Introduction
When Shikhar Chadha was in college, he ran a backpacker hostel that hosted more than 1,000 travellers from over 80 countries. That front-row seat to how people explore the world made him realise that the problem wasn’t finding inspiration to travel. The problem was actually planning the trip.
Travellers were jumping between blogs, booking platforms, review sites, and maps, spending weeks trying to piece together a holiday. It was scattered and stressful. The inspiration was there. The execution wasn’t.
After exiting the hostel, Shikhar Chadha moved into experiential travel, curating immersive journeys where travellers stayed with villagers, learned traditional crafts, and volunteered with local communities. Some people started asking for personalized itineraries. Custom travel plans were growing in demand.
What Tarzan Way actually does
Planning a complex holiday, especially across multiple countries, can take over 40 hours and hundreds of pages of research. Europe alone has 29 countries, each with different visa rules, transport systems, and pricing structures. Most AI tools stop at inspiration. Tarzan Way focuses on execution.
The platform combines AI with human travel specialists. The technology handles intelligent design and optimisation. Humans bring cultural understanding, empathy, and real-time problem solving. If something goes wrong mid-trip, travellers don’t have to chase multiple providers. Support is there to sort it out. The goal is a seamless, bookable, end-to-end trip tailored to the traveller’s budget and style, with live support along the way.
Going where mainstream platforms don’t
Because Tarzan Way’s roots are in community-driven travel, its network includes remote villages, fishing communities, local artisans, and grassroots operators that simply don’t appear on mainstream booking platforms. Planning a trip to a remote Indian village? That’s well within scope.
The hard part of building from scratch
Shikar Chadha is candid about the challenges and he says, “For a first-time founder in India, access to the right investors, mentors, and networks isn’t evenly distributed. The startup ecosystem tends to reward pattern recognition, and when you don’t fit an obvious mold, you have to prove yourself over and over again.”
Despite that, Tarzan Way has raised $250,000 from investors including Inflection Point Ventures, We Founder Circle, and Prateek Maheshwari, along with a $25,000 grant from JSS STEP. The company has also received support from Meta and NSTEDB.
What keeps the founder going
Startups don’t transform overnight, but looking back at steady progress, watching something that once only existed in your head become real and trusted by travellers and investors, that’s what makes it worthwhile.
Shikhar Chadha says, “If you care deeply about a problem then you must start. Don’t wait for perfect clarity. Clarity comes from action. Momentum matters more than perfection. And conviction compounds over time.”
Interview by : Khevna Reddy
