Travel With Purpose: Meet The Man Behind Tours That Empower And Inspire

Built around a 'simple philosophy' which it would be unfair to say isn't every bit as profound, No Footprints revolves around bringing, unconcealing and uncovering community-based stories and cultural practices that run the peril of erasure owing to mindless urbanisation and advancement, so to speak. The co-founder of No Footprints, Harshwardhan Tanwar, takes an anti-prologue and traces that “the journey began with a 5 am tour no one believed would work.”When “Mumbai by Dawn” was launched at the cusp of 2013 and 2014, the very notion of curated, hyper-local experiences had yet to find a foothold, what with the lack of heritage walk culture and its sparsity. At the time, Mumbai was largely viewed as a city people passed through, Tanwar says,— rarely a destination in itself. To complicate matters, the inbound tourism industry operated on the idea of comfort and convenience. A tour requiring guests to wake before sunrise felt, to many in the field, implausible, and to some degree, unfounded and torturous.But Tanwar and his team felt otherwise and persevered. They saw in Mumbai a kind of restless vitality that began long before the morning light. “We wanted to create something that reflected this spirit — something that brought together stories of indigenous culture, food systems, migration, and the city’s vast supply chain,” he says. The challenge wasn’t in the storytelling. It was in getting anyone to sign up.For four months, there were no takers, Tanwar recalls. Pitches to trade partners led nowhere. The idea teetered on the edge of failure. “I even considered going back to my old job in advertising,” Tanwar confesses. Then, almost by chance, a friend of a friend—a currency of relation among strangers so rewarding in metropolitans—agreed to come along. Tanwar made him an offer: if he enjoyed the experience, he could simply pay for the transport. If not, they would never speak of it again and forget it like a bad dream.The guest turned out to be a travel writer—someone whose opinions held weight long before the age of social media influencers, paid promotions and partnerships and views-for-hire redefined reach. He was deeply impressed and wrote about the tour. Himself immersed in the field of tourism and hospitality, his reaction was that of profuse elation as it was “the best thing he had done across all his travels,” Tanwar reminisces. From there on, everything changed: inquiries poured in, phone lines buzzed, bookings brimmed, the name was out there in the scene and soon the same B2B partners who had initially declined were helping amplify the tour’s visibility.From that single turning point, No Footprints grew. Today, the company runs over 50 experiences across Mumbai, Delhi, and Jaipur, and has hosted more than 45,000 guests. But at its core, the ethos hasn’t shifted: community remains central to every tour, every narrative, Tanwar says.Community Narrative At The CentreHim and his partner Eesha Singh built the organisation with the belief that no experience should be created without the involvement and consent of the people whose stories are being told. “They are not just part of the story — they are the core of it,” Tanwar says.In places like Matharpacady, the team has worked directly with the residents’ associations. In Worli Village, the Koli community has actively informed and shaped the storytelling. Every aspect—from research to design—is community-led, Tanwar explains. The “Queer Day Out” tour is a case in point: conceived and built in partnership with a queer individual, and continuously led by queer voices, the experience is rooted in collaboration, not commentary. And here’s the rub.Unlike your usual queer joy heritage and city tours, these tours go beyond static historical references. “All our research begins with conversations at the grassroots level,” Tanwar explains. The questions aren’t just about legacy, but about contemporary reality—how gentrification is reshaping spaces, how traditions are evolving, what struggles are ongoing, and what often gets omitted from the mainstream narrative.One such example along different lines, however, is the Kebab and Curry Walk. It wasn’t created from a list of popular eateries, but from a dialogue with Bohri restaurateurs. They directed the team to places they personally frequented—spots steeped in community memory, not just commercial fame. Those insights made the tour both intimate, authentic and rooted.Among the more complex and singularly fruity offerings from No Footprints is the “Queer Day Out” tour. Its genesis lay in a shared moment of introspection. If community representation was central to their work, why had they not yet created something centred around queer voices?Mumbai, Tanwar points out, carries a queer history that is both visible and veiled—expressed in its art, its movements, its nightlife, and its public spaces. As research began, Tanwar recalls, the gaps became evident. Existing tours labelled “queer-friendly” often had little to do with queer lives or narratives.Collaborations That MatterIn response, they partnered with a queer activist to build something from the ground up. The collaboration shaped everything: tone, content, route. The resulting tour delves into urban transgender experiences, intersections of caste and class in queer fashion, the history of pride movements, and even the politics of cruising—not in whispered tones, but as a crucial part of the city’s queer subculture. “It’s helped tourists understand how queer people have negotiated visibility, safety, and intimacy in a city like Mumbai,” the co-founder of No Footprints notes with much pride. Workshops, performances, and zine-making have since become integral parts of the experience, expanding the narrative to include both resilience and joy.“Created by queer folks, for queer folks,” Tanwar says of the tour, “and led by queer voices.” The response, both from the community and travellers, has affirmed its significance.The same commitment has shaped No Footprints’s expansion into Delhi and Jaipur. Singh, who led this extension, immersed herself in building relationships from the ground up. In Delhi, for instance, guests now walk into a 200-year-old perfumery, a “space with deep roots in the city’s Mughal history” where guests whip up their own fragrance “under the guidance of the eighth-generation perfumer. It’s intimate, hands-on, and full of history”, Tanwar delineates. Elsewhere, marginalised women conduct art workshops, and traditional calligraphers are given platforms to demonstrate their craft—and earn from it.But as the company grows, so does the urgency. “Cities are changing faster than we can tell their stories,” Tanwar notes with urgency. The pace of gentrification, demolition, and displacement means that entire neighbourhoods, entire ways of life, are vanishing within months. “We’re just a small tour company,” he adds, “but if we can bring awareness—even one tour at a time—maybe we can help people see the value in preserving what’s left.”It is this mission that earned No Footprints accolades such as the WTM Global Award for Inclusion and Diversity. Tanwar doesn’t downplay the validation. “Running a small setup comes with its fair share of stress—you’re constantly putting out fires,” he says. Recognition, when it comes, helps them stay on track. “It reminds us we’re on the right path. And yes, it motivates us—to keep going, to keep telling stories that matter.”What Is The Way Forward?Looking ahead, Tanwar is clear-eyed about the path forward. They hope to deepen collaborations with communities, make better use of social media to raise awareness rather than just sell tours, and focus more intently on stories of resilience. The team is also looking to work with organisations that can help them measure their cultural impact — a notoriously difficult task, but one they believe is vital.Perhaps most significantly, they want to share what they’ve learned. Plans are underway to build mentorship and training programmes for future travel entrepreneurs — a chance to pass on not just a model, but a way of working that places integrity above convenience.Because for No Footprints, the work has never just been about tours. It has always been about people — and the stories that risk being forgotten if they’re not told now.Ice, Ink, And Identity: Meet Noor Jahan, The Woman Saving Ladakh's Artistic Heritage