I am Pronoti, writer, photographer and founder of Détours, where we explore slow travel, nature, and mindful living, in whatever forms it might exists.
Détours is the right place for you…..
If you love unhurried, soulful wandering,
If you feel at home in nature,
If the thought of a long walk in a forest or even in a city rejuvenates you,
If the best parts of a city for you, are its green spaces,
If gardens and greenhouses are your aesthetic,
And if you love the spirit of wonder and serendipity that comes from finding a stunning tree or discovering a curiously designed park.
After moving to Paris, France from New Delhi, India, at 31 years old, I decided to change the course of my career and start a new chapter from scratch. Leaving a life in academia and teaching, I took the plunge into full-time writing in 2022. Since then, besides being a content writer, I have also written for a number of travel websites such as Fodors, HiP Paris, Urbansider and Bonjour Paris. I also picked up photography on the way, and carved out a community of my own though my photography page Paris_Shuffle.
I am not sure when exactly I conceived of Détours. It’s kernel might have been sown in one of my many aimless walks in Paris when I first moved here in January 2021. I found myself looking for places away from the crowds and towards the quietness of Paris’ green spaces and urban nature. Real solace for me lay in watching the swans glide away onto the sunset in the Seine River, or to see the majestic transformation of the flora and fauna of Paris with every changing season.
If I dig even deeper, Détours is quite possibly the manifestation of an increasing longing for stillness I feel within me. As I get older, I find myself seeking the kind of restful peace I felt growing up amidst the green river valleys and tropical forests of Assam, a tiny state in the north-east of India with the mighty Brahmaputra River flowing through its heart. Now in my mid-thirties, I have come to admire anew the richness of my homeland and its vast natural riches.
The more I wrote about travel and exploration, the more I felt that there was a need to tell stories of Paris or any other city or place by centring nature as much as culture.
Détours is an invitation to join us in exploring magnificent green spaces such as the remarkable gardens of Étretat, while also diving into the cultural legacy of the floral villages and towns of France. Along with urban nature, we also bring you stories about exploring the great outdoors, such as hiking across a volcano, the Puy de Dome in Avignon, or watching a thousand flamingos dot the marshy grasslands of Camargue, or spotting tigers and rhinoceros at Kaziranga, Assam.
Détours is an attempt at changing our lens for travel and exploration from ego-centric to one that is eco-centric. Here, cities and towns and historical centres don’t just exist as places out there to explore, but as living eco-systems that are more than just about the humans who live and work there.
Détours endeavours to capture the wondrous feeling of nature surprising you, to remind you of your humanity as it co-exists with nature. Humans are after-all just one species in a planet with a million others.
I conceive of Détours as a space for those like me who don’t visit a city or a country to make up a bucket list or hit check points. This is for wanderers who revel in nature, who don’t mind taking a longer road and getting lost because it means they will discover new facets to a place.
All to say, as someone with a rudimentary knowledge of nature, but a fierce sense of wander and appreciation for it, I invite you to join Détours if you feel the same.
