01
Connect
A curator for every journey. Real people, not scripts.
Our Story · Est. 2017
Travel is a human act.
Not a transaction, not a package. A small, slow, remembered exchange between people who live somewhere and people passing through.
- 7+
- Years building
- 200+
- Local curators
- 18
- States covered
2017 · Genesis
The first walk in Jaipur
Today · Present
48 destinations, one country
The origin
Born from conversation.
“The most authentic travel happens when you walk the same paths as those who call a place home.”
Trocals began at a tea-stall in Varanasi, when a hereditary boatman finished a story and our founder realised: this is the trip. Not the boat ride, not the photograph — the seventeen minutes of being in someone else’s life. We built Trocals to make those seventeen minutes the point.
- 2017Jaipur. One walk. One curator.
Founder Ritik takes his first guests through Jaipur with a local heritage storyteller.
- 2019Five cities. Twelve curators.
Word spreads. The model expands beyond Rajasthan into Varanasi, Kochi, McLeod Ganj, Goa.
- 2020The Curator Support Fund.
When tours stop overnight, Trocals launches a fund. ₹42 lakhs disbursed by year end.
- 2022Walking tours go national.
50+ walks across 18 states. The 2-hour format becomes the most-booked experience.
- 2024200+ curators. 5K+ journeys.
Trocals crosses ₹4 crore paid directly to curator communities since inception.
- NowThe Trocals Collective.
Partnerships with wellness leaders, photographers, founders to bring their communities to India.
7+
Years building Trocals
Our Belief
The Trocals Manifesto
We believe that the tourism industry has a problem with people. It moves them efficiently from monument to monument, feeds them at restaurants that exist only because tourists do, and sends them home with photographs of places they never really entered. The locals in these pictures are scenery. The culture is a backdrop.
We believe that travel should disturb you slightly. Not in the way of danger, but in the way of expansion. The meal that makes you question your own cooking. The conversation that reveals an assumption you didn’t know you had. The street that is so alive it makes your own city feel thin by comparison.
We believe that the people who live somewhere know it better than any guidebook, aggregator, or algorithm. And that their knowledge is not a commodity — it is a relationship. One that must be entered with care, curiosity, and genuine respect.
We believe that sustainable tourism is not a feature. It is the premise. A travel company that does not improve the lives of the communities it enters is not a travel company. It is an extraction operation.
Trocals exists to prove that travel can be the most humanising thing a person does. That it can shrink the distance between two strangers. That a city you’ve never been to can feel, after 2.5 hours with the right person, like a place you belong.
Ritik Gupta · Founder, Trocals · 2017
What We Stand For
Four Words. One Direction.
Every decision at Trocals — who we partner with, how we price, which destinations we add — is measured against these four words. They are not marketing language. They are operating principles.
02
Sustain
A light footprint. Where we go we leave better than we found.
03
Celebrate
Festivals, rituals, the way India looks after itself.
04
Discover
Stay curious. Stay slow. Stay long enough to be surprised.
The Founder
Ritik Gupta —
The Person Behind
the Company
Before Trocals, Ritik spent three years as a product designer at a Delhi tech startup, designing interfaces for people he never met. He was good at it. He was also quietly miserable. The thing he kept coming back to, on weekends and evenings, was travel — but not the kind that came in packages.
He was the kind of traveller who preferred a wrong turn to a correct one. Who ate where the auto-drivers ate. Who stayed long past the point where most people would leave. Who asked questions that most people thought were rude. He was also, it turned out, the kind of person who could build something around this instinct.
Today, Ritik personally vets every new curator who joins Trocals. Not their credentials — their stories. He asks one question in every interview: “Tell me something about your place that no guidebook has ever printed.” If the answer takes longer than five minutes, the person is probably right for Trocals.
A Note from Ritik
“I started Trocals because I was tired of being a tourist. I wanted to be a guest. There is a difference. A tourist consumes. A guest participates. Trocals is my attempt to help people make that shift — one conversation, one meal, one walk at a time. Thank you for trusting us with your time and your curiosity. We don’t take either lightly.”
