Sohan Banik: My Story with FreeGuides

On the journey with FreeGuides we have encountered many wonderful guides who shared their knowledge about their favourite cities with FreeGuides. Today we highlight one of the best guides on FreeGuides, in a series where we will be sharing the stories of the Super Guides who shared their great memories with FreeGuides. All of these guides have created some of not only our favourite experiences, but yours as well. The first in our series will be Sohan Banik, one of our best Super Guides.

Sohan has lived in Sydney for the past two years, and has already created more than 15 experiences on FreeGuides. Born in Calcutta, he was often travelling, either to his boarding school over 700km away from home, or given free reign by his parents to travel around the country at a young age. Despite finishing his Undergraduate in Commerce, and close to finishing his Masters focusing on Marketing here at the University of Sydney, Sohan has always had a deep passion for travelling. He told us he often thought of when he was younger that he wanted to write his own travelogue, so being given the opportunity to write about experiences he’s found in Sydney is a perfect match for him.

“At one point in time I thought I would have my own travelogue, create my own trips and share it with others.”

- Sohan

When creating experiences, Sohan looks to personalise his experiences, whilst simultaneously looking to create a holistic experience that can be undertaken by any explorer. He looks at experiences through the eyes of a young person living in Sydney, keen to see the sights on a limited budget. As a man who’s travelled across South East Asia, India and Australia, Sohan brings the wealth of travel experience when making his experiences, providing options for public transport, exact locations and descriptions and pictures, to ensure that any explorer on his experiences is able to enjoy it to the fullest, without having to worry about the logistics too much.

When travelling, Sohan has a phenomenal outlook on how best to immerse yourself within the culture you are visiting. He recommends to eat as the locals do, to dress as the locals do, and to try and fit in with the culture as much as possible when visiting in order to have the best experience. How does he do this, you might ask. Through vigorous research on any location he visits beforehand, making sure he never arrives in the country without a solid plan of action in order to make the most of his time in the country.  

“Before going on any trip, I would advise everyone to do research on the places of interest, what you want to do, what type of things you’re looking for such as historical places, or perhaps some people want to go partying… the itineraries are different for different people,” Sohan says.

Becoming a Super Guides on FreeGuides is not an easy task though. Sohan has provided not just us, but all of you with a few tips on how to improve your abilities in creating the best experiences possible. His first tip is to write about your passions when creating the experiences, if you’re too bogged down in the financial side of things, or are writing about experiences you don’t really care about, that it will come through when creating your own. Therefore Sohans first tip is to have passion for what you are doing. Sohan also recommends writing experiences from the perspective of potential explorers. Rather than making assumptions about what explorers do know, try looking at things from their point of view, in order to help mitigate any problems they may have and enhance the positive aspects of your experience.

“It’s more natural and organic the way I customise my trips. When I customise a trip I think from the perspective of the traveller, how easy it is for the traveller who will look into my experiences,” Sohan says.

“ When people go on my experiences they feel like it’s me if I was to go on those experiences as well.”

- Sohan

Sohan is the first in a line of Super Guides we will be showcasing here on FreeGuides. If you’re looking for experiences on FreeGuides, Sohan recommends his Palm Beach experience. It may not be his highest ranked experience, but is his favourite due to the beautiful location of Sydney’s Northern Beaches that make you question if you’re still in Sydney to begin with.

Whilst Sydney is still in lockdown, it might be the best opportunity for you to create your first experience if you have not done so yet. Taking these valuable tips offered by Sohan, you will be one step closer to becoming a Super Guide on FreeGuides.  

‍

<span id="test" class="text-centered" style="justify-content: center; flex-wrap: wrap; display: flex; width: 100%; text-align: center" fs-test-element="test">We look forward to bringing you new content on all of the amazing guides here on FreeGuides. If you would like your story to be heard, simply contact marketing@freeguides.com.au and we’ll be there to learn more about you!</span>