traveler | On My Canvas

Under the Starry, Starry Skies of Chindi (Himachal Pradesh)

chindi himachal pradesh temple leopard devi goddess deodar and pine trees

Hanging out with villagers, Wandering Around Apple Farms, Climbing Into Pine Forests, and Drinking Wine under Starry Skies in Chindi, Himachal Pradesh

The government guesthouse in Chindi, Himachal Pradesh, was located on the brow of a hill. Below the guesthouse and further ahead and behind it, the village sprawled. We checked in at two pm. Our room was Set 1.

The PWD (Public Works Department) guesthouse caretakers hadn’t received a call from their superintendent regarding our booking. They thought there was no booking. All the staff, all men, were sitting on fixed wooden chairs that seemed to have been carved out of tree trunks right at their place under a giant Chinar tree.

trees of chindi pwd government guesthouse chindi himachal pradesh giant tree — The sycamores!

writing with hand papers with lot of ink writing ink pot computer

How to Edit a Memoir I am assuming you have the first draft of your memoir. I have written about writing the first draft of my travel memoir, sharing my experience. The main thing one needs to do to write the first draft is to write it. To not edit it, to not overthink it, …

the author travel writer priyanka gupta posing with the backgroud of a train from chennai to howrah for the article what is backpacking feature

Everything I have Learned about Backpacking: My Backpacking Advice for Beginners

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In 2016, I took out my old grey and rusted brown backpack, Rusty, from the cupboard where it had been for the last three years. I was traveling to Chile to teach English as part of a volunteer program. As I was going for at least six months, I packed Rusty, a small wheeled suitcase, a laptop bag, and a black leather purse.

I stayed on a cold island in the south of Chile, and most of my bags stayed put. I only carried Rusty on short weekend trips within the country.

The four-month volunteer program was over soon. It was time to set sail for my longer backpacking trip through South America. With some push from my travel friend Alison, who also happens to be a backpacking genius, I accepted that Rusty wasn’t the best backpack after all.

lot of books neatly placed in rows in a book store display featuring travel memoir journeys beyond and within this photo is used as a feature image for article best books on how to write a book (1)

My Best Books on How to Write a Book: I Read These While Writing My 1st Travel Memoir

Not all the best books on how to write a book carry this tagline. So many titles, such as Bird by Bird or On Writing, fall directly into the list of best books about writing books. The other books for writers that I have dared to add here are those that have nurtured my growth as a human and a writer for over eight years. These titles aren’t promoted as the best books for writing, but by being so amazing and wholesome, they have slowly guided me along while I wrote my first book, one page, one day, and one breath at a time.

I had written about writers often drinking from the common wellspring of the greatest writing ever written in my favorite books from 2022. I have drunk the books listed here. While reading them, the book had become me, I was her, and everything else ceased to exist.

That afternoon when I learnt to bike and couldn’t believe what I was doing, or when I saw the Himalayas for the first time and was stunned by the pure mountains (more details in my book), and life had grown exponentially larger from what it had been in moments, these books have enlarged my life, too.

A lot of books have changed my life. The Little Prince and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance also belong to the same category. I am not including them here. This list of the best books on writing books is limited to those that directly helped me write better, especially travel and nonfiction, my travel memoir to be precise, made me see how to edit a nonfiction book, inspired me to write and keep pursuing art no matter the outcome, allowed me to feel what I was feeling as a lone writer at work might, and some are science books that enhanced my understanding of the human organism. To write about our species, we should understand the physics of our species.

Not a list is perfect, and not a list is suited to everyone. But this is mine. These titles run with my blood. They sit in my stomach. They shape each word my fingers type and my pen inks.

Enjoy my best books for creative writers. I hope that some of these storm you and cradle you as they have me.

Good luck!

the author priyanka gupta writing the first draft of her travel memoir Journeys Beyond and Within with a computer in front of her and a window beyond

Writing the First Draft of My First Book, a Travel Memoir, in Pondicherry, Kolkata, and Siliguri

This post on writing the first draft is the second one in my larger effort to share the entire process of writing my first book, Journeys Beyond and Within…. I would suggest to first read: How I Started Writing My Travelogue, Journeys Beyond and Within….

The publisher needed book ideas, and when we had ideas, she needed chapter skeletons. So, all the possible chapter titles we could have in the book. This is for them to confirm if we synced over our understanding of the memoir. For two months we went back and forth, discussing what I could expect from the publisher and what they would need. Some major terms of the contract, such as no advance, 8.5% something royalty, etc., were told to me. I thought those are things we will discuss when we come to the book. For now, I have a book to write.

feature a girl holding a book called Journeys beyond and within surrounded by many copies of the book in a home. the book is a travel memoir the girl is the author of the book. book cover is deep green and has a beautiful image of the same woman sitting in a boat going into a mangrove forest

How Did I Get the Idea of Writing My 1st Book, a Travel Memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within…

My first book has come out. Today I want to talk about how I got the idea of writing a travel memoir while I was traveling with my partner in our car with all our stuff in it (now four years and counting).

