Waari redefines experiential travel by focusing on community-led journeys, cultural immersion, and responsible tourism.
Waari travellers in Kerala participate in cultural visits, craft interactions, and community experiences.
As travel rebounds with a renewed focus on meaningful experiences, Waari is emerging as a brand that prioritizes connection over convenience. The experiential travel company designs journeys that go beyond sightseeing, offering travelers a chance to engage deeply with local cultures and communities.
Waari’s itineraries are built around authentic experiences, heritage walks, culinary traditions, and local interactions, that allow travelers to experience destinations from the inside out. The emphasis is on storytelling, learning, and immersion rather than fast-paced travel.
What sets Waari apart is its strong community involvement. Across destinations, the company collaborates with local hosts, artisans, and guides, ensuring tourism benefits the people who bring destinations to life.
Waari’s origins trace back to founder Maruti Musmade, whose relationship with travel began over four decades ago. Starting his career with the Indian Railways in 1983, extensive exposure to people, landscapes, and cultures across the country shaped a fundamental insight: meaningful travel is defined by human connection, not checklists.
That philosophy gradually evolved into Waari, a brand built on transparency, responsibility, innovation, and a customer-first mindset. Instead of standardized tour packages, Waari curates journeys with intent, each itinerary anchored by a Waari Signature Experience™, designed to reflect the cultural essence of the destination while adhering to international service benchmarks.
“We don’t sell packages, we craft stories people carry home,” the leadership emphasizes.
Waari’s differentiation is most visible in how it integrates local culture, people, and livelihoods into every itinerary it curates. Across destinations, experiences are designed to move beyond surface-level sightseeing, ensuring travelers engage meaningfully with communities, traditions, and everyday life.
Waari works closely with local communities and institutions to design immersive, community-led experiences. The company collaborates with tourism bodies, local institutions, and community stakeholders across domestic and international destinations to promote responsible tourism practices, embedding community-led experiences directly into its travel programs.
One such initiative is Waari’s half-day village immersion in Kerala, conducted entirely by local residents. Travelers participate in toddy tapping, coir making, leaf weaving, traditional cooking, and backwater life, ensuring tourism income flows directly into the local economy.
According to Mr. Rupesh Kumar, CEO, Responsible Tourism Mission, Government of Kerala, “Responsible Tourism is about ensuring tourism benefits reach the grassroots. When companies like Waari integrate community-led activities such as toddy tapping, coir making, and village life experiences, they create economic dignity for local families while preserving cultural heritage. Waari, along with Rishikesh and Gayatri, has played a meaningful role in promoting these initiatives responsibly, by respecting local systems, educating travelers, and ensuring that tourism income flows directly back into the community.”
This approach positions Waari’s tourism model as a form of indirect CSR, where community engagement and cultural preservation are embedded into the business itself rather than treated as add-ons. By integrating local artisans, hosts, and micro-entrepreneurs into its itineraries, Waari ensures that economic value is distributed at the grassroots level. The impact is structural rather than symbolic, tourism becomes a tool for long-term participation and dignity, not short-term consumption.
A Framework-Driven Approach to Experience Design
Behind Waari’s curated journeys is a structured five-step curation framework that combines research, verification, creativity, and operational discipline.
The process begins with deep destination research, what the company calls “becoming travel scholars”, followed by on-ground verification of hotels, routes, and experiences. It then moves into creative itinerary design, direct negotiations with partners (eliminating middlemen), and thoughtful matching of like-minded travelers, particularly for group journeys.
This framework allows Waari to balance comfort, pacing, and cultural depth, an approach that resonates with its core traveler base of discerning professionals, entrepreneurs, senior travelers, and families, typically aged 35 and above, who prioritize peace of mind and meaningful engagement over rushed sightseeing.
Balancing Indian Sensibilities with Global Standards
Waari operates across the Indian Subcontinent, as well as destinations spanning Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. Its global expansion strategy is guided not by popularity metrics, but by cultural richness and experiential depth.
Consistency across geographies is maintained through strict partner vetting, trained tour managers, standardized service protocols, and continuous feedback loops, ensuring Indian travelers receive familiar care and trust while experiencing global benchmarks in safety, planning, and execution.
This positioning aligns with broader post-pandemic travel trends, where travelers increasingly seek purpose, wellness, and emotional renewal. Waari’s response has been to design slower, richer journeys, fewer destinations, deeper engagement.
Leadership on Responsibility and Legacy
For Waari’s leadership, travel is as much about responsibility as it is about discovery.
Founder Maruti Musmade, says, “Every traveler invests time and money to realize their dream journey. It is solely our responsibility to perfect every detail and create unforgettable experiences, ensuring every moment of your journey is worth the investment.”
Director Rishikesh Musmade adds, “Our purpose is to connect you to our vast world. Make new friends, get inspired by the destination, its people and their stories. Escape the ordinary and embark on transformative experiences. Explore not only the world outside, but the one within you!”
Chief Executive Officer Gayatri Gawde Musmade frames the philosophy more pointedly: “When we travel, we often think about what we’ll take back, memories, photographs, rest, and rejuvenation. But travel must also ask a deeper question: what are we giving back to the destination?
At Waari, we believe true luxury lies in giving back, through thoughtful travel that honours local cultures, supports communities, and leaves every destination richer for having hosted us.”
As experiential travel gains momentum globally, Waari’s ambition is clear, to become the first name that comes to mind when travel shifts from a logistical decision to an emotional impulse. Over the next three to five years, the company plans to scale its Signature Experiences across geographies while deepening collaborations with local curators, cultural custodians, and boutique hospitality partners worldwide.
Alongside expansion, Waari is investing in narrative-led itinerary design and stronger on-ground partnerships that preserve authenticity at scale. In an industry increasingly defined by personalization and purpose, Waari is positioning itself at the intersection of emotion, culture, and thoughtfully designed travel.
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