You’re on a safari in Kenya, watching a lion prowl across the savanna as the sun dips below the horizon. Later, you share a feast of Nyama Choma with locals, then visit a bustling marketplace where bitcoin isn’t just a novelty—it’s lifeblood.
This isn’t a distant future—it’s happening now, thanks to pioneers like Anuja, founder of Travel with Bitcoin. What began as a personal quest to traverse Africa using bitcoin evolved into a mission to bridge the gap between adventurers and a growing network of bitcoin-friendly businesses worldwide.
First Steps
- What inspired the creation of Travel with Bitcoin? How did you identify the intersection of bitcoin and travel as a niche?
The inspiration of Travel with Bitcoin came from our own experience as my husband & I travelled across Africa with the goal of using bitcoin as much as possible. This was a challenge because it wasn’t easy to find businesses that accepted bitcoin. 
Even though BTC maps was useful, at times the businesses listed weren’t verified or operational. We had to rely on our existing community or X to find trusted places that were bitcoin-friendly.
That’s when I realized there isn’t a centralized place connecting travellers to tourism operators that accept bitcoin. That’s how this idea was born, a global marketplace showcasing verified bitcoin tourism.
I wanted to take this a step further to highlight the local circular economies. Learning how bitcoin was being adopted on the ground across different countries was one of the most memorable parts of our travels.
We want to provide the same opportunity to our travellers. Through our marketplace, they’re able to get connected with the local community leader and get a tour of their circular economy.
The overall goal here is to build a global network of travel hosts and community leaders, allowing for knowledge transfer while making it easy for travellers to experience their sats.
Building on Bitcoin
- What makes bitcoin a game-changer for travellers compared to traditional payment methods (e.g., cross-border fees, censorship resistance)?
Travellers will not have to worry about currency exchange, international credit card fees and can avoid the risk of carrying large amounts of cash. They’ll also get the benefit of instant payments without having to worry about any 3rd party approvals.
- How do you onboard tour operators, retreat organizers, and community leaders to accept bitcoin?
We’re currently working with businesses and communities that already accept bitcoin or have an understanding of it. We also make sure that any business or individual we highlight on our marketplace are verified and so there’s a specific process that we follow to ensure our customers get the best experience.
If the organizers that we partner with for our events (tour guides, restaurants, etc.) don’t accept bitcoin yet, we do our best to help them understand what bitcoin is, how it can benefit them as a business and ensure they have access to proper educational resources.
We’ve seen success with offering them 50% of their service fees in bitcoin and the rest in local currency as an initial step. In the near future, we will look to offer onboarding services for tourism businesses.
- How does bitcoin-enabled travel bridge cultural gaps or inspire financial sovereignty advocacy?
Bitcoin allows for travellers to connect directly with the local tourism businesses. Instead of a 3rd party taking margins or charging additional services fees, travellers can be assured their money is going into the hands of the business owner. This allows the business owners to have more control over their finances which positively impacts their business growth.
We’ve witnessed exponential growth in the tourism industry (thanks to social media), making it more important than ever to support local businesses and empower the people in the destinations we visit. This is what we hope to achieve as we connect travellers directly with our trusted businesses and hosts.
- Share a memorable story of a traveler or business transformed by bitcoin through your platform.
I planned my first event in Kenya during the African Bitcoin Conference in December 2024 and took a group of people on their first safari. It was such an incredible day, seeing them witness their first wildlife experience. I’ll never forget the moment we spotted a lion – the excitement, the awe and the realization that this was all paid in bitcoin!
We didn’t stop there though, I believe that in order to get an authentic experience when travelling to a new destination is trying the local cuisine and that’s exactly what we did! I took them to their first Nyama Choma (roasted meat) grill and the game meat was definitely a highlight.
The best part of the day for the travellers was our visit to the largest slum in Africa, where over 40 merchants accept bitcoin. This was an eye-opening moment for all of us and incredibly inspiring to see how excited the small business owners were about accepting bitcoin.
- What’s your top tip for someone planning their first bitcoin-powered trip?
The first step.. use Travel with Bitcoin’s platform to find trusted businesses that can give you an unique experience! Once you have an idea of which destination you’re visiting, make sure you check how bitcoin-friendly the country is, this will help you determine how individuals will react if you ask them to pay in bitcoin (this is for businesses listed outside of our platform of course).
We also recommend checking if an exchange platform is operational in the country. You may be able to exchange bitcoin for local currency in case you need cash during the trip.
