Hello friends. Welcome to yet another interesting post in the Interview with a Blogger series.
In this post I’m featuring my up-close and personal interview with Pujarini Mitra. She is the creator of the travel blog mysoultravels.com. I met with her through the social media site and I’m glad that I could connect with her.
Without taking much of your time, let’s hear it from Pujarini.
Q.1. Please introduce yourself to our readers.
A. Hey There! I am Pujarini Mitra. Well if you find my name difficult, just call me Puja. I am a family travel blogger with a 9+ years of experience in IT and HR in my earlier avatar. I caught the travel bug pretty young, coming from an Army family. I love to travel and explore offbeat destinations. I have been a solo traveler, a couple traveler and now I travel with my toddler. My ambition is to visit 100 countries before I turn 40.
Q.2. What was your inspiration to start your blog mysoultravels.com?
A. I love travelling and blogging about it. Travelling is my passion and it makes me feel free, inspired and empowered. But there was a point when I almost gave it up. Like every new mother, my life changed significantly after I had my baby. With the increased responsibilities and a fulltime career, travelling took a backseat for the initial months. When I finally started thinking about travelling again, I realized I was petrified to travel with my infant. I spoke to my friends, colleagues, googled but realized not too many people travel with young kids. To be honest, it’s difficult and crazy at times but you just need to find a way to do what you love. I used my maternity leave to travel to 50 cities and we have been travelling with our toddler ever since. I hope that through our blogs and photos we are able to encourage new families to travel more with their kids.
Q.3. How would you describe/introduce your blog to the new readers?
A. MySoulTravels is a family travel website with kid friendly destination guides, tips and plans. When you travel with kids, it’s very different from how you travel solo or as a couple. You really need to do a lot of research about the place beforehand and yet there would be many challenges that you have to learn to manage on the go. MySoulTravels lists down those hurdles and prepares you to travel better with your kids. We review destinations, activities, accommodations and tell you all about it. However, our trip guides are for all ages and groups ? and I am sure if you love travelling you will something interesting to read on our website.
Q.4. What do you think as the best and challenging aspects about being a blogger?
A. The best part about blogging is that it gives you a channel to explore your creativity, tickles your curiosity and make you more honest. I have started travelling so much more after I started blogging. It’s such an enriching experience.
The challenging aspect about travel blogging for me is always to strike the right balance between taking a photograph for my blogs or just stopping to enjoy the moment while managing the baby all at the same time.
Q.5. How would you describe your blogging style?
A. I think my blogging style is simple and honest. I keep my blogs as personal as possible so that I can connect with my readers.
Q.6. What do you think blogging will look like in next 5 years? Will it still be around?
A. Of course. I think we are about to see blogging as a booming industry very soon in India. Every business today is trying to reach out to the individual customer level and improve the customer experience. As bloggers, we are that interlink between the two, continuously providing insights on how to make the brand a true success.
Q.7. Which part of blogging excites you the most – post writing or photography?
A. Both actually! I love writing as well as photography.
Q.8. What is the biggest surprise that you have ever experienced after becoming a blogger?
A. I was very surprised when I got nominated for the best newcomer blogging award just after 2 weeks of starting.
Q.9. What has been the toughest criticism and best compliment given to you as a blogger?
A. The best compliment was last week, when a young mom read my blog about managing jet lag with kids and messaged me to say that she has just booked her tickets for an international trip. Yoohoo!
I am yet to get some super tough criticism ?
Q.10. Would you like to share some words of wisdom or tips for the aspiring bloggers?
A. I think the best thing if you love blogging is that the blogging community is very collaborative and supportive. If your content is good and true, you will find people who will help you. Find your passion, keep blogging and create value for your readers. Be patient and everything else shall follow.
Wow!! It has been a fabulous interview I must say. I have thoroughly enjoyed this interview post and get to know Pujarini more. I hope you all too have enjoyed this post.
See you soon with another interview and will be back soon with more interviews like this.
Thank you for being with us!! Happy Reading!!
