About TravelTasteJournal

Bringing the Caribbean to the World — and the World to the Caribbean

TravelTasteJournal was born from a simple but ambitious vision:

To sell the Caribbean to the world and bring the world to the Caribbean.

The original idea was to showcase the Caribbean through its islands, people, food, culture, history, experiences, and way of life. The vision was to begin with several islands and eventually follow the CPL T20 tour across all eight host islands, creating stories and destination-focused content along the way.

But as the idea developed, TravelTasteJournal became much bigger than its original concept.

The Caribbean does not exist in isolation. Caribbean people are constantly travelling between the islands and major cities around the world for business, leisure, shopping, family, entertainment, education, sports, and cultural experiences.

TravelTasteJournal evolved to reflect that reality.

Today, the platform looks beyond the Caribbean to destinations frequently travelled by West Indians, including New York City, Miami, Panama, Europe, India, and other countries around the world.

The goal is to explore the places that connect the Caribbean to the rest of the world—and to share those experiences with travellers from both directions.

The Journey Behind the Journal

At the heart of TravelTasteJournal is its editor, Mrs. Sharmila Narwani, whose relationship with travel began long before the creation of the platform.

Sharmila has been flying since she was a toddler.

Her parents were avid travellers for both business and leisure, and international travel became a natural part of her upbringing. Miami became almost a second home, followed by New York City as a third.

Her travels eventually extended far beyond the Caribbean and North America.

For approximately 15 years, Sharmila travelled annually to the Far East with her father for business, attending major international trade and sourcing events, including the Canton Fair and the Yiwu Futian Markets in China.

These were not ordinary vacations. They were working trips connected to the family’s wholesale and retail business, where hundreds of products could be sourced during a single visit.

Through these experiences, Sharmila gained firsthand exposure to international business, manufacturing, sourcing, shipping, different cultures, and the relationships that make global commerce possible.

Among the business relationships developed during these years were long-standing connections with Sindhi Indian families and business owners in China. These relationships were built on trust, honesty, hard work, and years of doing business together.

They helped ensure that orders were accurate, products were manufactured and packed with care, and goods were shipped on time for the various retail seasons.

For Sharmila, these experiences became much more than business transactions. They became an education in people, places, cultures, commerce, and the connections between different parts of the world.

More Than a Traveller

Sharmila's role during these international business trips extended far beyond accompanying her father.

She became the dedicated product photographer, documenting what could sometimes be 200–300 or more new products purchased during a single sourcing trip.

Her creative responsibilities continued when she returned to Trinidad.

Within the family business, she worked across multiple areas, including:

• Product photography

• Graphic design

• Social media content creation

• Digital marketing

• Product presentations

• Content development

• Managing social media pages

• Creating promotional material for the wholesale and retail operations

In many ways, she documented the entire journey of a product—from being sourced in Asia, to arriving in Trinidad, to being photographed, marketed, and eventually sold to Caribbean customers.

That combination of travel, photography, storytelling, business, and digital marketing would later become an important foundation for TravelTasteJournal.

Connecting Business, Technology and Customers

Sharmila also became involved in modernizing the way the family business connected with its customers.

For the 2025 Valentine's Day sales season, she introduced domestic shipping and delivery through Odeliver, allowing customers outside the immediate San Juan area to shop remotely.

The initiative successfully expanded the business's reach, including to customers in Tobago, some of whom continued purchasing into 2026.

She also implemented a WhatsApp Business catalogue, giving customers another convenient way to browse products, communicate with the business, and shop without physically visiting the store.

These experiences reinforced something Sharmila had already learned through international travel:

People are connected by more than geography.

Technology can bring a product, a business, a destination, or a story from one part of the world directly into someone's home.

From Travel Experiences to Travel Stories

With years of travel behind her, Sharmila began creating and writing posts for TravelTasteJournal.

She could tell stories.

She could share destinations.

She could photograph experiences.

She could introduce readers to cities, countries, food, cultures, businesses, and places around the world.

But eventually, she realized something was missing.

She could inspire people to travel—but she couldn't get them there.

That realization led her to explore how she could take TravelTasteJournal beyond being a travel and lifestyle blog and create a way to connect inspiration with the actual travel experience.

She began researching the travel advisor industry and discovered Fora Travel, a U.S.-based travel advisor network and consortium.

The opportunity felt like a natural extension of everything she had already been doing.

A New Chapter with Fora Travel

Sharmila joined Fora Travel as an independent affiliate, with the goal of combining her personal travel experience and knowledge with the resources available through a professional travel advisor network.

This allows TravelTasteJournal to evolve from simply telling people where to go to helping travellers take the next step toward actually getting there.

Her decades of travel, international business experience, photography, content creation, digital marketing, and familiarity with the Caribbean all come together in this new chapter.

The vision has remained consistent from the beginning:

Bring the Caribbean to the world.

Bring the world to the Caribbean.

Sharmila hopes to introduce the Caribbean to the cities and countries she has visited throughout her life, while also introducing Caribbean travellers to the wider world.

More Than a Travel Blog

TravelTasteJournal is ultimately about connection.

It is about the connection between the Caribbean and the rest of the world.

It is about the places Caribbean people already know and love—and the places they have yet to discover.

It is about travel, food, culture, shopping, business, sports, people, experiences, and the stories behind the destinations.

What began as an idea to showcase the Caribbean has grown into a broader travel platform with a global outlook.

From the islands of the Caribbean to Miami and New York, Panama, Europe, India, Asia, and beyond, TravelTasteJournal aims to explore the world through a Caribbean lens.

And through its new chapter as a travel advisor platform, the goal is no longer simply to tell people about the journey.

It is to help them take it.

TravelTasteJournal — The Caribbean to the World. The World to the Caribbean.