I guess it’s right for me to use the “tis the season” every time there’s a KubeCon. From not knowing even a bit about Kubernetes and cloud native tech a few years ago to attending and speaking at KubeCon off late, things have been very merry on the work front, and when I get to travel, I have no complaints.
In case you don’t already know, I was speaking at KubeCon Europe, which took place in London from April 1 to 4. Like all my previous KubeCons, I took a short break to travel and explore.
I’m sitting at Chennai Airport and writing this as I wait to board my flight back to Hyderabad. For the unaware, I was here speaking at KCD Chennai. April 2025 has been one of the busiest yet the most happening months in the last few years.
In this blog post, I’ll give a short summary and gist of my KubeCon Europe 2025 experience, followed by an exploration. Also, that’s why there have been no blog posts in the last few weeks: I was busy exploring so that I could share with you all.
Speaking at Platform Engineering Day – KubeCon Europe 2025
Non-tech folks might want to skip this, but if you’re interested, please read on!
I have been quite active in the platform engineering community for a while now, contributing to the group and being vocal about it. At work, too, we build platforms for a few clients, and I keep getting some interesting insights. Even in my previous Kubecons – KubeCon Chicago, KubeCon Paris, KubeCon Salt Lake City, and KubeCon Delhi, I spoke about platform engineering.
This time around, I spoke about the rather interesting concepts of Abstraction Elasticity and Abstraction Debt. Just like Technical debt, the decisions that you make while building a platform, especially around exceptional use cases, add to your abstraction debt. This eventually affects the flexibility of your platform. Fortunately, when I’m writing this, the video of the talk is out, so you can watch it below.
Apart from that, KubeCon was fun as always, learnt about new projects and services, interacted with global community folks, and made new connections too.
Post KubeCon Exploration
Just like the previous editions of KubeCon – Chicago, Paris, and Salt Lake City – I took a break after the KubeCon to explore London and Edinburgh – yes, I visited Scotland – my 9th country.
Meeting Hairy Coos in Scotland
So I planned to head to Scotland as soon as KubeCon got over, so I was out of London by late evening. Since I was with a friend, we took a train to Edinburgh, which dropped us off around 9 PM.
We spent a couple of nights there, from exploring the famous Edinburgh Castle and St. Giles Cathedral to walking along the Water of Leith walkway, the Royal Mile, and even taking a day trip to the Scottish Highlands. The weather was perfect during the entire trip, I’d say – it was sunny, but the single-digit temperatures ensured the trip was beautiful.
While I’ll have the complete, detailed blog posts on different things I did in Scotland, you can watch my Edinburgh Instagram Highlight for a quick recap.
Exploring London
Back from Scotland, I spent a week in London. Huge credit goes to my school friend who lives in London, who welcomed me to stay with her for the entire week. Without this, I surely couldn’t have spent a week in London, it’s super expensive. During this period, I used the “tube” extensively to move about in the city. I visited some of my dream places, from the “Ganguly Spot” at Lord’s to the Centre Court at Wimbledon.
I also visited all the major attractions in London, including Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and Big Ben. I also got to visit Horizon22 and Lookout, amongst the tallest viewing galleries in Europe. I also explored the local markets of London – Covent Garden, Oxford Street and Borough Market, and I fell in love with Borough Market, it’s surely a must-visit place.
If you’ve been following me on Instagram, you already know what I did in London. If you’re not, you can watch my London highlights on Instagram.
Bleisure Trip to Istanbul and Cappadocia
What was special about this trip was this week-long bleisure trip to Istanbul and Cappadocia in Turkey – taking my country’s travelled tally to 10. One of the reasons I took a break in Istanbul was the comfortable working hours. Since my work allows me to work from anywhere, I decided to work from Istanbul. Compared to my Indian working hours, my work would start around 6 in the morning and end by 3-4 PM, which gave me ample time to explore the city.
I also had a couple of weekends during the trip. On one of the weekends, I took the walking tour of the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Basilica Cistern. On the other days, I took the Bosphorus Cruise, attended a Deverish performance, and visited the Grand Bazaar and Spice Market in Istanbul.
You can watch all my previous stories in my Istanbul Highlights on Instagram.
On one of the weekdays, I also took an overnight bus to Göreme, a town in the Cappadocia region. My one-night, two-day trip to Göreme involved some local explorations, watching the famous hot air balloons of Cappadocia, and taking the Red Tour to explore Zelve Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Uchishar Castle, Love Valley, and other places.
Apart from this, I relished the food in Turkey, whether it was the bread, Simit, Turkish Coffee, Fuze Iced Tea, or Baklava and Kunefe, I LOVED the food there!
Watch all my Cappadocia Highlights on Instagram.
A Trip to Remember
Every time my talk gets selected for KubeCon, there’s a different kind of joy. Not only do I get to share my knowledge with a global community, but I also get to meet and learn from some of the brightest minds in the cloud native community. Apart from that, the extended holiday that I take makes all the difference. Being a traveller and foodie, I love travelling, and the fact that my work is giving me opportunities to work and travel is simply amazing.
With this trip, I have now visited 10 countries of the world, though a very small number compared to some of the travel content creators I know, but the fact that I’ve visited some of the iconic cities in the World – Paris, New York, Rome, Los Angeles and London – and that too for work – makes it all more rewarding.
That’s it for this blog post, I’ll hopefully start posting about my trip in a series of blog posts after this. Feel free to reach out to me for any assistance. Drop your thoughts in the comments below, tweet to me at @Atulmaharaj, DM on Atulmaharaj on Instagram, or Get In Touch.