swellcast image
@Inditalk

Matters that matter to the average Indian

@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:45

Curating extraordinary expeditions : Venky, Founder Nomadic Road and Global Travel Specialist

article image placeholderUploaded by @wordsmith
Today on Indie Talk, we are delighted to welcome Wenke, who in his words, is a mechanical engineer on paper, a decent experiential marketer by profession, and a passionate entrepreneur crafting unique travel experiences. Today, Wenkey is at the helm of the Nomadic Road, an award winning international experiential travel company that he founded with a vision of bridging dream and routine opening up the most remote corners of our world with obsessively planned Overland motoring expeditions

Www.nomadicroad.com

42
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 0:16
Thank you Sri Cham for having me on board. I am really looking forward to having some interesting conversations with you and followers as well. So thanks for having me here
6
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:28

Choosing a path less travelled

Winky. Mostly with entrepreneurs. It's about following the dream and taking the path less trodden. And as it is with you, a mechanical engineer who chose to nomadic, nomadic, nomadic, nomadic, nomadic, nomadic road and global travel specialist. Did you sort of have this in mind that you would be setting up a company specializing in adventure travel someday? And how did it pan out
6
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 2:28

I didn’t come up with this idea while I was young.

It's all in search of new pastures and in search of something new, what they don't know. And that's when we decided to build on the idea of exploratory travel using automobiles and that's a nomadic road was created because the term nomadic means a person being a Nomad travels in search of new pastures and that's of nomadic as a term. And road is basically we specialize in all in journeys. And there you go, that's nomadic road
14
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:36
Oh, that's a wonderful thought. Thank you for sharing this. And, you know, beginning with the mechanics of it all, to actually zoning in on the purpose and finding your passion there. And between that's beautiful coming to the nomadic road. This company you founded the company in India. And yet the company has a global appeal. You're looking at expeditions across the world. So how did this ideal about that? You wanted to go about offering experiences outside of India
6
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 1:19

The idea behind Nomadic Road

The kind of conversations and the stories that emerge from each of these journeys are going to be truly remarkable. Such journeys also push people out of their comfort zones, making them appreciate different people from different walks of life and cultural backgrounds which they are not familiar to, thereby becoming a better citizen of our planet. So in order to have a diverse group of travelers, we invested a lot of time and effort in creating unique touch points for a brand experience that can be much more appealing to a diverse group
6
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:14
How did you go about curating and picking out those expeditions that a global audience would enjoy? What was the thought process behind that
6
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 1:41

The kind of journeys we organise…

So instead of selling a tour or travel package, we clearly focused on creating very unique experiences, experiences that are not for the first time travel, but for seasoned travelers who have already seen the world and who would like to see it in a different perspective. To name a few of our journeys, we were the first company to plan an old expedition across the roof of the world where we drove across Tibet all the way to the north face of Mount Everest Camp
8
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:07
Vanky is there a story that you would like to share with us from your mini expeditions
4
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 1:12
Oh, that's gonna be a challenge. There are so many stories, but it will be difficult to trace three years back and four years back talking about other stories. But let me talk about story from our recent expedition because it's still fresh in my memory
4
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 5:00
And what's more depressing was the entire region had diesel shortage and no fuel station could come and give them the fuel. And they also didn't have any backup fuel. And we thought we could siphon some fuel out
10
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 4:31
Somehow we managed to get the tickets booked on our flights out, passing through many countries before we reach the final respective form. Some of clients who came from Europe, they had to fly into Kenya and then from Kenya they had to fly into Ethiopia. From Ethiopia into Germany and then to Switzerland de France. Likewise in India, we had to go into Ethiopia, Ethiopia to Oman and Oman to Indian. So finally we reached I thought, lucky, we are all safe
10
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:52
I was about to ask you about managing your clients expectations in this kind of a scenario. And towards the end, you shared that they all seem to have a different takeaways. Right. And memories. And I think in many ways, the expeditions that you offer are unexpected experiences. Right. So I'm sure that this must have added to many more lifelong memories for them. Which brings me to the next question. What does the future look like now that many countries are relaxing restrictions gradually?
4
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 2:33
So we have been seeing tremendous requests and interests from people for the past one year and because of this short lockdown due to Omicron, there was a little bit break in the journeys that we normally do. So now again, people have started to get back after this Omicron because our journeys are typically away from the crowded destinations where normally tourists flock to and also it's much more meaningful and rewarding than choosing a relaxing holiday
6
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:09
So where are you heading for the next adventure? Tell us more about it and also a little about the people who are joining you
2
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 3:13
So we're going to be sharing more and more updates as we are coming closer to the event and also during the expedition. So that's where our next expedition is after that. Like I mentioned earlier, the next expedition is going to be from May onwards, where we're going to be driving across the Gobi Desert, the largest desert in Asia. That's in Mongolia
4
@Wordsmith
Sreeja V
@Wordsmith · 0:39
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful stories. It's been fascinating to actually travel on the nomadic road with you the last few hours and looking forward to updates from you on swell from your leak biker trip. I'm sure there must be a lot of stories that will unfold and I'm sure there will be beautiful sites that you can share without us as you go on. Now I'll open the floor to our listeners in case they have any questions for you
4
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 1:06
So most of the updates would be on Instagram and YouTube and on Facebook as well. And they could also visit our website www.dotnematicroad.com. And I'll be sharing more and more stories with you guys from our upcoming trips as well. Thank you Cecia again and I'll wait for anyone else if they have any questions, I'll be happy to respond to them. Bye
6
@Ramya
Ramya V
@Ramya · 0:31
This was a very interesting conversation. I really enjoyed tuning into this. And I had a question for Venky for families who are into a Bit of Adventure, do you offer any any sort of curated offbeat experiences and are there any places or specific destinations or experiences that you would suggest? I'm really curious to know. Thank you
18
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 2:16
And the other kind of trip that we do is, of course, our signature expeditions where we have fixed departures where people can join. In fact, one of the trips that I'm doing in Mongolia in August is exclusively for families. And we've got couples coming in from Holland, Italy, Poland, UK, US, and some from India as well. So it's got a nice mix of families, couples coming with kids as well
6
@Karan.Dev
Karan Dev
@Karan.Dev · 0:16
Hey Venky and Shrija, thank you so much for this fascinating conversation. I just have one question for you Venky. Are there any fitness requirements to be met before signing up for these expeditions given the extreme terrain and climate conditions
2
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 3:03
Alright. Talking about fitness, if it's high altitude expedition like Tibet or sometimes we go into the Indian side of Patagonia. Of course we expect them to have no breathing problems and no other health problems that will impact their participation when we are in high altitude. But apart from that what we expect is the only fitness that we want is we want people to come with an open mind and a positive attitude. That's the only fitness level that we want
6
@Gaurav1106
Gaurav Chauhan
@Gaurav1106 · 1:16
Even I wanted to do something around that. So I just wanted to know because I feel that I lack a lot of discipline. That is where what killed my dream. So I have this as a question to you. What all sacrifices you have made and how much self discipline does it really take to be a Nomad and do something like this, which you're doing, scaling mountains, traveling through continents, and doing so much amazing stuff. And it doesn't come easy?
2
@praveenuk82
Praveen Unnikrishnan
@praveenuk82 · 0:22
Hello Venky. It's very exciting listening to your journey. So one question I have is, does the fact that you don't hat of the captain on these expeditions keep you from saving the experience itself
2
@Grace_126
Geetanjali Kanate
@Grace_126 · 0:35

