Startup ScoutMyTrip helps you plan your road travel and also make hotel bookings

How many times has a traveller spent time on a trip not knowing of little-known spots of interest or treks that could be undertaken to traverse a spot more intimately? A startup, ScoutMyTrip aims to help the wanderlust traveller with nuggets of information which is usually known to locals in the area. It will also create a product tailored for travel enthusiasts, if they want one. The beta version launched recently will enable a traveler to plan a road trip between any two points across India. You can also plan your halts on your journey, multiple routes to the same place, interesting places – the site has over 10,000 of them, hotels through Agoda and Booking.com. It also takes care of the nitty gritties that every traveler is confounded with – gas stations and toilets along the way. It also has travel plans that travelers have chosen and you could follow on that trail as well. It has already found 2,000 users and over 600 trips have been created by travel enthusiasts through the platform. Post the beta-version, ScoutMyTrip will add a community of road trip experts who can help with tips, suggestions and the like. [caption id=“attachment_3191090” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Deepak Ananth (left) and Vineet Rajan, co-founders, ScoutMyTrip[/caption] Founded by two Mumbai-based avid travelers – Deepak Ananth (39) and Vineet Rajan (32), who met know each other through their love for going on rides on their Royal Enfield bikes and cars traversing the country – the roadtrip planner startup was launched in October 2016. Ananth worked in the payment space earlier while Rajan has co-founded Indieblogger which he has exited. “We love travelling,” says Ananth, co-founder and CEO, citing the reason for founding the startup. “We want to share our experience with travel enthusiasts like us and hence ScoutMyTrip.” That is the reason the duo decided to help people with hotels, too. “ScoutMyTrip is basically an information portal that makes travel easy and accessible for anyone,” says Ananth. The business model is multi-fold, says Ananth. Every time a traveler books a hotel through the site, the site gets a commission. The company plans to connect travelers with people who want to travel on any particular vehicle. It also will facilitate customized tour packages. Since it is a community-driven site, there are pools of local community in any area of travel that can also be reached out to for suggestions and tips.

ScoutMyTrip was selected amongst the top 13 start-ups in India by Z Nation Labs, a Silicon Valley initiated accelerator program for its boot-camp connecting them with the best in the start-up and investor community globally.

The duo claim that they are competitors in the space but none of them have a `community’ program like they do which they consider to be their USP. “We have a database of 12,000 points of interest in the country ranging from heritage spots to beautiful treks, places of worship and many other interesting spots that most people do not frequent or explore on a trip." ScoutMyTrip is now talking to angels and want to get on board experts on every aspect of travel. According to HolidayIQ, 60 percent of all holidays are road trips, a sector that ScoutMyTrip wants to make a difference with their product offering. According to the Ministry of Tourism, the holiday market for road trip is around $136 billion. ScoutMyTrip has its eye on a share of $8 billion. “We take this estimate deliberately for ourselves as though there are three other players on the road trip segment, we are ahead of them in terms of an outreach that is organic and our presence on social media, a large community base across India and that we do not do curated travel or specialize in only one segment in a region like they do.”