For how many of us have the outdoorsy ego inside? Doing a headcount wouldn’t be a convincing option. The only thing that caves us in is not finding the right set of enthusiasts who share the love for the same adventure sport as ours. Finding that right group is like butter to our bread which we often don’t get. Adventure listing sites and apps get us closer to finding our adventure streak but how many of them would help us find a group with similar interest/skill set like ours? This is where WayWiser gets us pumping.

This is a New Zealand-based online club for adventure sports which is also a curator of local outdoor adventure making it easier for enthusiasts find trips and creating them as well. It is an online, peer-to-peer platform designed to connect outdoor enthusiasts to others who share their passion and skill level. All of this is done by making a profile where one would fill out the skill sets one possesses and the trips taken and voila. It’s pretty much set and one can search more by filtering location, date and type of outdoor sport.

The Co-Founder and CEO, Brittany Jordt, talks about adventure sports with passion in her voice. Being outdoors is what she lives for. Prior to moving to New Zealand, her partner Colin and she imagined the landscape to be very promising for mountain biking, trail running and hiking. She wanted to be spoiled for choice and she couldn’t wait to get started. Only to find it later, the whole adventure thing would be a DIY gig, that both of them had a hard time connecting with people to get the best stuff. This information crunch propelled the idea for WayWiser: a portal that allows people to search for local adventure by sport, location, and date and then book a trip to share it with a local person.

The online property is pretty much treated like ‘tinder for outdoor bugs’ where they would get in touch with the like-minded people as the team is building a unique skill matching technology. This would match users based on sport, skill, and location which would make it easier to find other people who love to do what you do, at your level.  This is their edge above other commercial tour providers.

Operative only in New Zealand for now, WayWiser stacks categories like trail running, mountain biking,  rock climbing, and hiking but would eventually expand to all types of human-powered outdoor sport. Their usual traction gets generated from 25 to 55 year olds.

Brittany at a team outing

WayWiser emerged from Lightning Lab Digital Accelerator in Auckland. They came online on Jul 11 and currently have 1400 users on the website. The WayWiser community is in growth stage primarily who have dozens of ambassadors to lead curated adventures in New Zealand. The startup is about to close their pre-seed capital and will turn to raising funds coming March.

Adventure tourism serves right when done with likeminded people because that helps us to bond well over something that we are so passionate about. WayWiser is a step towards realising that goal.

The post The ‘tinder’ for adventure tourism is here. Meet WayWiser appeared first on TravHQ.

Activities are challenging to distribute and despite the huge opportunity the segment offers, we haven’t seen many strong players emerging on our side of the globe in this space. There are some players slowly making their presence felt but not many of them focussed on adventure activities. The Southeast Asian market represents a huge opportunity offering plenty of headroom for growth and Mojhi, an adventure travel startup is going guns blazing in this segment.

Greeshmanth Koganti, Founder & CEO, Mojhi

Started by a bunch of adventure junkies, Mojhi is trying to be the go to marketplace for anyone looking for adventure travel. Greesh, the CEO, comes with over a decade of experience in building and selling software and has worked in engineering, product management & management roles in companies of different scale. Viswanath has managed digital marketing for some of the largest internet companies across different countries and he handles the marketing for Mojhi. Greesh and Viswanath were also batch mates at IIM Indore. Handling operations is Naveen who has been in the adventure business for 14 years. The entire product technology has been developed in-house by Bhavpreet and Navtej.

Together, the team carries over 50 years of experience in adventure activities. They are certified mountaineers, white water kayaking instructors, certified scuba divers and with all the experience and training, they very well understand the challenges on both consumer and provider sides in this space.

The platform has its niche carved out and focusses only on people looking to travel for adventure activities. Talking about the recent entry of Cleartrip with Activities, Greesh shared that the OTA isn’t really a direct competitor. The difference comes with the nature of activities listed. According to him, the activities that you would find on Cleartrip or Viator are primarily the kind of things you would add to your plan for a day when you are travelling to a new destination. They are usually short duration activities having a span of only few hours. On the other hand, Mojhi offers the kind of adventure activities around which the entire trips to a destination are planned and they often have a span of more than a day. He terms the platform as the Airbnb for adventure activities.

Currently Mojhi has over 4000 adventures listed across 5 countries and they are planning to add new geographies quickly, including some popular trekking destinations. Apart from giving the option to book these activities, they are also trying to educate travellers about the activities that the travellers can explore. Most travellers don’t really know what to expect when booking such an activity for the first time and Mojhi is trying to change that. It also brings together multiple providers on the same platform to offer the best quality and value to the customer. This way, the providers get visibility for their brand and as there are many of them competing to offer the best deals, the consumer is more likely to get better value for what he will be paying.

