On location

Delhi-based travel junkie Puneet Inder Sidhu debuts with a book on her back-packing experiences across Europe

The last couple of weeks have been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride for her, but that’s the kind of adrenaline rush 30-something Puneet Inder Kaur Sidhu thrives on. Just back from the recently held Indo-Bhutan Friendship Car Rally, where she was the sole woman driver, Sidhu is now busy promoting her debut book, Adrift: A junket junkie in Europe (Rs 150; Frog Books)—an account of her travels across Europe. When we meet her, Sidhu is nursing a bruised ankle, but she is quick to point out that the rally had nothing to do with it. “I went mountain biking post the rally,” she laughs.

A writer by profession, and an inveterate adventure junkie, Sidhu has been trawling across the Indian sub-continent, Europe, South Africa, North America and South East Asia over the years. But one of her favourite trips was her rather inexpensive journey across Europe about five years back. “I hadn’t planned an extensive trip when I left India,” she says, talking of how she landed in Germany at her aunt’s place, with lots of time and little money to spare. While she was looking for cheap travel options, she chanced upon a carpool network, the Mitfahrzentrale, which would transport her across continents. “That too at almost the cost of a dozen beers,” she grins.

Full report here Indian Express