Simi Singh and Amrit Singh, popularly known as the Singh Sisters, are itinerary planners based in New Delhi. They started this journey together and co-founded their venture, DIYTINERARY. Although individually, Amrit Singh is a Product Manager and Simi Singh is an Implementation Coach, they both discovered their common interest to be traveling and then decided to make the world’s first DIY Itineraries.
Icy Tales got the opportunity to converse with one of the sisters in the duo, Simi Singh. She spoke about their love for traveling, how they started their journey along with some of their insights on traveling and work.
Q) What are some of the essentials that you think are important while planning a trip?
Simi Singh: Number one is the budget. The other one is, what time you want to visit. This includes the months you want to travel in or any specific time. You should also consider what is the type of vacation you like. Some people like mountains, some of them like beaches, and others go for just a relaxing vacation. Some of them are too busy so they just want to go for a staycation.
These factors really impact the budget. One must also consider how many people are going, if you have kids, etc. We actually have a pretty big process when we plan or when we go to our next destination.
At these times, we ask all these questions. What helped you to pull down your destination? What could be activities there? What are the places that you can visit? And then comes your budget.
So those are the top three essentials that all must consider or that are required to create an identity because they really depict or decide where you’re going.
Q) How important is planning when it comes to traveling?
Simi Singh: When you’re going alone, you can go unplanned because there is only one person who’s taking a decision that it’s you. But when there is more than one person involved, every person will have a different liking. When there’s one more person involved, you will spend a lot of time, just deciding what to do.
Let’s say a couple comes to us. One is vegetarian, the other one is a hardcore non-vegetarian. If they’re standing there in that moment, they’ll end up fighting. So to avoid all that, planning is essential. I and my husband travel a lot.
He is a hardcore adventure person and now I have also become one, not totally, but I am building interests over the last four or five years. Also, our dietary needs are different so being able to at least have a list of all available options will really make a difference.
We went to Egypt in September and I had been to one of the places and my husband was like, I think this place is famous for scuba diving and we should go scuba diving. So he started researching and I was like, what are you doing? You’re going to be searching all day about scuba diving.
Instead of wasting our whole afternoon trying to find something to do, we actually went to the beach, enjoyed the property, and had a lot of fun! So you see, you either spend your time during the trip to research or you do it before beforehand, and it’s more expensive to do it on the trip because you’ll be spending a lot of money at that moment.
So what we tend to do is, instead of spending that day trying to figure out what to do the next couple of days, we enjoy the property. You’re actually getting more experience out of it. So that’s my take on it. There are people who like to go and learn, I was one of those people and honestly, I spent two years in the U.S.
I always went for an unplanned trip and my husband still tells me that I’ve not gone anywhere in the U.S., although I’ve been to a lot of places, I’ve never done anything.
Q) What is the one thing that traveling has taught you and how has it impacted your life?
Simi Singh: Just doing an action and getting the results is on the other side of it, that’s what I’ve learned. I am scared of the ocean because every time I go into the water, I almost drown; I’m not even joking. I know how to swim but still I get scared because I operate from fear. But that doesn’t stop me from going into the water.
I will miss doing so much if I stop going into the water. But because I go every time, I’m getting better at it. So that is one thing that I think traveling has taught me.
And the other thing is that for me, experience is over anything. I’m not into fancy clothes or bags. Even when I am traveling, I don’t go to parties or anything, I prefer enjoying the experience, culture, and activities.
Q) Tell us any one memorable experience you had, while traveling
Simi Singh: There are so many experiences that are very memorable. I can recall this one in 2018 when I went with my husband, who was then my boyfriend. We had gone to this place called Cappadocia where they had these very lovely types of chimneys; it was very beautiful.
It was like these structures which have something like windows in between them. So I climbed up very easily and then while I was coming down, it was not quite the same! I was so scared because I was not an adventurous person, I was not into hikes and all that.
And then I saw this random person, who was taking a video of me being scared. It was just so hilarious like that because at that time I was really scared and only I know how I got down. It was so funny because my husband was like, “Hey! Go away from here”, but he was still standing there taking videos.
Simi Singh and Amrit Singh aim to reach higher in this field and make traveling easy for those who approach them. They are extremely grateful for being in this field together as they understand each other very well.
Check out the whole conversation with Simi Singh on our YouTube Channel.
Last Updated on by kalidaspandian