If you dream to live a life full of travel and adventure, then perhaps taking a look at Sudha Mahalingam’s life will inspire you and give you the incentive to take that leap of faith. 

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Sudha Mahalingam is a former journalist, turned energy economist and solo traveller. At 70, she’s travelled to 66 countries and has a blog where she talks about her adventures in detail. 

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We live in a world where travelling solo has so many inhibitions surrounding it. Especially for women. And here, we have someone as fierce and independent as Sudha Mahalingam, who’s not only defying sexism but ageism as well. 

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Mahalingam has mentioned in interviews that she had a thirst for travel ever since she was young. She got married at the age of 25, and never truly got to explore places on her own terms. And since her husband was a civil servant, she had to move around with him. 

Going to school and college, getting a job, getting married, having children—that’s not the only life, that’s just the only life we were told about when we were growing up.

-Sudha Mahalingam tells Condé Nast Traveller

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Most of the time, Sudha Mahalingam travels by herself with just a backpack on her. Sometimes though, she goes on her adventures with friends. She developed a love for this back in 2000 when she was visiting Sweden with her husband. Sudha decided to explore the region by herself, and obviously got hooked onto it. 

I took the ship to Finland, and then the Flåm railway to Norway, and on to Denmark and Berlin.

-Sudha Mahalingam tells Condé Nast Traveller

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The energy researcher cum travel enthusiast went on her first solo trip in 2003 to Kyrgyzstan. She has lived in 16 cities in India and has also gone on driving expeditions across 18 countries. From skydiving in Australia, landing in  Czech Republic without a valid visa, to trekking in Borneo, Sudha has done it all. 

There were creepy crawlies everywhere and mounds of leaves one meter high. You put your foot and won’t know if a serpent would twist itself around your leg or whether a scorpion would sting you. It was pouring all the time. I have been to the Amazon jungle as well but it was a cakewalk compared to Borneo..

-Sudha Mahalingam told CNN

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The best part is, she does not intend on slowing down anytime soon. According to an interview with CNN, she said she’d like to sail on one of the famed Clipper yachts once the pandemic eases up. 

She’s so inspirational!