Beyond the Tourist Traps: Tripshepherd Connects You With Authentic Local Adventures

by William Jones / ⠀Travel / April 28, 2025

Tripshepherd is transforming the adventure travel niche with an app launch scheduled for May 1, 2025. By the end of the year, the travel experience app plans to launch in Niagara Falls (Canada), Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Miami, Bali, Bangkok, and Ho Chi Minh City. The travel experience app is designed to help small touring companies support local tourism by providing a unique platform for the travel creator community to post travelogues and connect with others.

Tripshepherd has a small team with extensive first-hand experience and industry knowledge. Its clear vision is to reform the global travel industry and promote others with the same goals. The app fosters a community-driven initiative that encourages unique travel experiences while learning about local cultures and sharing these experiences with others.

Empowering the Underdogs—Uplifting Local Guides and Hidden Gems

Tripshepherd is a travel experience booking app that addresses the problem of local niche experiences competing with large tour companies. The app’s straightforward answer is that it empowers the underdogs by providing them a platform, marketing, and, sometimes, funds to get their businesses noticed. Daud Grewal, the app’s CEO, knows what it’s like to be the underdog. He founded his tour company, See Sight Tours, while still in high school. Not long after, the tour was ranked #1 on TripAdvisor in 2012 for Best Niagara Falls Tour. Backed by this success, Daud is launching the travel creator community alongside Brandon Mimms, who is spearheading the Marketing Team, in Niagara Falls, Canada. The local team looks forward to launching their initiative at the Power Station and bringing their dream to life.

Overcoming Obstacles

Due to limited content, Tripshepherd has faced challenges finding unique experiences to feature on its platform and scaling them effectively. The team is overcoming these obstacles by researching new methods of finding experienced hosts through Reddit and Facebook subgroups, job boards, competitor sites, and word of mouth. It also produces content to reach potential hosts. To overcome the limited content on the niche adventure booking app, the team relies on reviews from influencers and hosts with whom they already have agreements while posting travel-related articles on LinkedIn and Substack to position themselves as thought leaders.

What Makes Tripshepherd Different

Tripshepherd is more than just a travel app. The platform is built to uplift overlooked, authentic experiences and empower the people behind them. Unlike competitors that spotlight big-name operators, Tripshepherd connects travelers with hidden gems curated by locals and creators. Users can upload short-form video content, share their unique experiences, and get paid when others book through their posts. With AI-powered personalization, the travel creators’ platform tailors recommendations to individual preferences. The idea is to make the discovery more innovative, meaningful, and community-driven.

Looking Ahead

Daud and his team envision Tripshepherd as a travel necessity that users turn to for booking experiences on upcoming trips and travel inspiration. The app aims to reform travel as a deeper way to understand the world’s cultures and its communities by sharing what makes each city unique and uplifting the local people who “wear their city’s colors with pride. Stay Connected: Website: tripshepherd.com Social: @tripshepherd Media Contact: Natalie Janvary (Social Media & Communication Specialist) nataliej@tripshepherd.com (716) 299-9378