However, it hasn’t been all easy sailing for them. As with many other startups in the travel space, customer acquisition was a challenge in the early days and the costs were high. As they continue to offer more experiences and build customer trust over time, these challenges will continue to fade. At this point, they are doing more than USD 30,000 of bookings every month which is pretty impressive considering it is a very young startup. Certain aspects of what some companies like Thrillophilia offer overlap with what Mojhi is doing but the clear differentiation between a curator and a marketplace remains. It will be interesting to see how Mojhi takes the journey forward in this niche. You can find more details at www.mojhi.com.

Are you solving a major problem in travel space like Mojhi? Let the world know. Sign up for Startup Knockdown+.

The post How this team of adventure junkies is building the Airbnb of adventure activities appeared first on TravHQ.

Adventure travel has witnessed spectacular tech improvements in the past half-decade. The rate at which travellers are gorging technology is extraordinary and amazing. The industry has cashed on various devices it rolled out for a plethora of activities. Be it action cameras or drone technology, these technological advancements doesn’t stop the innovators to break their boundaries.

Climbing has been an ever loving sport for that adrenaline rush we keep missing. Adventures such as mountaineering, bouldering, indoor climbing or an outdoor one have been on a checklist of an avid hiking fan. The innovators at Mbient Lab Inc have been working hard to get the best of the technology for all these adventure junkies. They have something in store. Let’s check out.

Whipper is a clip-on instrument that acts like a performance tracker and a smart coach. The Whipper is a climbing performance and fitness tracker, that helps you improve your technique and endurance — using a sleek clip-on device and accompanying Smartphone App. The Whipper smart tracker with a state of the art motion sensor technology acts like clip-on starts working right away by collecting data while you focus on your climbing.

The device works in real time or you can log all of your climbs and sync your data together whenever ready. The Whipper works indoors and out, so you can use it while at the gym training and you get real time stats on any activity and problem. You can use the Whipper on a multi-pitch outdoor climb and as the day is over you can sync all of your climbing data and check out your stats. It tracks where you climb, how you climb and what you climb.

All metrics are derived from the device’s algorithms which incorporate 6 axis motion and a high-speed high-precision altimeter. Automatically calculated metrics such as feet, incline, pace, time and effort are stored in memory on the Whipper device on a per climb and per session basis. The Whipper’s built-in advanced motion sensors allow it to measure a climber’s stability, effort, and angle of inclination.  The App can record additional information such as the location of your climb using your phone GPS. This information is used to further improve your climbing stats and the accuracy of the device’s climbing algorithms.

The Whipper App gives feedback on your skills, technique, and movement so you can track your progress over each session. It analyzes each user’s data on an individual basis and provides feedback based on technical elements during the climb. The Whipper’s battery lasts approximately 1-2 weeks under normal usage conditions. It comes with a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and can be charged through any micro-USB cable.

You can check out for more on the running campaign at Indiegogo and get an early bird offer by backing it up.

The post The Whipper whips out the best of the tracking experience for climbers appeared first on TravHQ.

Adventure travel has never been an easy initiative to start with. Not with that entire rough climate outside to put you off your vibe I’m sure. The proper levels of comfort are a round the clock essential thing to pursue them with all your heart. With you getting beaten up by the level of outdoor discomfort, I just don’t seem right. Automating the climate outside your comfort zone was a reality to be realized soon. Here it is now.

MiClimate unlocks your outdoor comfort by controlling climate settings when you’re driving your bike or trekking. It says particularly here for a motorcyclist, but it could serve more purpose than that. Adventure travellers can take this as a boon and drive themselves wherever they want, taking their own climate with themselves. MiClimate is based on a US Navy technology developed for soldiers operating in extreme weather conditions. It has a very versatile design that can be rendered benefiting many areas of usage.

MiClimate controls both hot and cold levels that support the outdoor enthusiasts. It has an ergonomic design where he strap goes around your waist and is inconspicuously hidden under your shirt. Rubberized coating over molded exterior provides additional sturdiness.  Adjustable strap in contact with skin is fabricated out of neoprene fabric for adequate comfort. A remote control is attached to the handlebar for safety. The cooling system consumes approximately 30W power. The auxiliary battery power is a 12V Li-ion battery with 72Whr capacity.

MiClimate base kit includes an air belt, MiClimate core, wireless remote, 12V battery connection. The weight of the climate control device is approximately 1.5 pounds. Air cooling from ambient goes up to 18F and air heating  from ambient goes up to 35F.

Get your own gear here.

The post Take your climate with you wherever you go: MiClimate appeared first on TravHQ.

