Six years on the road, before day one in the office
Aayush Shah didn't stumble into travel. It's the one thing he always knew he wanted to do. Six years as a tour manager, at least six months of every year abroad, and a founder's rule that hasn't changed since April 2025: he plans or personally reviews every single trip that leaves this company.
Aayush Shah
- Years as tour manager
- 6Years as tour manager
- Months travelling per year
- 6+Months travelling per year
- B'yond the Clouds founded
- 2025B'yond the Clouds founded
“I don't sell a destination. I sell what I experienced there.
The first years were the ones that taught the most. Managing groups means you are the first person awake and the last one asleep: you learn a city by solving problems in it, not by touring it. Which pharmacy is open on a Sunday in Lucerne. Which entrance at the Vatican moves. Which train you can miss and still make dinner.
That knowledge doesn't come from a supplier catalogue. It comes from being there in February and again in July, from the trip where everything went right and the one where a strike closed the rail network and the day had to be rebuilt by lunchtime.
B'yond the Clouds exists to put that knowledge into trips that other people take. The company stays deliberately small so it can, because the moment itineraries get written by someone who hasn't been there, it becomes every other travel agency.
Six years, then a company
Nothing about B'yond the Clouds was planned in an office. Every part of how it works came from something that happened on a trip.
- 2019
First season as a tour manager
Europe, back-to-back departures, and a very fast education in what a group actually needs from the person leading it.
- 2020 – 2021
The years travel stopped
Time spent studying routes, suppliers and seasonality properly: the unglamorous groundwork that most of this job is built on.
- 2022 – 2024
Asia, and the long routes
Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia added to the map, plus the Iceland Ring Road and the Central European rail circuit.
- April 2025
B'yond the Clouds
Founded with one rule: plan only what you know first-hand, and sell the experience rather than the destination.
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