Thanks for stopping by!
We are intrigued that you want to learn more about us and our travel brand, Paradise Catchers.
Paradise Catchers is a multi-platform digital resources library for people planning to travel in Latin America, offering a collection of in-depth destination guides and firsthand user experience based travel tips, in the form of written articles complemented with relevant photos, as well as long format and short format videos.
The humans behind all of those Latin America travel recommendations are us, Pubali and Indranil.
And on this page, we are going to share our story.
But before that, do you know how the name Paradise Catchers struck upon us?
Paradise Catchers: What’s in a Name?
It was a fine summer afternoon in the year 2012.
We were staying at a jungle tent in Kabini River Lodge in the southern part of India. Heading for our afternoon safari, we came out of the tent to find a beautiful bird hanging out at the tree in front of the tent. The black and white bird had a crest and elongated central tail feathers.
The bird is called Indian Paradise Flycatcher. The name stuck with me, and later became the inspiration for our travel brand name, Paradise Catchers.
Fun fact: Seeing the Paradise Flycatcher for the first time also marked the beginning of our birding journey. Spotting and photographing birds constitute a big part of our nature travels now.
Logo Design: Thanks to our friend, Kenneth Alfaro, for giving shape to our vision and creating the logo of Paradise Catchers.
Pubali & Indranil – Our Story
Passion for Travel & Love for Latin America
Individually, we grew up in middle class Bengali households in Kolkata, India, where the seeds of our fascination for Latin America were planted, and the idea of travel and exploration were ingrained in us from a tender age.
For context, most Bengali families aim to save every penny to go to mountains, beaches and jungles, even if they are struggling to make both ends meet. And it was no different for our families. So, individually, both of us have been traveling with our respective families since early childhood.
During our young formative years, reading the works of literary giants like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, living in an era were Che Guevera was a hero in every household, devouring the adventures of Tintin comics like “Prisoners of the Sub”, “Tintin and the Picaros” among others, and watching family members passionately admire the tactics of Brazil and Argentina football teams – all had their own influences in developing our fondness for Latin America.
This part of the world seemed to us like a mystic faraway land. Traveling in Latin America some day would be a distant dream.
Pubali & Indranil
We met “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away”.
Well, not literally. But seems like that.
We met when we were 16 years old. And over the course of time, our relationship evolved organically through stages of friendship, from strangers to life partners.
In our independent adult lives, we lived in couple of big cities of India, Mumbai and Bangalore, and seemed to tick all the boxes of “a happy life”, professionally and personally.
Then in 2018, career opportunities knocked on our lives and we uprooted our carefully curated life in India to move halfway across the world, to Costa Rica!
Truth be told, it was more of a life decision than a career strategy, because the real motivation behind the big move was the possibility of exploring Latin America.
Thus began…
Our Life and Travels in Latin America
We are grateful for the opportunity as living in Costa Rica teaches us to be kinder and calmer, and generally have a more peaceful approach to life. Pura vida!
Since 2018, from popular tourist destinations to lesser known remote places, we have been exploring every nook and corner of Costa Rica. And still keep falling in love with the raw wilderness of this little country.
Having Costa Rica as our base location enhanced our options to travel in other countries of Latin America. For example, Guatemala was no longer a 30+ hours journey, it was just a 90 minutes direct flight away.
Over the years, we have traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and also parts of the US and Canada. Many of these countries, we have been to more than once. Because, we are in no hurry to “see it all” – which brings me to our style of travel.
Our Style of Travel
When we say ‘travel’, we mean exploring new places. No matter the distance or the duration. We do not subscribe to the idea of only full-time travel or only international travel being considered as true travel experience. To us, every travel experience counts!
Over time, we have learnt to relish slow travel, immersing ourselves in the places we visit, trying to “feel” a destination beyond the sights and activities it offers.
We go to the rugged mountains thousands of feet above sea level, spend hours walking in scorching heat to explore the ruins of some kingdom that saw its hay days centuries ago, hike in cloudforests and rainforests while admiring their majestic flora and fauna, swim in the ocean while watching the sun set, take scary flight over mysterious geoplyphs, drive on rugged roads, hike in desolate landscapes and experiment with unfamiliar cuisines.
As you can guess, we like to explore all kind of places and are usually open to all kinds of travel experiences.
But we realized that the fondest memories we carry from our travels are about people.
So, the introverts in us have now learnt to open up and strike conversations with strangers in different parts of Latin America. This has resulted in many meaningful conversations and opportunities to sneak into the window of diverse cultures.
Human interactions now the top the list of the reasons we travel.
👇🏽This was our first introduction to Argentina. It is so special and memorable because so many humans were part of the experience.
Corporate Careers to Digital Nomad Entrepreneurs
Somewhere along the course of our journey in Latin America, we took a scary step.
In 2022, we quit our long cherished corporate careers and traded our cushy lifestyle for a life of slow travel as backpackers and digital nomad entrepreneurs in Latin America.
We now continue to slow travel in different countries of Latin America, and keep coming back to Costa Rica for extended stays as it remains our base location in this part of the world.
Our full-time career now is Paradise Catchers, where we bring to you Latin America travel tips and recommendations, and help you plan your own trips to different destinations of Latin America.
It isn’t always easy running a small business while traveling, but we enjoy every part of it. And we are thankful for the people around us who work as constant reminders to value the worth of the work we do. Here is a story👇🏽
Welcome to the World of Paradise Catchers
We are glad to have you here. Thanks for visiting our website.
To stay connected for (near) real-time updates and capsule content about Latin America travels, you can follow us on social media: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok.
For long format videos from Latin America, subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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Hi,
I am pleasntly glad to find Indian expats in Costa Rica.We are family of 4 and are expats in Zambia.
I would love to know more about Costa Rica from Indian point of view.We plan to travel once this worldover lockdown is relaxed.My top concern is inability to find flights from Zambia to South America and language.Flights can be sorted but language…..do people understand basic English.I hope people connected to travel industry do but want an inside opinion. Also ,vegetraian food though I normally rent vacation rentals and cook atleast one meal a day but thats out of choice and not compulsion.
Loved your blog and the beautiful photos espically Nazca lines.
Hi Pragati,
Glad to e-meet you. 🙂 Zambia sounds amazing, we hope to visit some day.
Costa Rica is an awesome choice for a family vacation destination. Hope you can plan to visit once countries start lifting their international border restrictions and when it is safe to travel again.
Although Spanish is the primary spoken language in Costa Rica, people in the tourism business at the tourist places do speak English. We would still recommend picking up some basic conversational Spanish before traveling here.
You will get vegetarian options in Costa Rica, but limited, however the options are gradually increasing as vegan has started to gain popularity here.
Please feel free to drop us an email if you have more questions about Costa Rica. 🙂
Hello Pubali and Indranil,
Great to meet you both!! I am most impressed with your depth of information and details on travel adventures. thank you for sharing with so many of us!!!. Your insatiable hunger for travel and knowledge is outstanding!! I too have travelled and lived in a few countries but haven’t made it to Costa Rica yet. I’d very much like to ask you further questions on Costa Rica. I will be traveling alone and would prefer to stay in a medium range boutique hotel that offers free shuttle pickup. I’d prefer to speak via my personal email. thanks
Hi Eve. Thanks for the wonderful words 😊
Sure, we can chat over email. You can write to Pubali at pubali(at)paradisecatchers(dot)com