How we started
A two-desk houseboat booking office, grown by referral
Travela opened in 2007 out of a single room near Dal Lake, booking houseboats for backpackers who'd found us through word of mouth. There was no marketing budget — every booking came because someone's trip went well enough that they told a friend.
That's still how most of our business arrives. We've added Ladakh, Rajasthan, Kerala and eight more circuits since, but the test for any new route is the same one we used in 2007: would we send our own family on it?
