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8 Exquisite Eccentricities of 8 Years of On My Canvas

a girl, the author of the article, priyanka gupta holding a blue umbrella in her hands looking up smiling standing under open sky under coconut trees water visible behind her

What Does it Mean to be Blogging for Eight Years?

For eight years, I haven’t woken up a day thinking I had nothing to do. You must have heard of, “Hey, my project is over. We are celebrating. Now onto new things!” I could never say this. I can exclaim these words after publishing every blog post, but I don’t feel like it. My project is understanding and documenting the act of being alive, and it is never over, until it is over.

I also always have more than enough to write because for almost five years my partner, Sagar, and I have been living nomadically in India. We don’t have a home, our stuff is in our car, Scooby, and we have been traveling slowly. In June 2025, we parked Scooby at Sagar’s parents’ home in North India. Now we have been traveling with our backpacks (Here are my best travel resources).

traveling from chennai to howrah train in background and female traveler in front with bags on her looks like a female traveler from India writer and blogger solo (1)

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7 Scintillating Years of On My Canvas

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Seven Years as a Full-Time Writer, four of which I have spent on the road

On My Canvas turned seven in August. I couldn’t publish a post on its anniversary. As I’ve repeated in my newsletter Looking Inwards, a big project kept me busy. Soon that project will be out in the world and see the sun. Until then, I’m here to write about these seven years of full-time writing.

Along with the blog, I have freelanced, written poems, penned down stories, and so on. I’ve been on the road for four of those years, with all my things in the car. Yeah, my partner has been with me, too. I’m sure you have read about our itinerant journey in this massive post.

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6 Years of On My Canvas

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Six Years of My Personal Growth and Travel Blog On My Canvas The past six years have been important to me in many ways. In them, I not only wrote on this blog and brought it to where it is today: an infinite source of inspiration, hope, and ideas for me and, hopefully, a peaceful, …

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5 Years of On My Canvas: What I’ve Learned

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5 Years of My Personal Growth and Travel Blog On My Canvas Thank you for coming along on this journey with me and supporting me always.  If I have learned one thing in these five years, it is that the joy of creating should be enough. When we work hard and persist, we arrive at …

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Awareness, Confidence, and Non-Reaction: My Keys to 2022

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Reflecting on 2021 and Heading into 2022 with Mindfulness, Confidence, and Non-Reaction to External The Year 2021 I cannot believe 2021 is over. We were recently cheering the end of 2020: the year that marked sickness, unprecedented loss, heart-choking grief, unemployment, loneliness, and lives put on hold. I feel we had just closed our eyes, …

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Best Articles of On My Canvas From the Year 2020-2021

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Best Articles Published During On My Canvas’s Fourth Year (August 2020 – August 2021)  My blog On My Canvas just turned four. Congratulations to me and to all you brilliant readers who give me a reason to write every day. Read the above link to know about the indefinite travel journey I’m on, another big news, …

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On My Canvas Turns Four – Big News and Five Lessons Inside

walking on mountains in gagal near mashobra shimla himachal four years of blog celebration.jpeg

Celebrating Four Years of On My Canvas – Learnings and Updates

Phew! 

It has been four years since I published the first article on On My Canvas. From then on, these four years have been a non-stop roller-coaster ride. From the first year of impenetrable determination but absolute ignorance to helping out other bloggers from my two years of blogging journey, and the third year of accomplishments, I have come a long way.

The journey started with writing. But every artist needs an audience. I want to thank you all – my beloved readers – who have helped me make the blog the meaningful resource it is. Though I know On My Canvas has to reach a lot more people, I really appreciate the love and support I’ve received so far. At least, I have not been hit by spoiled tomatoes or stinky eggs.

So thank you! 

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Highs and Lows of the Year 2020 – 2021 Plans Included

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First of all, I thank my loyal and kind readers who return to On My Canvas time and again. Without you, this blog wouldn’t be this positive, experimental, and inspirational place it is becoming. I appreciate your company and promise to keep this platform as peaceful, honest, fun, and informative as I had intended on Day One. 

To stick around to see for yourself, subscribe to my weekly newsletter. There I send weekly updates, my writing, best thoughts of the week, things I have been reading, off the hook travel tips, stuff I’ve been watching, and my life updates, too. It is the best way to stay connected with me.

