The Untold story of Jibhi : How one Mudhouse turned a hidden village into India's offbeat travel hotspot and why I had to leave.

A Valley Only Somebody Knew

In 2016, Jibhi wasn’t a name. Not on any map, not in guidebooks, not on Instagram hashtags. For most Indian travelers, it didn’t even exist in vocabulary. If you told someone you were heading there, they would tilt their head and ask, “Where?”

Yes, some seasoned foreign backpackers had discovered it back in the 90s - the rare souls who carried guides, scribbled maps, and stories of remote Himachali valleys. But for the larger world, Jibhi was just another bend on the road between Aut and Banjar, a valley people passed by without stopping.

So, when I told friends in 2016, “I’m opening something in Jibhi,” they laughed.

“Jibhi? Who comes to Jibhi? If you really want to do hospitality, do it in Manali, Shimla, Dharamshala.”

But I saw something else.

I saw a valley with no name, no rush, no cafés. Just raw rivers, pine forests, wooden homes, and silence. I didn’t see a business opportunity; I saw an experiment in living.

2017–2019:

The Mudhouse Years-When Jibhi Became a Community

The Mudhouse wasn’t born out of design boards or architects. We never had a sign-board too at the property, It was raw, imperfect, yet deeply human. Mud walls. Wooden beams. Shared dorms and bigger halls. A dinner table where everyone sat together, whether you arrived as a solo traveler from Bangalore, a couple from Europe, or a musician from Delhi.

And it worked. Not because it was luxurious, but because it was real, it was human.

Travellers became family. People stayed longer than they planned, cooked together, trekked together, fell in love, healed breakups, sometimes even cried while leaving.

Stories spread without effort. No ads, no influencers. Just word of mouth, photos, and videos that carried a kind of soul the internet couldn’t fake.

The village itself transformed. From 10 travelers a week to hundreds, Jibhi quietly became a dot on every backpacker’s radar.

We had created what would later be called the “experiential hostel”. People didn’t come to “stay in a room”; they came for conversations, community, culture, and that dinner table where you never sat alone.

I didn’t just open a hostel. I unknowingly opened the gates for Jibhi itself to be discovered.

The high point? Watching locals open homestays, cafés, and shops.

Seeing young Indians take their first-ever solo trip here.

Witnessing Jibhi transform from “unknown” → to “hidden gem.”

2020–2021: The Silence of COVID

Then came silence. COVID emptied the valley. No buses, no tourists, no music at dinner tables. Just the sound of the river and forests.

For the first time since Mudhouse opened, Jibhi returned to how I had first met it in 2016, untouched, raw, timeless. We could camp anywhere. Leopards walked into villages in daylight. Families spent evenings together instead of running cafés. The air was cleaner, the nights darker, the silence endless.

And then came the moment of rebirth.

On 1st September 2020, after months of lockdown, we, together with the community, reopened Jibhi for travelers. It wasn’t just about restarting business; it was about reclaiming life. We prepared for covid safety, distancing, fixed home-stays, stocked up kitchens, and prepared to welcome whoever was brave enough to travel in those uncertain times. Those first guests felt like family arriving home. The joy was surreal laughter after months of fear.

It was magical. A valley learning to breathe again.

When restrictions lifted, the world went mad with freedom.

People, suffocated in apartments in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, suddenly looked at the mountains as their saviour. Work-from-home was in full swing. Himachal had Wi-Fi, clean air, rivers, and silence. And suddenly, every property ,from the biggest hotels to the tiniest home-stays ware full.

For the first time, Jibhi saw long-term settlers. Not travelers, but city people who packed two laptops, booked a room for three months, and called it life. They made friends with locals, they discovered hidden trails, they saw a valley waking up every morning without traffic horns. And naturally, many of them thought: “

Why not stay forever?

Why not open something here?”

On paper, it looked like the perfect business opportunity.

Savings in hand from city jobs.

Leasing land here was cheaper than a single month’s rent in Gurgaon.

And the proof was in front of them: three months of crazy demand, overflowing cafés, packed home-stays.

So they stayed. They invested. They leased. They built. Guesthouses, hostels, boutique hotels, cafes, they mushroomed everywhere. Jibhi’s skyline of pines slowly filled with tin roofs.

