The new tripbod.com arrives

2011 is a momentous year for tripbod.com. The culmination of many years hard work, passion, drive and commitment by so many is embodied in the newly launched tripbod.com.

True to the original ethos, tripbod.com provides a unique way to experience the world by connecting with like-minded people in your destination and creating truly meaningful experiences - experiences as original as you are.

Who knows how the year will end - we'd just love you to join us on the next step of this journey...

More about tripbod.com

Growth, exploration and evolution

We were delighted to find that at launch tripbod.com was already being picked up by press the world over, with customers telling us "I could not have had this experience without this wonderful local Tripbod - thank you".

But something else was happening too - travellers and Tripbods were regularly meeting up offline, doing wonderful local things together and generally having a great time. Wait a minute, we thought, we need to get out of the way and let Tripbods and travellers decide what our offering should be.

With a new founding team there seemed no better time to take the next big step...

The birth of the Tripbod tribe

Throughout 2009 we canvassed many opinions and realised there was indeed a gap in the independent travel market that needed a bridge - between the choice of going solo and joining a group tour, with nothing in between. It wasn't just about gap years and volunteering, it was about travel in general...

So in September 2009 the first tripbod.com ecosystem was launched to test a very simple offering - a place where anyone could connect online with a trusted, like-minded local expert to help plan the perfect trip.

Testing the local connection

Your Safe Planet soon became a leading voice in ethical gap years and volunteering, helping people who wanted to volunteer and travel responsibly connect with wonderful local experts. Sally was invited to blog for the Guardian on ethical travel and the company was nominated for many responsible tourism awards. This was, indeed, a better way to travel and we weren't the only ones who thought so.

Sally has a dream...

'There has to be a better way' she thought. Wanting to volunteer at the grass roots was harder than expected, and ended in forking out a lot of hard-earned cash to join projects that felt disconnected with the locale.

But thankfully there was a better way, and Your Safe Planet was born as a collection of like-minded locals across the globe who could help young travellers bypass the middlemen, plan truly authentic gap years and connect with grass roots volunteer programmes. Little did Sally know then that this was about to become something much bigger...