What do you call a place where wanderlust gets the best of you? Travellers call it a jackpot. What if on top of it you cannot find the means to explore that paradise? You’d be disappointed to your core. Latin America is an unexplored and rugged terrain. There’s more life in a less tread piece of land than a thriving mess of nightlife. The only thing missing is a little direction and resources for the Native Americans to bring out their potential in the tourism sector.

This is what the founders Eugena Brown and Andrea Vidler tackled when they met at the Wharton MBA program and the inception of Local Aventura took place. They cater to the adventure travellers in South American geography and bring them in touch with local guides for an authentic experience throughout the domain. From a sailing adventure off the coast of Lima to a trek through Patagonia, there is no better way to experience the beauty, excitement, and mystery of Latin America than with a trusted and knowledgeable local.

Andrea was born in Chile and frequently travelled between Latin America and the USA. Through extensive work and travel experience in the region, she saw firsthand how difficult it was for people to gain economic independence and access key business resources. Eugena, a self-­proclaimed “wander-luster,” has frequent travel experience, both in and out of Latin America. Through traveling in the region, she noticed that it was particularly difficult, to find authentic experiences due to Latin America’s fragmented tourism market. The two also noticed that other booking platforms didn’t interview or vet their guides, leaving it up to chance for travellers to find quality tours.

LocalAventura makes sure to test and vet all their guides before they are sent on site. This is to ensure high-quality tours and authentic, unique services. The focus on the Latin American market keeps the start-up keenly observant for any new lookouts in the region. As the market is fairly new, LocalAventura hopes to establish themselves as leading trusted source in providing travel services in the region. Travellers can alter any pre-­existing tours to meet their needs, or they can contact LocalAventura directly for any kind of help to them set up a tour that the team hasn’t listed yet. The start-up also will plan customized itineraries using their local guides to lead the way.

The team plans to provide more economic support to the nationals there as the market is apparently new. From a traveller’s perspective, the experience of exploring with a local helps them gain a better understanding of the trip. The locals are their own bosses and configure for themselves their own tours and schedules while the team at LocalAventura provides them with resources, marketing, and clientele.

To know more about the team and about these “wander lusters” , please check out their website.

The post LocalAventura helps South America to boast of its rich resources in adventure tourism appeared first on TravHQ.

Every motorcycle trip I take is followed by a dozen calls to those two friends to share videos, who were shooting everything on a GoPro, because they were too lazy to process them. While most action cameras have come a long way in terms of quality, we are still relying on the old school techniques for processing. It appeared that the action cameras have hit the ceiling in terms of innovation but a young company from Mumbai seems to have a different idea. Started by a bunch of travel, adventure and photography enthusiasts, Nexgear recently introduced Frodo, a smart wearable camera at CES 2016.

Frodo not only records video clips but also processes them to give you instant videos that you can share right away. There are multiple preset styles and it keeps learning your style with time. This way you end up with videos the way you like them without the hassle of spending hours on a video editing tool.

Frodo takes an entirely different approach to the design of an action camera, so different that one takes a while to figure things out. The removable camera is mounted on a band and can be used in a variety of ways. At first glance it looks like a large square watch that happens to have a lens instead of a display, well, turns out it has a display as well. There is a hidden LED display on its face which can double up as a watch.

If you are interested in numbers, Frodo has an 8 megapixel sensor with a wide angle lens with 120 degree field of view and f/2.6 aperture. The videos are recorded in full HD at 30 fps and it can record straight up to 1.5 hours on a single charge. We would have preferred 60 or 120 fps but it isn’t a deal breaker. The camera is ready to shoot in just 0.7 seconds which is really impressive.

It doesn’t miss out on popular connectivity options either. So apart from the standard USB connectivity, you get Wi-Fi and low energy Bluetooth to transfer data. It also has a 6 axis motion sensor. When you are not shooting, it sits around on your wrist as a watch and an activity tracker eliminating the need of that basic activity tracker you have been using. It is waterproof, dustproof and shockproof so you don’t have to worry about keeping it safe from the elements.

While Frodo might look like an interesting piece of tech for your next adventure trip, you can’t buy one yet. Nexgear will be running an Indiegogo campaign for Frodo that starts from April 4. It will be available with storage options of 16, 32 and 64 GB with prices expected to start around $200. GoPro, we’re looking at you!

You can find more details about Frodo on www.frodocam.com.

Update (April 4, 2016)- The Indiegogo campaign is now live and early bird prices start at $149 for the 16 GB version. You can check all the options on their Indiegogo campaign page.

The post Frodo can be an interesting companion for your next adventure trip appeared first on TravHQ.

Online travel marketplace TravelTriangle recently surveyed its customers who booked international trips through the platform. They asked them to name the adventure activities that they would like to take up during their travel in the year 2016 and then put together a video of the activities that came out on top. The video was shared on their Facebook and YouTube and received much love from the followers.

