Neeraj Narayanan, a.k.a Captain Nero, is the founder of OHOT. He has been to 43 countries so far, and his interviews and story have been published by many brands. He has been a two time TEDx speaker, and with National Geographic Adventure as well.
In the summer of 2013, he quit his corporate job and went backpacking around the world. In a year full of (mis)adventures, he ended up being chased by a bear in a Croatian forest, being held at gunpoint by a mafia gang lord in Turkey, running with the bulls in Spain, and dancing in the clubs of Spain and Italy. A year later, he started leading group trips for people.
On Captain Nero’s trips, you will see him pushing people to try doing new or mad things – a midnight walk in the mountains to a stream, dancing in the middle of a road or sliding in the snow. But his forte lies in drawing people out, making the reserved, shy people feel comfortable and be an integral part of the group. Through his own stories, he encourages people to share theirs, gently pushing them to open up about themselves, tackle their fears and chase their dreams. His trip leading style, candour, ability to get everyone to have crazy adventures and deep conversations alike, endeared trippers to him creating a tribe of loyalists who have not only done several trips but are active brand ambassadors.
It’s no surprise then, that most of this brand has been built on word of mouth references shared.
His card may read trip leader, travel guide, blogger and story teller but those who have travelled with him swear by his ability to make people live some of the best days of their life. This is verbatim from not one, but multiple testimonials on his FB profile.
Trippers vouch by him. Uncanny as it is, his testimonials are filled with emotional messages, gratitude for changing life perspectives, and deep sense of attachment and trust, that trippers experience for him. For him such feedback and positive validation further propels his desire to enable more and more people to start travelling, leave their apprehensions behind, live new experiences and create life long memories!
“A trip is decent if everyone had a good time and went back happy. But it is successful only if it makes at least 3-4 of them tear up during farewell or reschedule their tickets to spend more time together”, he says.
When he is not travelling, he is either dreaming of sitting with a colony of penguins in Antarctica, being lost in the Amazon forest , or climbing up a 7000 metre mountain in the Himalayas.
Nero has lead close to 140 trips and taken 2700 trippers across Kashmir, Ladakh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim Arunachal, Himachal, Rajasthan, Goa, Kerala, forts and waterfalls in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Greece and Turkey.