Seven Instagram travel accounts to follow for a superfluous diet of wanderlust.
A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet introspection.
– Patrick Rothfuss
Instagram is certainly the place to be nowadays, on the internet. Especially, if you are one of us lot, infected with a bad case of the travel bug.
The platform has grown massively in the last few years and has seen travellers flock in hordes to showcase their travel adventures from around the world.
It has paved the way for some of the best content out there for travel enthusiasts to consume, enabling us to explore places at the other end of the earth from the much-envied comfort of our work desks.
Travel is something which provides you with the opportunity to reinvent yourself. It inspires you, it moves you (literally), it pushes you to break out of your tiny bubble and welcome the world with wide open arms, and ultimately it teaches and moulds you from who you really are into who and what you want to be.
One could even call it a way of life, like these seven souls, for whom travel is life.
1. Chris Burkard (@chrisburkard)
With three million Instagram followers and his work featured in American Airlines, Apple, and Sony campaigns, Burkard is certainly not your average joe with a camera.
A passionate surfer and photographer, you can find Burkard and his buddies travelling to the coldest corners of the planet to surf and capture some genuinely breathtaking photographs while at it. What started out as shooting images of surfers in his town and selling it to them when they came out of the water, Burkard has indeed come a long way.
He even recently shot his first documentary film where six fearless surfers travel to the north coast of Iceland to ride waves, unlike anything they’ve ever experienced.
2. Quin Schrock (@everchanginghorizon)
An adventure and lifestyle photographer based out of Southern California and Oahu, Quin Schrock’s love for the outdoors saw him spend his younger years skating and surfing and playing daredevil, pushing the limits on “acceptable backflip locations.”
The sense of wonder and freedom that Schrock experienced as a kid stayed with him long enough that he decided to make a living doing the same, but with a camera in tow to capture his adrenaline-full nomadic life.
With an impressive clientele of the likes of GoPro, Land Rover, and Sony, Schrock is one to follow for his distinctive photography style and his love for adventure.
3. Elise Sterck (@roundtheworldgirl)
Roundtheworldgirl on Instagram tells the tale of the fascinating life of Elise Sterck , who through a series of beautifully shot photographs that are framed in the most awe-inspiring of environments, takes us on a thrill-ride across the globe.
Be it her talent for photography or her affinity for the wild and its many treasures, Sterck’s account is a meticulously curated world made for the wanderers who would rather lose themselves in there than ever return.
A helicopter pilot, competitive sailor and world traveller, Sterck may be the modern day superwoman.
4. Alex Strohl ( @alexstrohl)
A Madrid-born, French photographer, Strohl spends the vast majority of his time on the road with his life partner Andrea Dabene, journeying to the most remote reaches of the world.
With a massive 1.9 million followers on Instagram, Strohl’s profile is something that will make urbanites renounce their Netflix subscriptions and go camp in the deep jungles of the Amazon.
Strohl’s photography has been featured in prestigious publications such as Forbes, Vanity Fair, and Gentleman’s Journal.
5. Daniel Kordan (@danielkordan)
Fascinated by the possibilities of photography from early childhood, Kordan grew up in Moscow exploring wild nature and spending most of his free time in nature.
Fast forward to 2018, Kordan is the official ambassador at Nikon and has over 850k followers on Instagram with some of the most stunning landscape photographs ever captured on camera.
An art graduate himself, Kordan’s page has the most painting-like landscape photographs you will ever find!
6. Shivya Nath (@shivya)
At the age of 23, in 2011, Shivya quit her corporate job and decided to travel the world. Today, she leads a nomadic life, seeking adventures off the beaten path while working on the go to fund her travels.
A writer at heart, Shivya’s blog, The Shooting Star, is her travel journal and is one of the most widely visited travel blogs on the web. Her Instagram page with a substantial 50k + followers showcases her journey across the globe, with beautiful snaps and heartwarming captions.
If you really want to know what wanderlust truly is, Shivya is the person to meet. And, you can find her wandering soul spread bared on her blog and her Instagram profile.
7. Steve McCurry ( @stevemccurryofficial)
One of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography for more than 30 years, McCurry is a photojournalist who’s renown worldwide.
McCurry’s photos have periodically appeared on the cover of National Geographic. His most famous photo, the “Afghan Girl”, has appeared on magazine covers multiple times.
McCurry has travelled all over the world and his Instagram profile is an exhibition of his best works – spanning worlds, cultures, and traditions.
Nikhil Sreekandan is a journalist with a desire to explore life through the stories he chases. An engineer who found recluse in the world of words, he is a journalism post-graduate from Cardiff University. He works as a content editor at Nature inFocus, India’s leading platform for nature and wildlife. When not lost in cinema, contemporary literature or his earphones — there is a genuine attempt at ‘giving chase’, and it is beautiful.