Explore the World By Foot with Walkli

Jeff Peo, Founder & CEO of Walkli, helps travelers to explore the world on foot. It is an online platform offering map-based self-guided tours to explore by foot.

Jeff Peo is a part of the Travel Massive Boston chapter building up Walkli, which is in an early-stage. It is a social travel company aimed at bringing sightseeing into the 21st century.

In support of Jeff’s passion, we thought it’d be neat to share a little more information with Travel Massive readers.

Walking the Old City Walls, Dubrovnik, Croatia | Photo Credit: Walkli

Who is Walkli for?

Walkli is for the traveler who wants to explore a destination on foot, who believes that a city has more to offer than its major attractions, and who is interested in a social approach to local tourism. It may seem pretty niche but we feel that there are a lot of travelers out there who meet those criteria – we certainly do!

What gap did you find in the travel industry that inspired you to create this startup?

Much of the travel industry has leveraged technology to make planning travel easier. However, sightseeing has lagged behind and we were finding that the best information about a destination wasn’t available until after we arrived. We wanted to change that.

How did you build your startup?

I had a bit of money saved up from my previous job, but not enough to hire a full time development team so we contracted out much of the tech work while we focused on strategy and design. Getting the MVP launched with an outsourced team was an iterative process, but also one that helped us learn a lot.  Now that we’ve reached some key technology milestones, we’ve been able to shift resources towards marketing and content development.

Strolling Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong | Photo Credit: Walkli

What makes your startup different from other similar startups out there?

There are two things that make Walkli fundamentally different than other travel startups.  First, because we’re map-based, our focus is primarily in bringing to light all the things a city has to offer between the well-known sites.  Second, we’re 100% social.  All the content on walkli is created by its users.  In a way, it’s an online version of the common room of a hostel where travelers trade information on destinations they’ve been to.

How did you get your startup off the ground and gaining traction?

We knew that building a content library would be the key to success, so we’ve focused a lot of our early effort in reaching out to organizations that may have incentives to utilize our site.  We’ve also leveraged Facebook and Instagram as low-cost marketing tools to reach potential users.

Travel Massive is about empowering change in travel. How is your startup changing the future of the industry or helping to make travel better?

Our goal is to change how people plan travel by:

1. Reducing the stress of planning sightseeing in a new city by making practical destination information available prior booking travel.
2. Encouraging people to truly engage with their destination by exploring on foot and seeing the city between the landmark sites.
3. Providing both locals and visitors an opportunity to share their experiences with travelers interested in learning more about a destination.

Exploring the Street Art Scene, Berlin, Germany| Photo Credit: Walkli

As a startup, what benefits have you seen from being a part of Travel Massive meetups?

Travel Massive meetups are a great way for early-stage startups like Walkli to pressure test their ideas and network within the travel community.  We recently attended a meetup in Boston where we met a travel blogger who shared insights on their motivations and how we can position Walkli to be a resource to the blogger community.  We also formed a relationship with a hostel director that has led to a potential partnership.

Travel Start-Up is a monthly series that profiles unique online travel start-ups in the Travel Massive community around the world. You can connect with Jeff and Walkli on Travel Massive, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.