For Instagram travel content creator Rashmee Joshi, her career journey hasn’t been a straight line. In fact, taking a non-linear path turned out to be a blessing in disguise, helping her become a successful content creator—a role that calls for a variety of skills. Marketing, writing, and photography are some of the most valuable skills today for anyone looking to make a splash online, and Joshi has mastered all of them along the way. In 2017, she recognized how she could better use her talents as an Instagram creator, and during the pandemic, she decided to pursue it as a part-time venture. By 2023, she was able to fully transition and leave her previous job to focus on her passion as a full-time creator.
But as a South Asian traveler, you carry cultural baggage that your country bestows on you, and it is liberating to shed it as you encounter cultures that allow you to taste the freedom you never had in your own country. This is what Joshi experienced as she began traveling regularly. She shares one such story here.
In this conversation, she talks about her career, how she recognized her calling, her liberating travel moment, what it’s like to be a female travel content creator, and more.
1. Before travel content became your career, what did your professional life look like? You shared on Instagram that you switched careers many times because of various uncertainties (correct me if I’m wrong). Can you talk a bit about your career journey?
I studied advertising and marketing but was always interested in design. I self-taught Photoshop and photography. Every waking minute outside of school and college, I learned some form of art. I interned with a famous fashion photographer and worked with some digital magazines as a Photoshop designer while studying. I also modeled and worked in TV commercials. So I was someone who wanted to do it all! I found it hard to pick until I got my first job as a graphic designer in a digital agency. That place opened my eyes to how I could channel my creativity and also earn money. A year later, I founded my own digital agency. Ultimately, I became a creative director and worked with 100s of brands. In 2017, when I learned about Instagram and influencing, I thought, ‘This is something I can do so easily. I’ve literally been waiting for something that would encapsulate everything I love to do.’
2. What was the moment when you decided, “I’m going to take this seriously and make travel content my career”?
I would look up at the tiny little planes in the sky every evening and imagine people in them living their lives, eating, and looking out the window. Where were they going? Do they ever wonder that somebody might be looking at them from down below? Needless to say, as an imaginative child who watched a lot of Discovery and Nat Geo, I wanted to see the world; I had romanticized it. When I got the chance to travel, I took my camera. Capturing memories and people was so much fun, and sharing it with the world was terrifying but also exciting. It was a hobby till it became a part-time career during the pandemic, when we started getting brand calls to work with! Ultimately, I left all my jobs and focused on content creation in 2023.
3. Leaving the relative stability of a conventional job for a career as a creator requires a certain amount of risk. What were you most afraid of when you took that leap?
I’ve never had a very conventional job to start with, but I also believe in doing what feels right to me. With so many skills and a master’s degree, I was confident I would land on my feet. But my real fear was losing financial independence. As a woman, financial independence is at the top of my list.
4. What skills from your previous career turned out to be unexpectedly useful once you became a creator?
My creative skills in design, photography, and writing were very useful and carried into this career. On top of that, having a marketing degree helped me build it into a brand. I also learned production and editing along the way.
5. As an Indian woman who travels for a living, what does travel mean to you? Has traveling changed the way you see yourself? What has traveling taught you that you couldn’t have learned otherwise?
The first time I went to Berlin on a solo trip, I lost my mind wearing a crop top and a skirt on the road and nobody looking at me. It was the most liberating feeling to be invisible as a woman. The first time I slept in a public park while reading a book and woke up safe was another core memory for me. Travel has quenched my curiosity about people and places. I learned that you can bring good energy and people will respond positively even in a hostile environment. That people everywhere want the same things, and that language is not a real barrier.
6. Women creators often face pressure to look a certain way, even when the subject is ostensibly travel. Do you sometimes feel that pressure?
I feel the pressure now that I’m in my mid-30s, but I don’t give in to it. I’ve realized this pressure only exists if I let it affect me. What matters more to me is being healthy and disease-free and never losing curiosity.
7. Was there a particular journey that made you realize, “This is why I travel”?
I’m still a travel romantic. Every time I’m on a boat in another country seeing whales or doing a road trip across the mountains, I realize how much there is to see, and that’s why I can’t stop. I want to see more and experience as much as I can, and that’s why I travel.
