Travel is no longer just about seeing the sights, stuffing your face, drinking, clicking pictures and meeting locals before heading home. A growing number of travellers is choosing to micro travel with a very specific agenda — be it taking a culinary trail across Europe, going for a traditional bamboo tattoo to Thailand or setting out on an adventure sports circuit in New Zealand.u00a0“While first-time travellers are still doing the usual circuit, it’s the guys going on a second visit who are doing such detailed trips,” says Yogi Shah, founder of The Backpacker Co., an ‘experiential’ travel company that stresses on immersing oneself into local cultures.

“We used to get around 4-5 enquiries a month about such specialised travel last year. This year, the number of enquiries about such trips has shot up to atleast 20-25 people a month.” u00a0City-based travel companies like Life Away From Life are planning experimental photography trips to Ladakh as well as Orchha in Madhya Pradesh, while freelance travel planners like Manju Lalwani are getting more requests to customise trips based on their clients’ hobbies. “In January, we did ticketing for a group who went to Thailand only for the Full Moon Party, while two amateur dancers went to Spain only to learn Flamenco in June last year,” says Lalwani, from her Tardeo office. “Until a couple of years ago, only the elite could afford such trips. Today, everyone has a higher disposable income and more knowledge. They don’t mind such trips, even if it means only teaching English in China, shopping in Dubai, doing the Harry Potter trail around Britain or learning to make pasta in Italy.”u00a0

Are such trips more expensive than the regular ones? “Aside from the fees you pay for classes or the cost of music festival passes, they work out to be pretty much the same. Of course, if you learn to make cupcakes from an expert chef, you will pay that much more. A bike trip I had organised across Scotland was about 20 per cent cheaper than a regular trip, but my friends who are going for a music festival to Europe next month are paying 25 per cent more because the airfare and concert tickets are expensive.” u00a0We spoke to three such travellers who took off on trips with an end purpose in mind. They saw the sights and did the must-dos, but they planned their trips around very special purposes. Would you?