Nivi Selvaraj: Virtual Travel with “Talking Postcards”
Bangalore-based travel blogger Nivi Selvaraj is a popular name in the Indian Travel community. With nearly over 14,000 followers on her Instagram @postcardchronicles, Nivi strives to inspire her audiences to seek new experiences and explore the world around us, providing them with ideas on budget trips while balancing travel with a full-time job.
A marketing manager with over 6+ years of experience, Nivi shuffles between her 9-5 job and her passion for new experiences. While she’s passionate about her role in brand building, she is equally passionate about travel, discovering new cultures and food.
Over the years, Nivi has traveled to over 14 states and 4 union territories across India. She has also traveled internationally to places including Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Also, an avid reader and art enthusiast, Nivi would usually paint postcards of memories from the places she’d travel to. She also conducted a postcard giveaway on her Instagram page, wherein she asked people to share their favorite travel memory. The selected ones received a hand-painted postcard from the destination of their choice.
After the pandemic took away all hope of traveling for a few months, Nivi was quick to apply her creative mind to using these handcrafted postcards to create something unique in the travelers’ community.
Hence, she, in collaboration with a Bangalore-based Augmented Reality agency called FlippAR, introduced ‘Talking Postcards’.
‘Talking Postcards’ is a first-of-its-kind innovation that brings travel stories to life through postcard paintings. These postcards are hand-painted and carry heartwarming travel experiences converted into visually striking stories from around the world. If one were to scan the postcard with the FlippAR app, a video overlay would then give the viewer a glimpse into these scenic places and stories.
Each postcard has over 3-5 minutes of travel stories, with a combination of video clips, pictures, and audio narration by Nivi herself. Pretty as a picture, these postcards literally come to life.
The postcards, handcrafted and painted by Nivi herself, come as a set of 8 with 6 Indian destinations and 2 International ones and are now for sale on Amazon.
“All the cards have a 3-5 minute story attached to them, complete with stills, videos, and my voice narrating my experiences from that trip,” explains Selvaraj. “Most of these are offbeat ideas, and the AR-enabled story doesn’t give you details you can already find on the internet. Rather, it has a lot more personal elements, creating a truly immersive experience for viewers,” she adds.
The sole purpose of ‘Talking Postcards’ is to let people travel virtually to places and stories that will eventually inspire them to pack their bags and explore the world.
For further information on Nivi Selvaraj, visit: https://linktr.ee/weconsult.in