Good to hear travel stories after so long ☺️

Although I don't travel much, but it was so nice. This experience journeys that you've been to. It was really nice because I don't know how to drive life as of now, but it was really nice listening to it because I do a lot. It was very refreshing to hear stories after a long time. And it was thank you so much for sharing this
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 3:24
Some people would be interested in history. There are some people in the world who are just doing travel around art and culture. And there are people who are also creating very unique journeys where they take people on an ancestral trail, going and exploring places where they have ancestors, discovering what their forefathers would have done. So people do that as well. So it's about identifying the niche
2
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 2:23
And for starting a business, you can't have two things, of course, right until the stage where you've created the idea is fine. But when it comes to execution, like I said, it has to be 24 by seven and you can't be working as well as running your business. So you need to devote yourself at that point of time. Yes, the challenge was compromising on your financial security and you need to take a calculated decision
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 0:59
Hey, Praveen, very Venky. Good question. So when it comes to Savoring experiences, I would put it in two ways. One, as an expedition leader, for me, the takehome from a journey is putting a smile on the client's face. So as clients, what they come for an expedition, their experiences for each destination would be different. Though we organize the same expedition in the same destination each year, the destination will be the same
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 0:50
Hey, Grace, I'm glad that you like the stories from our expeditions. It's not about whether, you know, driving or not, as long as you can be part of a journey and experience it because some of our clients also are not expected to be very good at driving. Some people clearly say that they don't want to drive and they're okay to travel with the stranger who is comfortable driving. And there are people who have done that
@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 0:46

@Venky

I don't believe somebody has asked this question yet, but I wanted to know just a little bit more about the planning process and what all goes into creating one of these expeditions is how large is the lead time? What are all of the little check boxes that need to be filled before you takeoff
2
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 5:00
It's not like anybody who decides to join. We try to put them on board, but we try to put in some effort trying to understand and qualify each and every expedition member before the journey because that's very important. Like any journey, the people whom you travel with are very important and especially when you go on such difficult journeys, challenging journeys, it's important that you travel with like minded people. You have some great conversations going. You also get to learn something
2
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 1:03
So once the route or the destination and the journey is planned and we have already executed, we know what went right and what didn't go right. Next time we try to improve on that. And also every journey we try to make make it a little more interesting, trying to add some more flavor to it so that it's not monotonous, not just for the organizers, but also for the clients, because nobody wants to embark on the journey, which so many people have already done it
@Gaurav1106
Gaurav Chauhan
@Gaurav1106 · 0:23
Thanks. That Venky makes a lot of sense. Last question. I know it's random. Very random. But I just want to know which is your favorite four by four in India, if you have to travel. So which one would you refer or which one would you rank in between Fortune, endeavor part and Gurkha
@Venky
Venky
@Venky · 1:03

@Gaurav1106

I would say it's going to be ta because it's called its own pedigree as well as I have a very emotional attachment to the company and I have been part of this development. Basically, I've seen it, but I've seen the way the product is taken. So it has all the right ingredients to be the most capable of in India
4
Swell user mugshot
0:000:00