin on things, she is exploring things she wasn’t able to till now.
One example is branching out to imaginative content. Pre-COVID, she stuck to “simplest possible pictures.” The pandemic helped her evolve as a creator. If she had still been travelling, she wouldn’t have paid attention to the content.
Can a person become an influencer while keeping a 9 to 6 job?
Yes, they can.
And Nidhi borrows words from my mouth to explain it.
Everyone’s an influencer. Suppose you sway even two people in your house about anything. Then you are an influencer.
Don’t get stuck to the thought that you can’t be an influencer if you have a full-time job. Rather you would inspire more people when they see you juggling a lot of hats.
Never think of a day job as a roadblock or hurdle to becoming an influencer!
What motivated you to travel?
As an English honour’s student, she thought that her parents would give her the green signal to go to Jaipur Literature Fest as her first trip with friends.
They did, and for her, that was a turning point.
She explored the city for 6 days by herself at night (after her friends hit snooze). That was when the realization struck that travelling alone makes her happy.
Since then, there has been no looking back.
Luxury or budget travel – which is better?
She freelanced as a writer while graduating and funded all her travel, which means it is all a tight budget.
Her maximum wallet limit till now has been 7K – 8K per journey. But she does hope to book a few luxury trips in the future, bankrolled by her full-time job now!
How does she manage studies (now work), content, and travel?
When you want to achieve something, you push your limits.
In 1.5 years, she’s travelled to 15 places. All the while, managing a strict attendance regime during graduation and postgraduation.
Her advice on managing it all is to “take action, and things will fall into place. Dreaming about it will only take you so far.”
Workshops or self-learning on creative photography?
It’s all self-taught.
She was almost out of her travel content due to the lockdown, and the need for something different was knocking on the door. That got the creative juices flowing, and the idea popped to generate content that is a bit different.
Inspired by a few fellow creators, she put her own spin on it. It began as a project for herself. It was then when people started resonating it with the content that she continued to inject a dose of creativity into all her posts.
Her plans for the future? Does she hope to be a full-time creator soon?
Right now, she doesn’t plan to leave her desk job. Travel content creation is a passion.
But 4 or so years down the lane, she hopes to make travel and content creation a career.
What is her advice to new creators?
Start off with your journey as soon as possible.
She took a hiatus from content for 1 year, and she planned. That she says was an error.
Her advice to all new and budding creators is:
- To start whenever the thought of publishing content enters your mind.
- The more you wait, the more saturated the niche becomes.
My take on the AMA session
I second Nidhi’s suggestion that Adobe’s Lightroom is the best editing app out there. The mobile version is her (and most other creators) go-to option. Snapseed is another tool you can use to edit content.
But what struck a note with me is Nidhi’s courage to dive into what she wants (like an on the spot decision to hitchhike in a truck). To all content creators out there, I’ll say follow the same path. Experiment with your passion.
Cover picture courtesy: Nidhi Khurana’s Instagram
