A wise man once said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read only a page” (this man was St. Augustine, FYI). You’d know this to be true, even if you’ve simply put your little toe outside of big city life, got a whiff of the forest or felt the bumps in the path that wasn’t ever there. While it’s easy for many people bitten by the travel bug to simply pack their bags and head off into the unknown, some may need a little more help. Most times, the difficulty lies in finding someone who understands the vision you have for your travel, and helping you set foot on the path best suited for you. For the ones looking for adventure, and wanting to be part of a community that holds travel at the core of their being, Byond Travel is exactly what you’ve been looking for.

The story begins (as so many seem to) when Vikram Ahuja went to Burning Man for the very first time. Looking back at the experience that changed his life in more ways than one, Vikram says, “The whole idea of travelling with a bunch of strangers and having amazing experiences built on shared interests and passions, and the strength of those connections is a lot stronger than if you were doing it either by yourself or with people who might not share those similar interests with you. That’s where the idea stemmed from.” And thus, the company was born.

Byond initially started with personalized travel to destinations unexplored, but found it difficult to get people to actually go on the journey. “A lof ot the time people weren’t comfortable doing this alone or just didn’t have the right company to do this with - that’s when we picked up on the idea of bringing like minded people together,” Vikram explains. They found that ‘Women Only’ travel appeared to be the need of the hour, as a lot of women wanted to travel - not necessarily with their partners, but not alone either. This created a flagship segment, which acted as a gateway to the rest of the market in a way. Soon to follow were people willing to go on self drive road trips, and Byond Travel wanted to move away from standard weekend trips to longer trips across diverse terrain. They’ve also done a trip with senior citizens, taking into account that they may not have the chance to meet as many new people and are still active and ready for adventure.

So what is it exactly that they do, you wonder? Vikram says, “The travel aspect is really important so we want to make sure that we’re not only bringing people together but we’re able to give them an experience that they will remember. We go from end to end - we either start off with an experience that we want to do ourselves, or we’ll be working with someone who is an influencer in the community and find something that they want to do. For example, in 2016 we did the first ever India-Bangkok road trip.” This trip routed across the new asian highway took the team over 6 months to plan every facet of the adventure, making them the first travel company to plan an expedition on this route. End to end is right - Byond Travel will find you the most specialised experiences, from Cigar making in Cuba to Salsa classes from the land of salsa itself, trust that you will be in good hands.

Unlike regular travel companies that focus solely on the destination, Byond Travel takes into account the entire experience, and often centers their travels around one major experience. For instance, travel and the practice of yoga is a growing segment, and they work with Total Yoga in Bangalore to plan immersive retreats at Dharamshala, Ladakh and Sikkim to name a few. This year they are planning an expedition to the Sun Festival for a week of yoga, meditation and trekking. This goes to show a lot of travel is stemming from lifestyle choices rather than merely destination oriented travel.

Staying true to the name, Vikram and his team curate a property called “Lime Diaries” which is essentially a storytelling platform. The purpose of this is to share stories, tricks of the trade and experiences that bolster the community to grow. “We’ve done something called ‘Love on the Road’ (around valentines day last year) and we had one person from the audience who came up and spoke about finding love in India as a homosexual foreigner” Vikram tells us. Opening up to the LGBTQ community of Bangalore, and India at large, Byond’s idea is to work with local pride groups and incorporate travel as a shared experience by all, and give like minded people a chance to go on an adventure free of judgement and baggage.

This week, Byond Travel is launching one of their big firsts - travel through the VR experience. Vikram told us that “one of our colleagues travels the world for 18 months documenting and capturing about 70 countries with a goal to create the world’s largest bank of VR content in travel. For us, virtual reality will be the future of multiple industries including travel and in addition to it giving travellers an ability to immerse themselves in a location before they actually travel, for us it’s way to continue on in our mission to make travel more inclusive and perhaps letting those who might not get the chance to travel get a feel for what it’s like. Think those who are aged, disabled, ill or with a fear.” Their videos on the Masai Mara Migration, Yoga at Pangong Lake and Jordan are most definitely worth a watch.

For 2017, Byond Travel has got a variety of trips in store such as ‘Jordan to Jerusalem’, ‘Egypt and the Eternal Nile’, ‘Peru and the Lost City of the Incas’ to name a few.

If you haven’t made summer plans as yet, we reckon you should check their website out, and get onboard one of the adventures.