Razia Abbas: Flying high

Meeting interesting people, sharing their inspirational stories, delving into the colourful and culturally rich backgrounds of life, reaching out to the aspirations that shape a person’s life and dreams, have been the crux of my writing all these years. Here’s a fascinating story about a daring and adventurous lady globe-trotter whose stories about travel and fulfilling her dreams will inspire you, motivate you and fuel your passion to achieve your dreams.

Meet Razia Abbas, aged 50 plus and grandmother of two, living in Chennai, is a seasoned traveller who has explored the world in 60 plus countries, she truly lives her passion for travel, culture, history and absorbing life stories from each destination that she travels to, whether it is wrapped in a unique flavour of natural beauty, or having a marvellous historical backdrop surrounding it, or an enamouring geographical legacy that’s attached to it, according to her, each place has a special, interesting, amazing and unforgettable story that’s worth telling about it.

Having completed many group travels, and undertaken several family sojourns, having tripped as a single, solo backpacker as well as wooing the world with like-minded fellow women travellers. On every trip that she ventures, Razia follows only one adage: To see is to believe it; so be it the volatile volcano-ridden Java islands near Indonesia, or the freezing cold frigid zone of Antarctica, be it the vast and variegated regions of Americanas, or the historically charming gems of the European lands, whether it is the captivatingly topsy-turvy and coral-rich continents of Australia and New Zealand, or the awe-inspiring and naturally-occurring phenomenon of Iceland’s Aurora Borealis, it is really worth harping about that she has been there, done that, seen it all, and experienced it all, and continues her quest to see more places, do more adventure, engage in more travelling. Even today as she sits down to plan the itinerary for her upcoming trips, she continues to feel the pulsating vibe of the adrenaline rush that comes along with it.

Having said that adventure is Razia Abbas’ second nature cannot be truer, when recently I met her, and she described to me about how this manifest trait has taken her to places far and wide, I notice the rush of blood and excitement in her eyes as she shares a vivid memory about the polar dip that she took: clad only in her swim suit, in the freezing ice cold waters of the Antarctica, the temperature at that time going down to something below minus degrees, something she believed she could definitely survive through… a simple thought being at the back of her mind at that time — she wanted to brave the magnitude of the chilling cold, so that she could come back to share her experiences and many other truly fascinating stories waiting to be told.

Like the incredible story of her travel sojourn which left an impact on me: her first-ever solo trip to Turkey. During this trip, she went on to experience the joy of flying high at a height of 6000 ft, in the world’s first air balloon concept which covers the city of Cappadocia from an unbelievable height. An experience that she has rightfully captured in her own words: “Flying high over Cappadocia was a most extraordinary kind of an experience, truly an open basket feeling of flying in the air which everyone has to feel it to believe it,” she says.

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