u/Kabeer214

The problem. When you plan a Pakistan trip like Hunza or Skardu, you pick a budget and then have no way to compare what different agencies will give you for it. They are scattered across Instagram, every quote is different, there are no real reviews, and you end up booking whoever replies instead of the best option.

What I am building. The main feature is one place to compare tour packages from multiple agencies side by side in your budget, each with reviews from people who actually went, then book the best one for your needs. On top of that there is a route planner where you add the locations along a route and mark each as a spot to see or a place to stay. The routes are public, so people can follow ones experienced travellers have made to plan their own trip. And travellers can share their trip stories, how it went and how it could have been better.

How it makes money. I start fully manual. Match a traveller to the best operator for their budget, handle the deposit myself, and take roughly 8 to 15 percent from the operator. The traveller pays the same as going direct. No app needed to test it.

Why it could get big. I am starting with Pakistan because I have the network here and the pain is sharp, but the same comparison problem exists in most markets full of fragmented, opaque tour operators, so the model should carry over once it works here.

Honest questions. Would travellers actually use a comparison middleman like this? Would an operator hand over 5-10% percent for a confirmed, deposit paid booking? And what is the most likely reason the whole thing falls apart?

Every summer a bunch of us here plan a trip up north, Hunza, Skardu, Naran. The travelling is the easy part. Booking it from Karachi is the gamble. You pay for a flight to Islamabad or Skardu, then arrange the whole tour with operators you have never met two thousand kilometres away, with no reviews and no way to compare them in your budget to see who is actually giving you the best trip.

For anyone who has done it, did you compare a few agencies or just go with one? And how did you decide the price was fair?

I am building an app to take the guessing out of this. Put in your budget, compare packages from different agencies side by side with real reviews, and book the best one. It also has a route planner where you mark the stops along your route as either a spot to see or a place to stay, and because the routes are public you can follow ones experienced travellers have already made. So, would you actually use an app like this, or am I overthinking the problem?

Every summer friends ask me to help plan their Hunza or Skardu trip, and the travel is the easy part. The real headache is this. You have a budget in your head, and there is genuinely no way to compare what different agencies will give you for it. You message five or six on Instagram, every quote is different, you have no reviews to go on, and you end up going with whoever seems least sketchy instead of the trip that is actually the best use of your money.

So I started building an app to fix that. The main idea is you put in your budget and where you want to go, and you see tour packages from different agencies side by side, each with reviews from people who actually went. You compare them on price and on what others said, and book the one that fits what you want.

A couple of other things it does. There is a route planner where you add the locations along your route and mark each one as either a spot to see or a place to stay. The routes are public, so you can look through ones that experienced travellers have already made and follow them to plan your own trip and have a good experience. And people can share their trip stories on it, how it went and how it could have been better, so you learn from real experiences before you go.

For people who actually go up there: when you booked your last trip, did you compare agencies at all, or just go with one? And honestly would you use an app like this or would you still book the way you do now?