The Doi Host
The Doi Host

The Himalayas

‘Doi’ is Kumaoni for traveller and The Doi Host is a young outfit launched by writer-photographer duo, Disha Kapkoti and Sambit Dattachaudhuri, to take adventutrous travellers on curated road trips to far flung locales in the Indian Himalayas.

Doi symbolises going back to small villages and towns and reconnecting with people who are silent upholders of an inspiring past in this modern day and age. The trips are a way of providing employment opportunities for locals living in remote regions in the Himalayas through sustainable tourism. The outfit designs trips through collaboration with the local community. On the trips, guests stay in small homestays, try local cuisines, visit offbeat spots, and collaborate with local travel guides who are always proud to give travellers an insight into their own culture.

The trips are fixed departure tours, with Disha and Sambit travelling with each group. The group size is never more than nine.

The tours are varied. The North Sikkim road trip in November 2019 is an adventure tour to quite a remote part of the state with halts in Lachung, Yumthang valley, Yumesamdong, Lachen, Gurudongmar Lake and Gangtok. The Sikkim-Darjeeling Homestay Hop, on the other hand, gives an insider’s experience of Darjeeling and places like Ravangla, Yuksom, Khecheopalri and Martam in Sikkim as the halts and the route are planned around great homestays. (Read more about the trip here: https://www.responsibletourismindia.com/trips/sikkim-darjeeling-homestay-hop/322)

Price: Rs 25,000 per person per trip. 

Read more: https://thedoihost.com/


<h3>Slow Travel</h3>

Slow Travel

The Doi Host collaborates with local homestay and hotel owners, drivers, and guides so tourism benefits the locals of the region. The outfit believes that there’s no other way to travel than to travel responsibly. So they have a strict zero-waste policy on trips. They have collaborated with a women's self help group called Durga Jaivik at Pawalgarh in Uttarakhand that supplies waste bags for each trip for the guests to collect and carry all the trash in. The group size is restricted to nine as small groups make travel sustainable and ethical to the places and people who live there.