A Gurgaon couple, frustrated with meeting sales figures and deadlines, quit their well-paying corporate jobs to travel full-time. Three months on, thanks to a viral reel, they are now making their living by creating content on Instagram.
"I had actually taken a sabbatical from work, but I never expected my journey to shape up like this," Charchit Kumar, 23, said. Speaking to Moneycontrol from a beach in Kerala's Varkala, Kumar said that he had worked in the travelling industry for five years, organising tours for corporate houses but rarely ever stepping out himself. "About five years after graduating from Delhi, I worked with different travel companies, including Thrillophilia, organising luxury trips for corporate employees. Although I was making Rs 14 lakh per annum and getting incentives worth more than Rs 20,000 per month, there was no sense of fulfillment," he said.
Kumar, who was at the time living with his partner Shwetambri Soni, 26, in Gurgaon, added that after working long hours, he would return home almost in a zombie state, and not talk at all for hours. "Once, I caught him just staring blankly into space for a long time," Soni said. "That's when I urged him to consider whether the job was worth it since it was taking such a toll on him."
For Soni, too, work life as a salesperson was stressful. "I could not switch off. I had to always be available for calls and extra work outside of working hours, and had to spend four hours commuting to my office and back. I was absolutely miserable, which is why when I noticed Charchit that day, I figured it was time for both of us to try living differently," she told Moneycontrol.
The couple had almost Rs three lakh in savings, and they decided to give themselves six months to experiment with a new lifestyle that let them live their dreams even though it came with a lot of financial uncertainty.
For the first couple of months, they travelled across the country and shared their journey on social media, but they did not take it seriously until a few of their reels went viral on Instagram. "After only a handful of posts, we began to get thousands of followers. Then, we decided to leverage that to make deals with hotels and homestays," Kumar said. "We would create content for them in exchange for money, but sometimes, we even volunteered with them, helping them run the property and creating content for their social media handles in exchange for food and shelter. This gave us a chance to not only travel the way we wanted, but also earn on the go. After all, we were running through money like water, and there was no way that Rs three lakh would have sustained us for six months."
When asked about how their families reacted to their choices, Kumar laughed and said, "They called us stupid, but so far things worked out fine for us."
The couple charges collaborators anywhere between Rs 5,000 to Rs 15,000 depending upon the deliverables, and said that they are experimenting with their storytelling to figure out what resonates with their over 28,000 followers.
But will this eventually turn their passion into a money-making grind? Kumar doesn't think so. "We decide where to go, where to stay, and what stories we choose to tell. The choice is ours. We don't like staying at five-star hotels. They feel cold and rigid. We prefer the warm hospitality and the community feeling in guest houses and homestays and that's what we are conveying through our content," he said.
When asked if he would consider returning to work after three more months since his sabbatical was officially for six months, Kumar replied: "There's no chance. I am not going back to that life."
"I feel so much at peace living this life," Soni added, "I shudder to even think of returning to a life where living meant travelling four hours a day and attending calls for about 10-12 hours. I have a supportive partner and the possibility of a better, healthier, and fulfilling life; there's no way that I am letting this go."
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