About Husain

I became a traveler in 2002, on a bus in Rajasthan, officially escorting a group of college students on something called an industrial visit. What the industry was, nobody seemed entirely sure. What I remember is the light on the desert at dusk, a chai stall that appeared out of nowhere and was gone before we could find it again, and the distinct feeling that India was considerably more interesting than my job description.

I spent the next twenty years finding out just how right that feeling was — while simultaneously getting paid to be wrong about it professionally. First decade: DMC side, managing ground operations across India, a job that teaches you very quickly that the gap between a trip on paper and a trip in practice is approximately the size of the Arabian Sea. Second decade: running my own travel agency, which I still run today, sending guests to Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, and everywhere else the world will take them. You develop a certain useful cynicism along the way. You learn that a “superior room” is superior to nothing in particular. You learn what “authentic local experience” frequently involves. And somewhere in all of that — despite all of that — the thing that started on that bus in Rajasthan stubbornly refused to go away.

Most people come home from a trip and upload the photos. I come home and start writing. My family has learned not to ask how long it will take.

What’s here

Long-form narratives. Practical guides. The occasional opinion when I have something worth saying. I write for Indian travelers specifically — the visa realities, the routing from Mumbai or Delhi, the cultural reference points that actually make sense in our context. I keep traveling, which means the list keeps growing.

If any of this sounds useful

Start with the Harishchandragad piece — it’s the first thing I published and probably the clearest signal of what this place is.

Or subscribe and I’ll write to you directly when something new goes up.

— Husain