CHENNAI: Lonely Planet may tell you how to travel to South America on a shoestring. But Chennai-born, Mumbai-based Aparna Shekar Roy can tell you how to do it on a few strings.

The 28-year-old former brand manager quit her job one Monday morning to travel through Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Bolivia for six months — and has managed to get a few companies to sponsor her in exchange for publicity on her blog www.backpackingninja.blogspot.com .

So Aparna is travelling with a free 60-litre backpack and sleeping bag from the adventure equipment company Wildcraft, a top-of-the-line, ultra-light Asus EEE PC worth Rs 17,500, and free shoes from Crocs. While she has had to dig into her savings to pay for a few things, brands are discovering a social marketing opportunity in her rather unique adventure.

“Each of these brands has a perfect fit with Aparna’s trip,” says Gokul Krishnamurthy, media consultant and managing editor of www.eventfaqs.com, which has tied up with Aparna to publish reports on events in the countries through which she is travelling. “The word-of-mouth she will deliver is unparalleled and she’s getting brands a focussed audience interested in travel and adventure. It’s targetted marketing for free,” he explains.

Landing the associations took months of hard work. “I made separate proposals for each brand. Personalised proposals that focussed on ‘what’s in it for the brand’ helped crack the deals,” says Aparna, who has travelled across India, Europe and South-East Asia before, though on her own money. She also approached insurance, coffee, camera, phone and airline companies, who didn’t get back to her.

Planning for her six-month trip began over a year ago — saving money, working out the details with her family, budgeting, and finally deciding to quit. “I took inspiration from international travellers I have met. They have all been smart about planning, be it sponsored travel insurance or making money by selling photos or writing for travel publications... these round-the-world travellers really try it all,” she says.

Aparna says she wanted to travel in Latin America after she started learning capoeira, a form of Brazilian martial arts, in Mumbai two years ago. “Ever since I started training, I have wanted to visit Brazil. I did not want to compromise on this trip and so decided to take six months off. Nature, culture, coffee, samba, tango, Latino music... you name it, South America has it all. With travel being a passion and capoeira in addition, what started as a dream to visit Brazil expanded into this mega ‘South America plan’,” she says. Three of her six months will be spent in Brazil, learning capoeira, meeting people, picking up language and dance, volunteering at organic farms and just travelling.

The Backpacking Ninja — as she’s been dubbed by her capoeira buddies after she acted as a ninja in an ad for a music channel — is currently in New York (as tickets to South America were cheapest via the US) and flies to Brazil on October 10. “Ideally, I would have liked it if one brand had sponsored the entire trip and I swear to god I would have personally told a million people about it. Never under-estimate my capacity to talk,” she says, laughing.