Our story

Built by a backpacker, for backpackers.

Madpackers began on the road and grew into hostels across India — all built on one stubborn belief: a hostel could be more than a place to sleep. It could be the reason strangers become friends.

Mayank, founder of Madpackers — **Mayank** · Founder, Madpackers

The founder

Meet Mayank.

Madpackers was founded by Mayank — someone who spent years on the road across India before he ever thought about running a business. He kept noticing the same thing in every town: the places that stayed with you weren’t the fanciest rooms. They were the ones where you met people.

So he set out to build exactly that. Not hotels that keep you to yourself, but hostels designed to bring you together — affordable, social, and always up for an adventure.

It started with one hostel in Delhi.

One rented floor, a handful of bunk beds, and a “common room” that was really just a corridor with cushions and a speaker. Mayank ran the front desk, cooked when the cook didn’t show up, and stayed up till 2am talking to whoever walked in — the German cyclist, the couple on their honeymoon budget, the guy who came for one night and left after two weeks.

Delhi is where the whole idea got tested. Travellers landing in India for the first time, jet-lagged and a little overwhelmed, would walk in as strangers and, by breakfast, be splitting an auto to the railway station together. That was the moment it clicked: the room didn’t matter. The people did. Get a bunch of good humans under one roof, give them a reason to talk, and the rest takes care of itself.

The belief that came out of that first Delhi hostel was simple: a backpacker in every home.

One hostel became a handful. A handful became a network across the mountains, cities, beaches and pilgrim towns of India — from Kasol and Manali in the hills to Goa on the coast, Rishikesh and Varanasi by the river, and the old cities of Rajasthan.

Every property still carries the same DNA as that Delhi corridor: a common room that does the introducing, a team that actually lives where you’re headed, and a calendar full of treks, jam nights and shared dinners. Dorms for the solo traveller counting rupees, private rooms for when you want your own door — but always, the same community waiting downstairs.

“We didn’t want to build hotels. We wanted to build belonging.”

Today Madpackers is still guided by the line it started with. Every new hostel we open, every trek we run, every stranger who checks in alone and leaves with a group chat — that’s the mission, working exactly as intended.

The road brought us here. We’re just making sure there’s always a home at the end of it.

The team