One last tip.. find and connect with a local bitcoin community leader! They’ll help you with all your questions, doubts and give you a tour of their circular economy – an opportunity you definitely don’t want to miss.
Overcoming Challenges
- What logistical or educational hurdles do travelers face when using bitcoin for tourism, and how do you address them?
One of the challenges travellers face is finding businesses that will actually accept bitcoin and have an understanding of it. This is where our marketplace comes in, it’s a tool that allows travellers to browse through different experiences that they can pay for in bitcoin directly to the merchants.
Another challenge travellers may have depending on where they’re travelling is the lack of infrastructure resulting in no internet or low connectivity. As bitcoin is money for the internet, it’s challenging to solve this issue but there are new solutions such as Machankura that allow users in parts of Africa to spend and receive bitcoin using a brick phone (no internet).
- What are the biggest obstacles to bitcoin adoption in the travel industry, and how can they be overcome?
The biggest challenge we came across during our travels is that most businesses don’t understand what bitcoin is and why they should accept it as payment. I believe this is a larger problem that we as the bitcoin community need to address, we need more businesses across all industries to adopt it as payment.
This requires us as a community to focus our energy on educating businesses at scale and understandably this will take time. Similarly to the acceptance of credit cards, when it was first released, most businesses were hesitant to be early adopters but now it’s rare if a business doesn’t accept it.
Another challenge we faced during our travels was that even if businesses understood bitcoin, they were concerned about the volatility. As a business, they need cash flow to pay their suppliers and employees, which means they need to convert bitcoin into the local currency at any given time.
A potential solution to address this is to start onboarding suppliers and employees onto bitcoin and save a portion of the bitcoin earnings over a long period of time.
It’s important to note that most of the hesitation for accepting bitcoin stems from the fact that the owners simply don’t know enough about it. This is a reminder for all of us in this space to continue to share success stories, educating our family, friends and merchants in our communities.
- Have you faced regulatory challenges in specific countries? How did you navigate them?
Yes, we spent about 2 months in Egypt and as we engaged with small businesses about conversations regarding bitcoin, we soon discovered that even though the country is facing extreme inflation, bitcoin is considered illegal. To a point where if a business advertises that they accept bitcoin, they can be arrested for it. This was unfortunate to see, especially considering that the majority of the population is losing purchasing power over night.
There wasn’t a way to navigate this as Egypt is heavily regulated and we don’t want any business owners to face problems with the government. Instead, we did our best to educate our new friends about what bitcoin is, how they can save in bitcoin and how to self-custody.
- What advice do you give users about securing their bitcoin while traveling (e.g., hardware wallets, backups)?
We encourage all travellers to use a mobile lightning wallet for small daily expenses, we like to think of this as our physical wallet. There is where you keep the money you’re willing to lose, just like if your real wallet got lost.
Majority of your funds should be kept in a hardware wallet or in a secure back up wallet, so think of this like your bank. Also, always use VPN when accessing any online services on public Wi-fi.
What’s Next?
- Which regions or communities are you targeting next for Travel with Bitcoin expansion?
A lot of our existing marketplace is African based due to the amount of time we recently spent in the continent. This year, we’re hoping to target Central & South America, along with Europe!
- How could bitcoin reshape global tourism and local economies in the next decade?
Let’s think about the internet for a moment, it’s only about 50 years old but it’s almost impossible to imagine our lives without it. We rely on it for work, entertainment, communication, and even the way we travel. In just a few decades, it has transformed the global economy, creating entire industries, how we interact, and making the world more connected than ever before.
Now let’s consider bitcoin. It’s only 15 years old – still in its early stages, just like the internet was in the 1990s. We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of its potential, and the impact it will have on tourism and local economies in the next few decades could be transformational.
It will take longer than 10 years but imagine a time where you can cross borders and not have to worry about exchanging currency? Bitcoin can truly become borderless money. Or the opportunities provided to the small, boutique tourism businesses that can have more control over managing their own finances, without any intermediary parties.
Getting bitcoin into the hands of people who truly are the backbone of the tourism businesses, like the local tour guide, or the lady that makes handcrafted souvenirs, or the farmer who is showing you how coffee is made – this in itself is a huge leap from our current system. We hope to empower these individuals and the local communities across the globe through our marketplace.
- How can the bitcoin community support Travel with Bitcoin’s mission?
As I mentioned earlier, we as a community need to onboard more businesses across the board to accept bitcoin as payment. The more businesses, specifically tourism operators that accept bitcoin – the faster we can grow our platform and get these businesses connected to new customers!
You can find us at travelwithbitcoin.com
