People often assume that researching thrillers requires poring over classified documents, interviewing shadowy sources, or mapping out elaborate conspiracies on a board.The truth is very different. Most of my research has happened while moving through new cities, exploring neighborhoods, and observing how people interact in their everyday environments. I’ve always loved to travel. My parents had the bug, and they gave it to me ten-fold over the course of my childhood. Travel was never about collecting destinations; it was about having a front-row seat to cultures, human behavior, and the rhythms of daily life.
I’ve now traveled to 69 countries. My passport isn’t just full of stamps, it’s full of experiences. I’ve watched people go about their lives in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I shared meals with different people and visited crowded streets. These unique moments stay with me. They show me how people live, how they react, and how stories can feel real. How much of deeper humanity is so similar across cultures, even when little things would make us believe we are all so different. Over time, I became aware of what to pay attention to, what to listen to, and what makes a scene believable. I’ve learned more than I could have ever imagined, certainly when it comes to writing about different places, cultures and religions, but also about myself and how I want to live and explore in my daily life.
There’s a way of moving through the world that sharpens what you see. You are present enough to notice the patterns people rarely question. Small systems that govern how they behave. For example, crossing the street in Hanoi involves throwing yourself out into traffic. Locals don’t stress about it. They know the motorbikes will stop, but they make sure not to walk out in front of a car, which won’t. It took me a while to trust drivers (and the universe) enough to be able to do the same! Being able to incorporate details like that into a novel bring the setting alive.
For a writer, those small habits are fascinating. They show you what people do when they’re comfortable in a place, when they’re simply going about their day. Later, when I’m writing a scene, those moments often come back to me.
Every place has its own unwritten rules about how people react to the world around them. You start noticing them in small moments. One night at a really fun party in London, I asked a British friend how he was doing. He responded, “I’m doing okay.” He said so with a big smile and later clarified that ‘Okay’ is a British-ism that would mean “It’s the best night ever!” for people from other cultures. In British speak, the most stressful moment would at most be marked with, “I’ve had days when I’ve been calmer.”
Contrast that with Bengal, where even ordinary conversations can sound passionate and heated. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been on the phone with my parents, rattling off in Bengali, when my husband has come into the room worried that we were having a big fight. He’s wised up now, over the years, but those questions have made me notice how emphatic every statement and experience is when it’s relayed in Bengali. That energy amplifies exponentially with each additional Bengali person that joins in the conversation.
Those differences become incredibly interesting when you start thinking about characters and setting. The place itself can either mirror what a character is feeling or create a sharp contrast. Imagine someone searching for freedom but stuck in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. This setting could easily amplify the feeling of being trapped. For example, think about a city like Paris. It’s easy to imagine a character feeling completely at home there. Walking along the Seine or sitting in a café, completely blending into the rhythm of the city. But that sense of belonging can draw attention to the difference between a character’s inner and outer worlds. On the surface, they could look at peace, but then the flaws in that inner state could be exposed by something in the outer world, such as being watched, followed, or living under surveillance. That contrast between comfort and danger is where a lot of tension in fiction begins.
I don’t travel with a notebook full of ideas or a checklist of details to collect. Instead, I let environments work on me slowly.
This kind of observation doesn’t feel like research at the moment. It feels like being present. Only later, when I’m writing, I realize that a setting has already taught me how it wants to be portrayed, like how the people of a specific place would think and react about a certain plot. Then the ideas flow. Bits of imagery in a specific set piece work perfectly in a garden I visited, or in a specific neighborhood.
Thrillers rely on credibility. Readers don’t need to know every fact but to believe that the world on the page could exist. Travel builds that belief naturally because it gives you textures you can’t invent convincingly like their habits, rhythms, and silences that feel lived in rather than designed.
A place is never just scenery. It shapes how people behave, how they speak, and even what they notice. When you move through different countries and cultures, you begin to see how the same situation can unfold in completely different ways. The setting doesn’t simply hold the story but influences how it unfolds and how people move within it. I think geography shapes behavior in ways we rarely notice.
When I write, I don’t choose settings just for their aesthetic appeal. I choose them for their pressure points. Their spirit. What does this place symbolize? What happens when someone is out of place here? What does this environment and culture reward, and what does it punish? And sometimes I choose them because they inspire me. There is something unique and special about every place and I want to bring that to the surface. Show it off for the world to see.
Those questions come directly from years of being the one who didn’t quite belong.
Characters don’t exist in isolation. They are shaped by what they’re allowed to do, what they’re afraid of, and what they’ve learned not to question.
Fear isn’t always loud or dramatic. Often, it’s habitual, like people knowing when to stop talking and knowing that some questions aren’t worth the answers they might bring.
When characters carry this kind of internalized knowledge, their choices feel grounded, their risks feel earned and their mistakes feel human.
This is where high-quality storytelling lives, but in restraint.
I don’t write thrillers to glorify danger or romanticize secrecy. I write them because they allow us to examine how people behave under pressure, inside systems that don’t always reward honesty or courage.
I’ve noticed how adaptable and resilient people can be, and how easily they justify their choices when survival is at stake.
These aren’t lessons you can extract from a single place or culture. They emerge only through repetition and contrast when being disoriented enough times that certainty becomes suspect.
The uncertainty is where good stories come from.
My passport isn’t proof of expertise. It’s evidence of exposure.
Each stamp in my passport tells more than just a journey. It’s a reminder of the places I’ve navigated, the systems I’ve figured out, and the ways I’ve had to adjust and respond. Over time, those stamps add up as a map of experience, of exposure to how different people live, think, and move through the world.
Travel transforms every story that I write. It keeps me drawn to moral complexity. It also reminds me that danger is rarely obvious, and systems whether it’s political, cultural, or personal are often more fragile than they appear.
Sixty-nine countries didn’t give me spy stories. They gave me the conditions that make spy stories believable.
And that, for a writer, is far more valuable.
Warmly,
Puja
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