Shubham Khoje

New York Times

The spring semester ended, and it is summer time now. Almost all my friends had an internship starting in June so they returned to India to spend time with their family. I did not get an internship so I decided, not go to India and work on my thesis over the summer. However, in the […]
Spring Break: Random Roadtrip

The semester was taking a toll on us with midterms and project submissions. We had long ago decided that we needed to do something happening in our lives. So we had this cliched idea of a road trip. As the mid-sem week was about to end, we rented the cars worrying that they won’t be […]
A new semester at Iowa State

It’s a lazy Sunday morning, sipping coffee on the balcony, enjoying the pleasant weather after months of winter. The pleasant weather comes as a relief after two months of white winters. Six months here and I’m accustomed to the weather and a positive 15 degrees Celsius feels like summer. Back home the same temperature would have […]
A day trip to Des Moines.

Finals week in December is where we have exams for our courses marking the end of the semester. It was over and we friends hung out at each others place for playing games having deep conversations and cooking food. We had good time and then as Christmas was round the corner some of them had […]
Thanksgiving in Chicago.

Thanksgiving is the time when you are grateful for all the good things in life.I am very thankful for the week-long break that I got in the hectic life. Being in Ames, which is a small town makes you want to go out and explore. So for the break we 9 friends decided to do a […]
The Short Trip.

When you come from a university which has one exam in a semester with no assignments and homework, the two months into the new system were overwhelming. Assignments, bookstore shifts, projects had bound me to the clock and homeworks ran the day. The midterm exam stress needed to be kicked out, a short trip was the […]
My time in ‘The US of A’.

3……2…1. The plane took off from Mumbai International Airport, soaring into the skies cruising at an altitude where the city lights below faded into darkness. The A380 served a good meal and the best inflight entertainment. People dozed of to sleep and I was settling into the comfortable seats, the initial excitement was beginning to simmer. […]
Goa: Beyond Beaches

The semi-sleeper bus reached the vacant streets of Panaji market early in the morning on a chilly December morning. I got down to be surrounded by a number of rickshaw wallas and taxi drivers. Somehow managed to get out of the crowd and grabbed a pilot(a two wheeler taxi) to reach the base camp which […]
Cycling Expedition: Jaisalmer

The sound of my cell phone woke me up, I checked the screen to find that it was just 4:30 am. The hostel room was dark and people were snoring in a funny rhythm . The late night talks with people in the common area of the over the Champions League football match had not […]
Food and Friendship in Jodhpur

This trip to Jodhpur back in December 2014 was like a big thing for me. I was done with my semester exams for second year of engineering, so we friends had decided to go Pondicherry, something offbeat, rather than going to Goa . However, due to some stupid difference of opinion among us(over which we […]
A night at the peak ‘KALSUBAI’.

We 3 friends decided to go to Kalsubai peak. Upon planning we left Pune a 6:00 am and reached Baari at around 10:30 am.Trekking is the best part. It took us 5 hours to reach the peak from Baari(the base village). All the people who had started earlier during the day were returning back while […]
Backpacking beginning.

This journey was all about this to that. From cancelled pondicherry trip to the actual Jodhpur backpacking trip. From Pune to Jaisalmer. From meeting college friends to making new friends. From cycling 250km in a month in Pune to cycling around 250 km in 4 days in the desert. Going from dark to darker,healthy to […]