Bitten by wanderlust

New Roads

They may take different paths but what brings them all together is the passion for travelling and discovering new places. Santhosh B S, Suveer Goutham, Prateek Chaturvedi, Samson Joseph, Kausalya and Vijetha A S set off on a life-changing trip recently from Bengaluru. Out of the 25 finalists for Wrangler’s ‘True Wanderer’ contest, these six adventurous souls belong to the city.

Equipped with the brand’s Ride Ready range of apparel and flagged off from an exclusive brand store in the city, the finalists embarked on a five-day road trip. As per the contest rules, they can choose to travel by car, bike, foot or any mode of transportation of their choice. While on their journey in India, they will need to complete travel-related challenges set by the brand. Each rider has to complete and showcase these challenges in their Wander Diary on wrangler-ap.com/in along with photos and videos.

“Travel for me is education. It’s the best form of learning. I believe in the quote, ‘Don’t believe what people say. Go there and see it.’ I want to explore as much as I can on this trip, bring back something and share it with the world. My destination is Meghalaya,” said Samson Joseph, a mechanical engineer at Honeywell.

He detailed that the finalists have six tasks to complete under the subheads — ‘true foodie’, ‘true culture’, ‘true nature’, ‘true people’, ‘true capture’ and ‘true denim’ — in terms of writings and videos. They will be judged based on the votes and the scores of the judging panel.

“My passion for biking started a couple of years back when I was looking for bikes and also came across a blog of one of the finalists for ‘True Wanderer’ who covered Kerala on the Yamaha R15. I started preparing for this event since then. My weekends are spent biking and connecting with nature. I love photography and offroading too. During this trip, I am planning to cover unexplored places in north and west Karnataka, south Maharashtra and south of Andhra Pradesh,” said an excited Prateek Chaturvedi, a business analyst with SC.

Kausalya, a freelance training consultant, expressed, “I have touched about 21 states in India, mostly through work. I am probably the only non-biker out of the six finalists. I don’t ride or bike, I walk (or trek) and that’s my style of wandering. I am going to Meghalaya which is one of the most unexplored regions of India and I am really pepped about this.”

Suveer Goutham says that he started biking when he was in class eight. “I grabbed my father’s bike keys in his absence and have been hooked to biking since then. I have been travelling throughout the country and have covered 35,000 km on my bike in a year. I am hoping to munch more miles!”

“On this trip, I will be concentrating on Kerala. My starting point is Munnar, then to Vagamon, from there I’ll be heading to the Kerala backwaters and Alleppey, coming back to Guruvayur and then ending my trip at Kozhikode,” he added.

Santhosh B S, a professional in the automobile industry, said that his concept for this trip is called ‘Southern Garland’. “From Bengaluru, I will be heading to Madurai, covering Rameswaram, Kanyakumari and Dhanushkodi. I will also be covering the coastal regions of Kerala, Coonoor, Kozhikode and then return to Bengaluru. I am waiting to unfold the explorer in me.”