TravelEquipped

Anwesha Rana  was unsure when her friend insisted that  Budapest   is Europe's  most beautiful  city. She w as wary ha ving been enchanted beyond measure by London. She wondered could anything surpass London's beauty? The friend was right once again. Travelling in Budapest captured Anwesha’s mind and she has been planning to revisit it the moment she left the city.  In the third part of a series on Europe for TravelEquipped , Anwesha writes about her somber visit to the  Holocaust 's  remnants in Budapest Hungary's pro-German government ordered deportation of 4,37,000 Jews to concentration camps.  Wikimedia Commons       Anwesha Rana @RanaAnwesha R eaders may have by now gathered a fair idea that my status since October 2018 has been: Currently obsessing over Hungary. In this piece, I continue to share it and hope that some of you will consider this country in Eastern Europe as the next travel des...

Anwesha Rana  was not sure when her friend insisted that  Budapest   is the most beautiful of European cities. Having been enchanted beyond measure by London, Anwesha was wary. She wondered could anything surpass the beauty of London? The friend was right once again. Travelling in Budapest captured Anwesha’s mind and she has been planning to revisit it the moment she left the city. In the second part of a series on Europe for  TravelEquipped , Anwesha writes about  Budapest's Memento Park  that hosts the vestiges of Hungary’s Communist past without honouring or dismissing the figures, sacrifices, and history associated with it Memento Park is an open-air museum in Budapest hosting vestiges of Hungary’s Communist past. Photo courtesy  cnn.com     Anwesha Rana @RanaAnwesha M emento Park is an open-air museum in Budapest that hosts the vestiges of Hungary’s Communist past. It neither honours nor dismisses the figures, sacr...

Maldivian Hanimaadhoo island. Photo courtesy  Barefoot Eco Hotel H animaadhoo is an isolated island of just 2,000 inhabitants located in the middle of turquoise waters around 300 km from the Maldivian capital—Male—in the archipelago’s Northern Province. It is also one the biggest islands by the Maldivian standards. Around seven kilometer long and 750 meter wide, Hanimaadhoo is surrounded by a white sand beach, a lagoon, house reef and dead corals. An airport, a village, a hospital, a school, a mosque, a post-office, and a police station are all that the island has apart from a climate observatory. The island offers attractions like snorkeling round the clock, diving, dolphin watching, kayaking etc. How to get there Maldivian national carrier operates flight to Hanimaadhoo from Dharavandhoo, Ifuru, Kochi, Malé, Thiruvananthapuram Where to stay The Barefoot Eco Hotel is a four-star property with half-a-mile private beach and a turquoise lagoon frame. Swiss-Italian man...

Fun Facts The Maldives is an archipelago of 1,190 coral islands in the middle of warm turquoise waters in the Indian Ocean The islands account for less than one per cent of the country’s area Only 200 of the islands are inhabited The longest road in the Maldives is just 16-km-long The Maldives's population is less than Delhi suburb of Noida  Why Go There: The Maldives’s topography and sparse population makes it an ideal location to unwind without the hustle and bustle of touristy places It offers unparalleled privacy Each 100 palm-thatched resorts in the Maldives occupy an island nestled among palm, banyan, bamboo, mangroves and coconut palm trees The sun-kissed white-sand beaches The Maldives has the world’s first underwater nightclub, restaurant, and spa Visitors need not go farther than balconies of luxury resorts for diving and snorkeling Free visas on arrival without hassling paperwork and a range of flights from Delhi, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Che...

Sameer Arshad Khatlani was born and brought up in Kashmir, an oval-shaped valley in the Himalayas universally regarded as one of the most beautiful places in the world. He would often describe his native place by quoting 17th century Mughal emperor Jahangir's couplet that roughly translates to: 'If there is heaven on earth, it is here [Kashmir], it is here, it is here.' That was until he visited the Maldives and realised Kashmir's natural beauty is not unrivaled and perhaps Jahangir may have had second thoughts had he visited the archipelago of sun-kissed white-sand beaches in the middle of warm turquoise waters as far as the eye can see.         The Maldives’s topography and sparse population makes it an ideal location to unwind without the hustle and bustle of touristy places. Photo courtesy Shangri-La's Villingili Resort & Spa, Maldives Sameer Arshad Khatlani @SameerAKhatlani I  was born and brought up in Kashmir, an oval-shaped...