From travel bloggers to tech entrepreneurs: The Bruised Passports story
When Savi Munjal and Vidit Taneja moved to the UK in 2008, travel was something they planned around their jobs, savings, and weekends. Living in London made it easier to explore European destinations, and the couple began setting aside money from their salaries to visit new countries. By the time they started their travel blog in 2013, they had already travelled to around 50 countries.
What began as a way to share travel recommendations with friends and family has since evolved into Bruised Passports, a travel content brand with a presence across digital platforms, a website, brand partnerships, photography assignments, consulting engagements, and its own book.
Today, the co-founders—who are currently based in Delhi-NCR—are preparing for another transition. Having spent more than a decade building a community through travel storytelling, they want Bruised Passports to evolve from a content-led business into a technology startup, with its app at the centre of the next phase of growth.
The journey has been anything but conventional. Before becoming full-time travel creators, Munjal was pursuing an academic career, while Taneja had an established professional career in technology. Their decision to leave those paths behind was preceded by years of financial planning, rather than an impulsive decision to turn their passion into a profession.
From school friends to travel entrepreneurs
Munjal and Taneja's story began long before Bruised Passports. The two grew up in Delhi, attended the same school and first met on the school bus. They later pursued their education at different institutions, with Munjal studying at St Stephen's College, Delhi University, and Taneja moving to Singapore on a scholarship to study engineering at Nanyang Technological University.
Their relationship developed while Taneja was in Singapore and Munjal was in Delhi. After dating long-distance for a few years, Taneja moved to Delhi to be closer to Munjal. However, shortly afterwards, she received a scholarship to pursue a PhD at the University of Leeds in the UK.
Taneja decided to move again, this time accompanying her to the UK in 2008. While Munjal pursued her doctorate and subsequently took up a teaching position, Taneja built his professional career.
Travel gradually became an important part of their lives. The couple would save money on dinners, social outings, and other discretionary expenses to fund their trips. They also planned their professional lives around the flexibility to travel, with Taneja working in the IT department of a university.
Their different upbringings also shaped their approach to the business. Taneja grew up in a family where education and academic performance were emphasised. Munjal, whose father was a doctor and mother a teacher, describes her childhood as similarly grounded, with a strong focus on education and merit.
While Taneja's interest in travel developed through family holidays across India, Munjal discovered the world through books. An avid reader, she travelled through the pages of Enid Blyton and Rudyard Kipling long before taking her first flight at 18.
Neither had originally imagined becoming a travel creator. However, their shared curiosity and willingness to explore unfamiliar places eventually became the foundation of their business.
Building Bruised Passports
The idea for Bruised Passports emerged during a gap year Munjal took after years of studying and teaching. Having travelled extensively, the couple frequently received messages from friends and relatives asking for recommendations, particularly about destinations such as Paris.
Munjal saw an opportunity to put their experiences online. The two decided to start a travel blog in 2013, initially as a hobby project, but with a professional approach to its presentation.
Their complementary skills helped shape the platform. Munjal brought storytelling and writing expertise, while Taneja's engineering background helped with the technical aspects of building the website.
The name itself came from their experiences as Indian passport holders. Having travelled extensively, both had already filled multiple passport booklets with visa stickers and stamps. The couple wanted a name that reflected the wear and tear of frequent travel, eventually settling on Bruised Passports.
The timing also worked in their favour. Travel blogging was still at a relatively early stage globally, and there were few established templates for turning it into a profession.
By 2013, the couple had accumulated travel experiences across around 50 countries, giving them a substantial library of photographs, stories and recommendations to draw from.
However, building an audience took time. Their first major milestone was developing a community of like-minded travellers who trusted their recommendations. The website gradually gained recognition, and the brand secured its first association in 2017.
Other milestones followed, including their book, Bruised Passports: Travelling the World as Digital Nomads, published with HarperCollins, a book tour and a show with Discovery Channel. These opportunities allowed the couple to take their storytelling beyond the website and social media.
The economics of quitting their jobs
The transition from travel blogging as a hobby to a full-time business was not immediate.
Munjal and Taneja continued working while building Bruised Passports. For several years, they saved specifically for travel and avoided major discretionary expenses, gradually building a financial cushion before taking the plunge.
In 2015, they decided to leave their jobs and focus on the venture full-time.
The decision was met with apprehension from family members, friends and colleagues. In an environment where a regular monthly salary was considered an important measure of professional stability, giving up established careers to pursue travel blogging was difficult for many to understand.
Taneja says the couple had deliberately planned their transition. They had savings to fall back on, Munjal had completed her PhD, and he had more than a decade of professional experience. They also knew they could return to employment if the venture did not work out.
The early years were financially challenging. According to Taneja, the business generated little or no income for its first three to four years, forcing them to rely on their savings.