If you are looking for some adventure activities for your next vacations, the video might give you some inspiration. Do check out the video below:

The video has already crossed over 87,000 views on the company’s Facebook page. Videos have emerged as one of the fastest growing formats for marketing and travel brands are increasingly putting more resources on creating inspirational videos.

You can check our list of 2015’s top travel industry YouTube videos here.

The post TravelTriangle has got some interesting ideas for adventure travellers appeared first on TravHQ.

I haven’t jumped off an airplane from 15,000 feet but I have learned from experienced people that there is hardly anything as thrilling. Most people describe it as an out of the world experience which pushes adrenaline beyond limits.

Sadly things have been more against skydiving in India than in favour of the activity. A number of skydiving centres in south India closed down over the past few years as there were issues over regulation and safety. Even when there were options available for people, it was cheaper and safer to fly to Dubai or any other international destination and try skydiving there than do the same in India.

WeFly seems to have a very interesting alternate to these problems. It was started by a dynamic duo, Mr. Amit Patel, who carries over two decades of experience in banking and finance and has multiple businesses across the globe, and Mr. Shailesh Kocharekar who is a professional scuba diver and has been involved in adventure sports for over a decade. We had a chat with Mr. Kocharekar to learn more about WeFly. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

How did it all start?

While travelling to Dubai on a business tour in 2013. One of my business colleagues had taken me to an Indoor skydiving facility in Mirdif City Centre Mall. We I took my 1^st flight with I-fly Dubai. It was an out of this world experience with my adrenaline was pushed beyond the limit. “It’s like jumping off an airplane at 15000 feet with no parachute in a 100% safe & secure environment”

Once back in India, I tried to find out more about Skydiving, however realized that due to couple of mishaps, Govt. of India had banned skydiving completely till date.

This ban on skydiving in India came as an opportunity knocking and thus generated the idea of importing indoor skydiving in India and since late 2014, Mr. Patel took the initiative of sourcing equipment, suppliers, machinery, legalities and other aspects related to introducing Aero sports in India.

What is the nature of customers you are getting?

Our users/ customers are widely divided in 4 separate category.

• Tourist and Locals – Our prime users are tourist, as the product is unique and is accepted as a tourist attraction by multiple Tourism departments. However we have also initiated to generate employment among locals as the entire project is MOBILE and can be moved from places to places in a span of few days.
• Recreational users – People interested in adventure sports, aero sports and high adrenaline sports. Youth and kids who would love to learn to FLY!!
• Skydiving Professionals – India has a huge number of skydiving professionals which is growing in numbers every day. However due to the ban on skydiving, they need to travel either to Singapore or Dubai to experience Human body flight OR Free Fall acceleration. We provide professional Level 4 -AFF training in India.
• Armed Forces training: Under a protocol for mid-air combat tactics (MACT). Swat and black cats need to undergo a special training, currently only given in USA and Russia. We provide the same service in-house.

What is the early traction?

We have adopted a business plan from the west. Since this business is new to India and we did not want to try too many things at the same time. Our capacity to fly users is up to 500 + users per day. However calculating the traction in early days we expect to fly just 150 users per day. The whole strategy is to choke the supply so the demand never falls.

We have been approached by Bollywood and Tollywood producers for leasing the equipment for shootings of super hero movies.

We have strong commitments from Armed forces for training their Jawans and possible installation of a few machines at their training centres PAN India.

Since we follow a systematic and advance booking policy, we are able to gauge the traction on coming days in advance and take appropriate action, to ensure maximum revenue generation.

Do you see any close competition?

Since we are pioneers in this LOB, as of now we do not see any competition. However considering the fact, that this a million dollar business globally, we will have competitors in the near future. We have sign a bond with our supplier for 3 years, wherein all inquiries from India for indoor skydiving machines will be diverted through Wefly Indoor Skydiving.

The fact that the machine takes 4-6 months for manufacturing (depending on the manufacturer and size of the machine). Wefly will have a head start for over a 1 year until competition arrives in Indian market.

Post arrival of competitor’s Wefly has a revised price and geographical strategy to be implemented.

What are your plans for the future?

• Franchise: Creating a Franchise model is one of the plan for future. Where in every major city would have a Human body flight experience.
• Installation of machinery for armed forces and AMC will be our prime focus
• B2B Partnership: We intent to tie up with various skydiving schools and academy in India for training of skydiving professional
• Corporates: Team building activities for corporates
• International IP – Annually “WORLD INDOOR SKYDIVING CHAMPIONSHIP” is a big intellectual Property and we want to get India on the board.

You can find more details or book with them through their website www.weflyindia.com.

The post WeFly offers a thrilling activity for travellers to experience this year appeared first on TravHQ.