Travel and personal growth book Journeys Beyond and Within Mockup in the forest with a river like path leading into the deeper woods symbolic of how our journeys lead us deeper into the world and ourselves along with the text available on Amazon worldwide written

from the balcony outside my room in rewalsar monastery the view of rewalsar lake homeless to home

Homeless in Himachal During a Storm But Then We Find a Cosy Home in a Monastery-Travel Serendipity in Rewalsar Lake, the Himalayas 12:45 pm, May 25 Let’s see if we find a place in Rewalsar. 7 pm, May 25 Though I said let’s see if we find a space in Rewalsar today morning, I’m already …

the dogs looking out from a mountain in eastern himalayas sikkim

A Short, Solo Hiking Adventure in the Eastern Himalayas, When the Host Family Dogs Abandon Me One has to be confident while hiking. One should know that her shoes can take care of her and, if alone, she can climb down steep paths and clamber up narrow ridges by herself. Because, sometimes, things don’t work …

feature oriental darter preening and sunbathing in a pond near nandi hills karnataka

Keeping Our Eyes Open to the Wonders of the World At times, we look around us, and everything moving or even inanimate strikes us as beautiful. Travel, for sure, helps me appreciate the new and the old. But it also opens my eyes to things I might have ignored otherwise. Though I lived for years …

a woman sitting holding best book about travel to read in her hands in clay color dress the book title shows journeys beyond and within it is a green cover and in the background you can see plants

Honestly, this piece on the best travel books of all time began as a list of the books I loved in 2023. As the number of books about traveling surpassed other categories, I decided to dedicate an entire blog post to the best travelogues.

Here you will find all kinds of books about travel and adventure, including some on traveling within one’s room and another one on setting up a home in a foreign country. Some travel essays are as old as 1794 while others are from a couple of years ago. The list has solo walking adventures, solo mountaineering on horseback in the old-day Persia and current-day Iran, one travelogue is of a lone woman biker, another one of a tramp, and you will find even artists sharing their traveling experiences. I have also kept two of my best travel novels. They were so good that they belong here. Irrespective of the variety, all these books on travel have the same intention: to share the experience of exploring this wonderful, magical world and inspire us to open our senses to it.

I now have a handpicked list of the best books on writing too. These titles helped me write my first travel memoir, and some of the books here are delicious travel books to enjoy at any time.

~~I’m still to add many more books, but until then, enjoy.~~ This is a complete collection of the best travel literature I have ever read. Enjoy.

an indian grocery seller woman looking for money in her purse by the roadside in pondicherry

Are Indian Women home-making or home-running? Let’s figure out.

Highway Fruit Seller, Maharashtra

Somewhere between Satpura National Park and Goa, the highway is fringed by women sitting on the pavement amidst baskets of fruits. It is a yellow afternoon. As my partner and I drive by, the vendors wave and call, wiping the rainbow of fruits with a cloth. Plump round guavas, large custard apples, sparkling oranges, red apples, pointy jujube, tight sapodillas, big pineapples-they have them all. Because they call, we don’t stop. But near a woman who is quietly wiping the pomegranates, I ask my partner to stop the car.

“We could buy some,” I say.

He nods. “Sure.” What do you think we should get, is his question next.

the quint essential Uttar Pradesh tiki on a plate

Please note: This narrative is fourth in the series of travel essays on my Sikkim to Himachal highway journey. Read the First: Leaving Sikkim for Himachal, Second: The 500-km Drive Through Bihar – Corn Harvests, Marriage Certificate at Hotels, and Truck Slogans, and Third Episode: Arriving in UP at Midnight – an Eerie Expressway, a Suspicious Hotel Attendant, and a Missing Wheel-Cover, too.

Also note: If I was a bit calmer – and perhaps had an ice cooler sticking to my head – I would have photographed it all. For now, we would have to do with this photo-less tour of Lucknow’s famous food. I have added a few photos from Google though.

The featured image is of a plate of tiki, taken at my parent’s home and purchased from a street food shop in their town. It’s a quintessential Uttar Pradesh photo, showing the tiki (though without chutneys) along with the Hindi Punjab Kesari, the everyman’s newspaper of my state.

My Home State Uttar Pradesh (UP) Has Moved On, But I Have Not: Indulging Nostalgia Through Lucknow’s Famous Food

We were going to pass Lucknow on our way to Himachal (from Sikkim). So for that afternoon, we had planned a Lucknow food tour: not a guide, but we ourselves were taking us to some of the most famous food in Lucknow. Neither had I been to the capital before nor did my partner S, and skipping the city’s quintessential delicacies to make it quickly to Himachal sounded like a lame excuse.