When for the sec­ond year in suc­ces­sion, the Forbes List of Bud­get des­ti­na­tions in­cluded Agra and Bu­dapest vis­ited by glo­be­trot­ter Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja from Lud­hi­ana, Pun­jab, he re­served his po­si­tion as a world-class in­flu­encer in the global mar­ket of tourism and so­cial me­dia out­reach.

The pres­ti­gious Forbes list of bud­get des­ti­na­tions for the year 2019 in­cludes 18 des­ti­na­tions from across the globe, two of which have been listed at num­ber 7 and 8, due to their pop­u­lar­ity as ex­plored and high­lighted by fam­ily vis­i­tor Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja. Like last year, this year too, he is the only Sikh and In­dian to be on the list.

“Bud­get travel in 2019 is all about cheap des­ti­na­tions that of­fer an out­sized ex­pe­ri­ence” writes Alexan­dra Tatly who has put to­gether the cur­rent list and has been com­pil­ing this list for the last five years. Pre­sented in a new for­mat, the des­ti­na­tions “are a nos­tal­gic draw and some­where they (world trav­ellers and in­flu­encers) vis­ited re­cently that they are all telling their friends about.”

Tatly says that “the goal is to high­light bud­get travel des­ti­na­tions that are a bit off-the-beaten path.”  This is in­deed true says Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja who trav­elled with his wife and two kids to Bu­dapest in Hun­gary. “How many Sikhs or In­di­ans would you find choos­ing Bu­dapest as a fam­ily tourist place to visit and en­joy? Known to do the un­think­able, Har­jin­der Singh chose Bu­dapest.

His wife Harki­rat Kaur and he were fas­ci­nated by the many uni­ver­si­ties in this east Eu­ro­pean coun­try and the chil­dren loved the parks and the green­ery. Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja who delves deep into the cul­ture of the coun­try he vis­its rel­ished the red-brick city and “I told my­self that I will come once again to un­der­stand the var­i­ous cul­tural and his­tor­i­cal facets of this beau­ti­ful coun­try.”

The Forbes list ac­knowl­edges world trav­eller Har­jin­der Singh Kukre­ja’s en­thu­si­asm for Bel­gium choco­lates and his be­ing a global Sikh ac­tivist ask­ing read­ers to fol­low him on In­sta­gram to “fol­low his de­li­cious ad­ven­tures.”

“In this year of the 550 years of Guru Nanak, I am ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of vis­it­ing towns and cities, in­clud­ing Kar­tarpur Sahib in Pak­istan and many more in the Arab world vis­ited by Guru Nanak.”

With his more than 1.6 mil­lion fol­low­ers on Twit­ter, it is no won­der that the two cities vis­ited by him find a men­tion in the Forbes list and he is in­vited as an in­flu­encer by Visit Britain, Swiss Tourism and the Turk­ish Tourism Board.

The im­age of Taj Ma­hal con­jures up as soon as you men­tion the his­toric Mughal city of Agra in cen­tral In­dia, barely a three hour drive from In­di­a’s cap­i­tal city Delhi. Rel­a­tively in­ex­pen­sive, this ‘jewel of Is­lamic art in In­dia’ is a trib­ute by Em­peror Shah Ja­han to his wife Mum­taz Be­gum. As “likely one of the biggest de­c­la­ra­tions of love in the world”, you feel a rekin­dling of deep love with your wife and kids when you visit the Taj Ma­hal, says Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja, who cel­e­brated his wife’s birth­day last year at the Taj Ma­hal. The site is a must-visit for every vis­it­ing dig­ni­tary to In­dia.

Apart from Agra and Bu­dapest vis­ited by Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja, the other bud­get des­ti­na­tions in­clude river and food city San An­to­nio, Texas, US, UN­ESCO her­itage town Puebla, Mex­ico, is­land city Hawaii, USA, South At­lantic Ocean is­land St. He­lena, City of seven lakes -Province of La­guna, Philip­pines, the Balkan Penin­sula, ar­chi­tec­ture and food town Buenos Aires, Ar­gentina, the re­motely lo­cated pic­turesque Gobi Desert, Mon­go­lia, beau­ti­ful South Africa, fun-lov­ing Zanz­ibar, hid­den gem of the Cau­caus Moun­tains –Ar­me­nia, en­er­getic Ser­bia, myth­i­cal, leg­endary and hos­pitable Tran­syl­va­nia, Ro­ma­nia, street art city George Town, Penang, Malaysia, her­itage cold city Moscow, Rus­sia and Asi­a’s hid­den gem Taipei, Tai­wan,

He has cur­rently vis­ited San Diego in the US and would be ex­plor­ing it fur­ther again in the com­ing weeks.  In this year of the 550 years of Guru Nanak, I am ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of vis­it­ing towns and cities, in­clud­ing Kar­tarpur Sahib in Pak­istan and many more in the Arab world vis­ited by Guru Nanak.

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The travel bucket of Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja is never full. He is al­ways on the look­out for re­li­gious, cul­tural and his­toric towns. So don’t be sur­prised if this year he comes up with some more in­ter­est­ing and un­known cities and towns.