Ritik Gupta
Founder & Curator-in-Chief · Trocals
R
Ritik Gupta
Founder · Delhi, India
✦
“Missing that train”
Jaipur · 2016
7+
Years
The People
The Team That
Makes It Real
Trocals is a small team by design. Every person here has been on at least ten of our experiences before joining. We don’t hire people who haven’t felt what we’re trying to build.
R
FounderRitik Gupta
Founder & Curator-in-Chief
Former product designer who turned a missed train into a company. Personally vets every new curator. Refuses to add a destination unless he's visited it himself.
P
OperationsPriya Mehta
Head of Curator Experience
Ex-ethnographer and development sector worker who joined Trocals because it was 'the only travel company that seemed to actually care.' Manages all 200+ curator relationships.
A
DesignArjun Nair
Head of Experience Design
Grew up in Kerala, studied architecture in Mumbai. Designs the itineraries with the same precision he'd give a building — every moment intentional, every transition smooth.
S
GrowthSara Fernandes
Head of Traveller Experience
Born in Goa, lived in six countries, joined Trocals after being a customer three times. Runs all pre- and post-journey communication. 'Every guest should feel like they have a friend here.'
The Core of Trocals
200+ Curators Across India
Our curators are not employees and not contractors. They are partners. They set their own prices, choose which experiences they offer, and own their relationship with every traveller they meet. Trocals is the bridge. They are the destination.
200+
Active Curators
By the Numbers
The Impact We’ve
Made Together
Every booking is a data point in a larger story — of money staying local, of traditions being preserved, of two strangers becoming something closer to friends.
5000+
Journeys completed
Experiences Hosted
₹4Cr+
Paid to curators & communities
Local Economy Impact
48
Across 18 Indian states
Destinations
96%
Would recommend Trocals
Guest Satisfaction
Artisan Livelihoods
Over 340 artisan families — block printers, weavers, potters, calligraphers — now earn a regular supplementary income through Trocals tours. In Sanganer alone, five families have been able to keep their workshops open solely because of the visitors we send.
The Curator Support Fund
Launched during COVID-19, the Curator Support Fund has disbursed ₹42 lakhs to curators and their families during periods when tours were suspended. The fund is now permanent, financed by 2% of every booking.
Carbon Conscious Travel
Since 2022, Trocals has offset 100% of the transport carbon generated by our ground journeys through partnerships with verified Indian forest restoration projects. Our walking tours are, of course, already net zero.
How We Travel
Travel That
Leaves More
Than It Takes
The travel industry extracts. It takes the beauty of a place, commodifies it, and rarely returns the value to the people who made that beauty possible in the first place. We are building the opposite model — one that is honest about its impact and structured to improve it.
This is not green-washing. It is not a checkbox. It is the original premise of Trocals: that the communities we enter should be measurably better for our presence. Every year, we publish a Transparency Report with exact figures. Every year, it must improve.
Local-Only Accommodations
We never book hotel chains. Every stay is a family-run heritage property, farmhouse, or community-owned guesthouse.
Community Kitchens Only
All food on our experiences is sourced from local kitchens and family homes. No restaurant menus unless it's a family establishment.
15% Community Contribution
A minimum of 15% of every booking goes into a community fund for the destination visited. Audited annually and published publicly.
Curator Children's Education Fund
2% of every booking funds school fees for curators' children. 47 children supported in the last academic year.
No Exploitative Wildlife
Trocals has a strict policy against any experience involving animal riding, performing animals, or facilities that cause animal stress. Zero exceptions.
The Promise
Our 2030 Pledge
By 2030, Trocals will direct ₹10 crore into artisan community development across India, support 500 active curator families, achieve full carbon neutrality across all multi-day tours, and ensure that every destination we operate in has a documented community benefit framework in place.
Responsible Tourism
TOFT Certified
Fair Trade Tourism
Community Verified
Cultural Heritage
INTACH Partner
Carbon Offset
Gold Standard
Annual Report
Trocals Transparency Report 2024
Impact figures · Community fund breakdown · Carbon data
As Featured In
Condé Nast
“The future of travel in India”
Lonely Planet
“Best local experience platform”
The Hindu
“Redefining cultural tourism”
Forbes India
“30 Under 30 · Social Impact”
BBC Travel
“How to really see India”
Join Us
Become Part of
Our Story
Whether you want to travel with us, share your home with our guests, or simply believe in what we’re building — there is a place for you here.