The Beat Report: What I learnt crisscrossing Goa in an i20 with a notepad

Good morning!

When was the first time you went to Goa? And what about your last?

For most of us, that first Goa trip is a rite of passage — the big “we finally made it" getaway with friends. For young honeymooners, it’s the beachside walks and candlelit dinners. During the pandemic, the corporate crowd discovered a new Goa altogether — laptops on verandas, Zoom calls by the sea, and dreams of starting a beach café.

And if you grew up in the ’70s, ’80s or ’90s, Goa has always been a little slice of “abroad" in India. It’s a place where you can let loose, meet new people (or fall in love), eat, drink, dance, and zip through sleepy villages on a rented scooty, sun on your face and salt in your hair.

So when my editor Goutam asked me to think about a Long Story on Goa, I was already planning yet another Goa trip with my childhood friends. But this time, the group wanted to skip Goa for Bali or Thailand. “Cheaper hotels, same beaches, no visa," they said.

That’s when I realized: Goa’s problem wasn’t just its roads or hotels. It was its changing image.

The gripe behind the glamour

For months, Indian tourists with money to spend have complained online about Goa’s “taxi mafia", overpriced drinks, poor roads, and inflated hotel tariffs.

Some reporters had already covered the taxi-union debates or falling hotel rates, but what was missing was a story connecting everyone: tourists, local business owners, and Goans themselves.

So I decided to see it for myself over the Dussehra long weekend — Goa’s pre-season test run.

The last time I’d been to Goa, in 2022, it was for a friend’s bachelorette. Then, we had landed in summer dresses and sunglasses. Now, for the first time, I landed armed with my backpack, notebook, and visiting cards, making frantic calls to confirm meetings before I could even head out of the airport.

When you are a business journalist reporting from the city, fixing meetings in advance is a habit for everybody. But in Goa, and in the tourism business, no one had the time to block an hour for me well in advance; everyone was too busy prepping for the tourist season. So I did it the old-school way: show up, wait, and chat.

Notebook and an i20

Many interviews I did in Goa happened because I was chatty with the right people at the right time. I landed in Goa early on Friday morning, so by a stroke of luck, the man driving me to Calangute in North Goa turned out to be the president of a local taxi union. I had my first set of inputs for my Long Story even before I had checked into my hotel.

That morning, I wandered through the busy lanes of North Goa’s beach belt — Calangute, Candolim, and Baga — still waking up to the weekend rush. The air smelled of fresh breakfast, and since I was the only early customer at a small local restaurant, the owner had time to chat.

By mid-morning, the Calangute–Anjuna road was jammed with buses, taxis, scooters, and rental cars, all weaving through crater-sized potholes. The tourists were arriving in full force. It struck me then, if I was going to make it to Cavelossim for my interview, over 50 km away, and still visit Panjim to speak with industry associations and a few new restaurateurs, I’d need my own ride.

So, armed with a rented i20 and a notepad, I set out to crisscross Goa — about 200 km of beaches, traffic, and conversations ahead of me.

My first stop: Panjim, to meet the head of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG). I didn’t have an appointment, but what’s a beat without trying your luck? After a long, traffic-snarled drive on half-built roads, I reached their office just before closing time. The president couldn’t meet me that evening, but he appreciated the hustle.

Lesson: Show up early, talk to everyone, and never underestimate the power of turning up.

Day 2 started 50 km away at Mobor Beach, where I met Cruz Cardozo, president of the Shack Owners’ Association and owner of Pearl’s Beach Café. I’d arrived two hours early, but who minds waiting when the sea looks like that?

Over the next few hours, I also met a car rental owner, a hostel operator from the 1990s, and a restaurant owner from Bengaluru who’d settled in Dona Paula. Everyone agreed on one thing: tourists were still coming, just not like before.

The party that wasn’t

Saturday night meant only one thing: heading to Goa’s party district to see if the nightlife was still as electric as legend says. I’d returned my rental car by then, so I decided to walk the 4 km to Tito’s Lane in Baga, the beating heart of Goa’s nightlife since 1971.

The lane looked busier than ever, but not quite the same. The old single-storey bars had grown into multi-level buildings; luxury cars tried squeezing into impossible parking spots; and, oddly enough, between the strobe-lit clubs, I spotted a surprising number of ‘pure-veg’ restaurants.

I was early to the party. Tourists strolled up and down the lane, but the nightclubs were mostly empty, music spilling out into half-filled streets. I’d planned to stick around to see if things picked up, but the vibe had shifted. Tito’s Lane, once the carefree centre of Goa’s night, now felt a bit seedy. Surrounded by large groups of men looking to party, I decided it might be safer to call it a night.

A paradise in flux

Not every interview I did in Goa made it to The Long Story. But the ones that didn’t often confirmed what I was seeing firsthand: tourists were still coming, just not in the same numbers; foreigners had all but disappeared; and thanks to the post-pandemic boom, there was an oversupply of hotels, cafes, and beach shacks.

Add to that the simmering local-vs-outsider debate, and you could sense that Goa’s once-smooth tourism rhythm had begun to sound a little off-beat.

On my last evening, I found myself chatting with a café owner who’d moved from Mumbai to Candolim, chasing the Goa dream. And on the ride back to the airport, my last conversation was with a rare taxi driver who wasn’t part of any union.

Reporting the old-school way

Sure, I could have done the entire story sitting in Mumbai. All it would take is some calls to hotel chains and government officials, and pulling some from reports. But I would have missed what I love most about this job: the chance to meander through unknown streets, talk to strangers, show up at offices uninvited — and being a true-blue beat reporter!

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