Why I'm building MyTenzing.

The gap I kept noticing

I've spent the last 14 years backpacking across more than 80 countries, and taken a lot of tours along the way. Somewhere in there, I noticed something was missing.

There's Hostelworld for hostels, Airbnb for homes, Uber, Didi, and BlaBlaCar for rides, dating apps for people — but finding a guide still means going through an agency, a generic listing on GetYourGuide, or whoever a hostel happens to know.

Mismatches that stuck with me

On the Annapurna Circuit, I watched a warm, chatty guide get paired with a traveler who just wanted quiet time in nature — they got along fine as people, but not as hiking partners. On the Ha Giang Loop, my 6'4", muscular friend was handed to a guide who mostly rode with 18-year-olds — neither was thrilled from the moment they met. They crashed later that trip, and both were hurt. In the jungles of Sumatra, I had a guide who was lovely but physically couldn't keep pace with me, when all I wanted was to move quickly.

What agencies don't tell you

None of this was really anyone's fault — the agencies just don't build in the choice. And it gets worse: I later learned how little of what I paid actually reached the guide, sometimes barely a fraction, split across the whole group. That never sat right with me.

Why Nepal, why now

Platforms like Airbnb and Uber transformed how we choose homes and rides. I couldn't understand why nobody had done the same for guides — people who often have specific skills and passions worth matching to, whether that's storytelling, photography, or even ornithology, if that happens to be your thing.

I'm starting in Nepal, where treks run long enough that compatibility genuinely matters, and where I met some of the best guides of my life — usually just after I'd already booked with someone else. MyTenzing is the version of this trip planning I wish existed before I ever set foot on the trail.