Munjal also points to the challenges of travelling with an Indian passport, particularly the time and money involved in securing visas and completing paperwork.
Yet, the absence of an established template also presented an opportunity. The couple could experiment with storytelling, photography and different formats without having to follow an existing model.
Turning travel experiences into revenue
Over the years, Bruised Passports has developed multiple revenue streams rather than depending on a single platform or source of income.
Brand partnerships and social media campaigns have been among its primary revenue generators. The brand has collaborated with more than 100 global and Indian brands, including RADO, Airtel, Four Seasons and SWISS, across sectors such as luxury, travel, hospitality, lifestyle and technology. The website also earns advertising revenue through organic traffic.
Photography assignments for brands provide another stream, with both founders using their photography skills for commercial projects. More recently, the couple has also started consulting with hotels, advising new properties on aspects of their services and customer experience.
They also launched their own products in 2025, which Taneja describes as a successful initiative. The founders are considering another product launch.
For the couple, diversification has been important as the creator economy has changed. What was once considered a hobby has developed into a mainstream industry, with creators increasingly building businesses around their audiences.
However, they have been careful about the commercial partnerships they accept. Having spent more than a decade building audience trust, Munjal says they have become increasingly selective about the brands they associate with.
Taneja believes creators risk losing their individuality when they focus excessively on viral trends and engagement. The couple wants to retain their identity as travel storytellers rather than participate in every trend.
Building a business together
Running a business as a couple comes with its own set of challenges. Munjal and Taneja have divided responsibilities according to their strengths.
Munjal leads storytelling, creative direction and writing, while Taneja focuses on photography, technology, digital marketing and client interactions.
They acknowledge that disagreements are inevitable, particularly when professional and personal lives overlap. However, they have established a rule that their relationship must take priority over the business.
The couple also reviews their work-life balance periodically, particularly when projects begin taking up too much personal time.
For them, the business is something they have built together, but it should not come at the expense of their relationship.
From a content business to a travel technology startup
The biggest shift in Bruised Passports' business strategy is its move towards technology.
In 2026, the founders launched the Bruised Passports app, marking what they see as a new phase for the company. Built on their experience of travelling to more than 100 countries, the app currently offers more than 300 curated itineraries across six continents, photo maps featuring photo-worthy locations, a scratch map to track and share countries visited, exclusive offers from curated travel brands, and the option to book one-to-one consultations with Savi and Vid. Rather than remaining dependent on social media algorithms and changing content formats, they want to turn more than 15 years of travel experience into a product that people can use.
The bootstrapped venture has Collective Artists Network as a partner and stakeholder.
The idea is not to build another hotel database or booking engine. Instead, the founders want to address the problem of decision-making in travel planning.
With information increasingly available through search engines and artificial intelligence tools, travellers often face an overwhelming number of choices. Taneja describes this as decision paralysis, particularly for people with demanding jobs or those planning their first international holiday.
The app aims to combine AI capabilities with the founders' travel knowledge and first-hand experience. Taneja describes the approach as a trust layer built on top of an AI technology layer, with the objective of making recommendations more relevant and reducing unnecessary choices.
Munjal says the intention is to retain the human element of travel advice, helping users make better decisions faster through information grounded in actual experiences.
The founders also see the app as an opportunity to create a community-led ecosystem. As users discover destinations and have positive travel experiences, they hope the platform will grow through recommendations and word of mouth. Over time, they also see opportunities for brands to participate in this ecosystem.
Making the world more accessible to Indian travellers
Over the next five years, Munjal and Taneja want to focus on making Bruised Passports more useful to its community rather than simply growing its audience.
They see considerable potential in the Indian traveller, who is increasingly exploring international destinations and becoming more discerning about travel experiences.
The overall Indian travel market, including domestic and international travel, was estimated at US$230 billion in the preceding year.
The founders want to use their experience to help people discover destinations beyond the conventional choices. Munjal recalls a recent instance when a client planning a holiday to Switzerland was encouraged to consider Slovenia instead. The client eventually chose Slovenia and returned with what they described as the best trip of their lives.
For the couple, this is the kind of influence they want Bruised Passports to have, helping travellers discover places they may not otherwise consider.
Taneja says the ambition is to make the brand bigger than its founders. Even if people do not know who Savi and Vid are, they should understand what Bruised Passports stands for.
The transition from a travel blog to a social media brand and now a technology startup reflects a consistent ambition, making the world feel more accessible to Indian travellers.
After years of building a business around their journeys, Munjal and Taneja are now looking to build something that can continue to serve travellers beyond their own stories. For them, the next chapter is less about travelling further for content and more about turning what they have learnt along the way into a platform that helps others explore the world.