When we started working on Local Lok, we weren’t just choosing a city; we were defining the kind of experience we wanted to create.
We weren’t targeting popular tourist hotspots. We were looking for a place where thoughtful, curious travelers come to slow down, engage with the culture, and feel at home in the unfamiliar.
Varanasi wasn’t an obvious choice on paper. It didn’t check the boxes of ease, scalability, or trendiness. But it had something more important, which won us over: a strong sense of identity, history, and openness.
Why design for Banaras, when you can design with it?
When we decided to build Local Lok, we knew two things:
- It wouldn’t be “just another hostel”.
- It had to feel like it belonged, not to us, but to Varanasi.
And Varanasi doesn’t care for aesthetics that scream. She values restraint, roots, and rhythm. So that’s exactly what guided our design.
A space born from the city’s rhythm
At Local Lok, we didn’t want to “build a hostel in Banaras”. We wanted Banaras to build itself through us.
Our design philosophy reflects the city’s paradoxes — ancient and young, chaotic and calm, wild and wise. That’s why:
- Our door and reception desk are upcycled, each one with a story older than us.
- The rooms blend minimalism with locally sourced memory: natural furniture, hand-dyed textiles, and zero plastic wherever possible.
- We chose textures over polish: natural lime-plastered walls, rough stone, soft edges like the city itself.
So no, we didn’t choose Varanasi.
Varanasi looked at us — city kids with our Google Docs and Pinterest boards and said: “Fine. If you’re really going to listen, then build something that matters.”
And we did. And we’re still building.
One stay. One smile. One story at a time.