What they didn’t know was this: that boom was not “normal.” It was revenge tourism. A once-in-a-lifetime rush, born out of lockdown fatigue and work-from-home freedom. Demand was never going to stay that high forever.

The Harsh Reality

By the end of 2022, the cracks started to show. Work-from-home policies tightened. People were called back to offices. Travel stabilized. And suddenly, the valley that was full every day had a new rhythm:

• Overloaded weekends, but empty weekdays.

• Only 4 true earning months. April–June, then October–December.

• Dead seasons. July–September rains (occupancy 0–10%). Harsh winters Jan–March (20–30%). And then, random shocks like an India–Pakistan war headline could kill bookings for another month.

• Desperation set in. Rooms once proudly sold at ₹2,000 were being thrown away at ₹1,000. Quality dropped. The “offbeat traveler” was replaced by budget tourists looking for the cheapest bed. Cafés served everything but soul. The charm of Jibhi the quiet, the culture, the conversations got drowned in underpriced rooms and traffic jams.

• 
  

And those newcomers who had come with savings? Most of them bled those savings dry within a year. Many left. Some stayed, stuck, slashing prices just to survive.

Economically, this was great for locals. Spiritually, it was hard for me.

Inside Mudhouse, the conversations around the dinner table still carried depth, still healed broken hearts, still sparked friendships. But outside, the valley felt different. No longer the nameless silence I had fallen in love with.

And I kept asking myself: Had we won, or had we lost?

2024: Choosing to Leave

By 2024, I knew my chapter in Jibhi was over.

Not because Mudhouse failed, it hadn’t. If anything, it had grown into something much bigger than a hostel. It was a name people carried like a memory, a movement that changed the course of a valley. Jibhi itself had become a destination.

But the Jibhi I had once known was slipping away from me. The silence I first loved the river, the forests, the occasional laughter of travelers was now drowned by something else. Cars parked bumper to bumper on the narrow lanes. Engines humming all day. Bollywood songs blasting from open windows. Cafes competing with each other’s playlists. Random strangers shouting into their phones, reels being made on every corner.

And I would find myself standing there, in the middle of it all, asking: Is this the valley I gave my 8 years to? Is this still the same Jibhi that once felt like home?

The answer hurt.

I didn’t want to grow bitter watching it change. I didn’t want to keep fighting a tide that was bigger than me. And so, I made the hardest decision of my life:

To close my house.

Not in anger, not in defeat, but as an act of love. Because I wanted to protect the memories. I wanted to remember the dinners where strangers became family, the fireside songs, the mornings when the valley still belonged to silence. I wanted to carry Jibhi in my heart as it once was, not as it was becoming.

So I walked away. With gratitude, not regret. With arms full of the good years, the laughter, the friendships, the spark that turned a nameless valley into a story.

Closing Jibhi was not the end of me. It was a reminder that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to let go, before the place you love turns into something unrecognizable.

Lessons From Jibhi

Looking back, Jibhi gave me everything:

• Credibility, community, identity.

• It also taught me hard truths about passion, survival, and growth.

• Offbeat will never stay offbeat forever. If you’re first, prepare for what comes next.

• A beautiful property isn’t enough. Story, community, and market fit matter more.

• In the mountains, survival is seasonal. Four to five months of sunshine must carry you through the rest.

• Tourism uplifts but also overwhelms. It builds and it breaks.

• And most importantly: know when to leave. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is pause and walk away while the memories are still golden.

  
  
  
  

Jibhi’s Legacy in My Life

When I first arrived, Jibhi was just a quiet valley. Today, it’s a household name in Indian travel. I don’t claim sole credit. Locals, dreamers, and guests shaped it together. But I know Mudhouse lit the first spark. And that spark changed everything.

For me, Jibhi was never just a hostel. It was proof that one crazy idea, rooted in intent and heart, can reshape an entire valley.

And now, with that chapter closed, I carry its essence into what comes next — consultancy, retreats, new experiments. Because Jibhi will always be my first reminder:

That when you live with intent, even the smallest valley can echo across the world.

That when you live with intent, even the smallest valley can echo across the world.

The first Mudhouse in 2016