HimLocal

About the startup

HimLocal is a map-first trip planner and booking platform for the Indian Himalaya. Planning a Himalayan trip normally means forty browser tabs: an OTA for hotels, a forum thread arguing about which pass is open, a WhatsApp number for a car, and a spreadsheet holding it together. None of it shows you where anything is in relation to anything else. HimLocal starts from the map instead. THE MAP The whole range sits on one interactive map — trails and treks graded by difficulty, peaks, viewpoints, lakes, temples, forts and heritage sites, alongside the stays, cafés and shops you can actually book. Fly through the terrain in 3D, or drop into a first-person view from any peak to see what a route looks like before committing to walk it. THE PLANNER Build a day-by-day itinerary by dragging stays, treks, day activities and points of interest straight onto the map. Trips save to your account, so you can close the tab and pick up where you left off. If you would rather not start from a blank map, pick a base and a number of days and HimLocal will plan the trip for you. WHAT YOU CAN BOOK Homestays and boutique stays. Guided treks and day adventures — paragliding, rafting, biking, camping. Multi-day road tours from local agencies ranked by rating, with the vehicle class shown up front. Cafés, and farm shops selling Himalayan produce. BOOK DIRECT, NOT THROUGH A MIDDLEMAN Every listing is a verified local host or operator running their own business on HimLocal's software, so the booking goes direct: payment settles into their account rather than an aggregator's escrow. There is no OTA commission inflating the price you pay, and the money reaches the family running the homestay instead of a booking platform on another continent. WHERE Built in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh and incubated at IIT Mandi Catalyst, the technology business incubator at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi. Coverage is deepest across the Himalayan belt — Manali, Spiti, Dharamshala, Shimla, Kasol, Bir, Tirthan, Naggar, Manikaran — and extending across Ladakh and Uttarakhand. Free to use, installable from the browser as an app, and built to work on a mountain 2G signal.