If you like the kind of ideas I share, you will find that newsletter informative, enjoyable, and compact. So go here and subscribe now, or use the subscription box below. Welcome along in this journey of travel, discovery, and personal growth 🙂

Now let us talk about 2020. 

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Three Thriving Years of On My Canvas – And Future Plans

priyanka gupta in dandeli

Three Years of My Personal Growth and Travel Blog On My Canvas

And just like that, On My Canvas completed three thriving years on the internet.

Congratulations to us all who have been part of this budding platform through which I want to spread love, life, and hope. I cannot thank my readers enough for sticking with me all the while, for sending me immensely inspirational messages day and night, and for asking me to write more and more. On some hard days, I could not have done it without your endless emails and witty comments.

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Highs and Lows of 2019 – Travel Blogging, Himalayan Peaks, and Personal Well-Being

highs+lows+2019-14 by the riverside in burma author priyanka gupta on my canvas personal growth and travel blog

2019 was a roller coaster ride. 

Waking up in my rooftop room that serves as my intermittent writing studio in Bengaluru, incorporating travel blogging with On My Canvas by writing throughout the year about my past and recent travels, connecting with other bloggers and travel writers, slow traveling in the Himalayas for four(4) months of summer while focusing on health and personal well-being and working remotely, writing thirty(30) long and super-researched articles in thirty(30) days in August, traveling in Karnataka on short and long trips, collaborating with both national and international travel organizations for the first time, getting my work and writing acknowledged over other media platforms, and then making my way to Myanmar via flight (after my plans to cross into Myanmar through Northeast got canceled because of the protests) and spending three weeks there – I never felt that the year was slow even though I slowed down quite a few time. 

Oh, On My Canvas also won three travel blogging awards within my first year of sincere travel blogging.

Let me tell you my favorite and not-so-favorite moments from this hap hazardous list of actions and achievements. Later I will also summarize the things that I feel I couldn’t do justice to and wish to focus on in 2020.

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Golden Highlights of 2018 – A Year of Writing, Love, and Nomadness

jog falls

The whistles of a black kite which is hovering above me in the light blue sky are the only sounds that break my attention now and then. In front of me, a green parrot just flew by; I see more of them in the morning, when one after another they go, searching for grains and guavas and water and, maybe, more parrots. The coffee cuckoo, similar to the one that used to visit me in my previous apartment, also flew from one tree to another in the park in front of my writing studio.

I have stationed myself in one corner of this studio on a chatayi or as we say a mat nowadays, and from here I write my heart out. In this nomadic life, you can find me on and off in Bangalore, for I always come here to be with my partner, and thus I pen down many pieces from his vicinity with a temporary feeling of home.

Having spent more than four months now as a nomad, I have realized that you don’t have to own or rent an apartment to be at home. Neither are you always on the go even if you are living a nomadic life.

At the end of the day when I think about getting back home, I imagine a quiet place, where the bathroom taps do not drip and where I cannot hear the screeching tires or intruding honks, but I can only tune into the crickets singing songs to each other. Where I can lay on a bed or in a sleeping bag in a tent, preferably tucked away in the midst of trees, with a warm cup of tea and a book to read. From where I can make a phone call to my parents and family who worry if I disappear for even a day. I imagine a home that is a window into the world, or it has a window from where I can see the world, which I like to have at a distance. And that is all.

Such are my preferences these days. I started penning down this article to tell you about how my priorities shaped up the year 2018, and so on I go.

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Donate To Keep Me Writing!

For more than eight years, I've read and written night and day to make On My Canvas—my sustenance and life's focal point—a place of inspiration, trial, adventure, and happiness. Everything here and my weekly newsletter, Looking Inwards, is free. No AI. No ads. No paywalls. No sponsors. No paycheck.

If my blog has served you in any way, please consider making a one-time or a consistent donation. Your generosity will not only support the idea that we can create a life of our choice but also sustain good-quality free writing online. I'll be thankful forever.

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As per Indian government rules, India-based readers can only pay in INR. Non-Indians can choose either USD or INR, but your card issuer may prefer USD.{CURRENCY_CONVERSION_RATE}

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