As an Island nation with a rich history like Sri Lanka, our most popular sites usually consist of our natural and historical attractions and as such, get most of the attention from travel bloggers, local and especially foreign. However, while this is justifiably the case, this is also ignoring the modern luxuries that Sri Lanka has to offer and paints a more primitive picture over our presence on the internet.
Wandering Unicorns, a travel blog run by the adventurous couple, Chathri and Achintha, uses their platform to promote the multitude of luxury hotels that Sri Lanka has to offer. In a quick interview with them, the two let us in on their story.
Q: How would you explain your blog to new viewers?How do you introduce yourselves?
A: Hi! We are Chathri and Achintha, two travel enthusiasts from Colombo, with full time jobs in the corporate sector and we have spent the last three years documenting our local and foreign travel adventures on our Instagram page, @wandering_unicorns, with the main purpose of promoting luxury travel within Sri Lanka.
Who’s Chathri? I am the one who creates all the content and make sure everything is perfect before I post it on our blog. You can say I’m somewhat of a perfectionist. I am also an extreme foodie who happens to be working for the largest Industrial catering company in SL.
Who’s Achintha? He is the guy who constantly worries about how he looks in pictures. You can say he knows a thing or two about photography as he always gets the angles and the location right. Also, he can’t resist dogs and cats and basically all types animals.
Q: What gave you the idea to start this up? Were there any specific content creators who inspired you?
A: Travel has always inspired both of us and after we got married in 2017, we started travelling whenever we could get some time off from work as well as during most weekends.
At the time I was following @travel_a_little_luxe, @saltinourhair and @thetwobohemians for travel inspiration which made me realise that we have plenty of travel pictures and experiences which are just waiting to be shared with everyone out there. And there began the journey of the Wandering Unicorns.
Q: Who is it exactly that this blog is for, any specific demographics? How has feedback been for your blog?
A: As we mainly create luxury travel content a majority of our followers fall under the age group of 25-34. But it is quite hard to pinpoint a demographic that will benefit the most as travel does not require an age limit. As long as you are someone who is interested in experiencing and finding out luxury travel destinations in Sri Lanka or abroad, do give us a follow. We will not disappoint you.
Many of our followers do inquire from us about the places we have been to and askfor our opinion before making their very own travel plans. And we always take time to reply to each and every DM we get regarding travel questions.
Q: What is your process with regard to your excursions? Are you meticulous in planning or are you more spontaneous?
A: Well, I’m a little OCD regarding most things which means that there is always a lot of meticulous thinking and planning going on before selecting a travel destination. I always thoroughly browse through the Instagram accounts, location tags and websites before selecting the hotel and even the room category. Next, I save picture ideas we could try and makesa list of places within or outside the property (close by) that we can go explore on our own.
Q: Is it just you two in your team? How do you manage the responsibilities of your blog?
A: Sometimes it is just the two of us and the rest of the time we travel with my parents. Most of the couple pictures you see on our blog are taken by my father. He has now become quite the photographer thanks to us. The responsibilities of the blog come naturally, and I really enjoy working on creating quality travel content for our followers.
Q: As a traveller and travel blogger, how has the pandemic and the lockdown been for you? How has your blog adapted to the issue?
A: Covid – 19 has taught us many things during the past few months. Being a responsible traveller is definitely one of them. When times are not so good (like right now) and travel is discouraged we need to make sure we stay at home and do our part by helping to stop the spread of the virus.
When you’re in a lockdown situation, you can always use your old images to travel back intime. Hence, our blog was never on hold as there were hundreds of unused good pictures from our past travel adventures that we could post.
One might say that posting travel pictures during a pandemic is not advisable but for us posting old pictures help to recall old memories from the past which helps you to stay sane during a lockdown.
Between the months of June and September 2020 we engaged in a lot of local travel with the intention of promoting and helping local hotel brands.
Q: What are your future plans now that there seems to be a resurgence of Covid - 19? Do you think things will be harder moving forward? Or is there some advantages to be had?
A: We are actually using this time to put together a website with all our travel experiences from the past three years along with detailed hotel reviews. Hopefully, it will be up and running in another two months’ time.
Yes, sometimes it feels like things will be harder moving forward until they find a proper vaccine. Travel will not be advisable if things don’t settle down soon. We really feel terrible for everyone in the tourism industry. Therefore, we hope and pray that things will be normal soon so everyone can resume travel as it used to be.
After the downturn, we expect there to be quite a boom in the travel industry. Our account has a higher foreign follower base and we use that to our advantage to promote Sri Lanka as one of the most beautiful luxury travel destinations in the world.