Day & multi-day tours
Half-day, full-day, and multi-day tours led by licensed Lao guides — temples, waterfalls, markets, food, photography, trekking, village stays.
About Orchao
A community of 385 Lao hosts, 168 destinations, 125+ experiences.
We run tours, train bookings, transfers, boats, and verified local hotels across Laos. We've spent our lives here. We'd like to show you why we love it.
01 — Who we are
Lao people, in the places we know best.
Orchao is a community of 385 licensed Lao hosts — tour guides, drivers, boat captains, homestay families, workshop hosts, ticketing partners, and trip designers — spread across 18 provinces and 168 destinations. From the temples of Luang Prabang to the coffee farms of the Bolaven, from the morning markets of Vientiane to the hammocks of the 4,000 Islands.
We grew up here. Most of us are licensed under the Lao Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism. Between us we speak seven languages — Lao, Hmong, Khmu, English, French, Mandarin, and Thai. We know the back roads, the boat schedules that never appear online, and the family kitchen behind the temple that serves the best laap in town.
The Orchao platform was founded in Vientiane in 2026 by a small team of Lao tourism professionals who'd worked across the industry for over a decade. We built it so travelers could find us directly — and so the people who actually do the work could be the ones you meet.
385
Licensed guides & drivers
168
Destinations across 18 provinces
7
Languages spoken
100%
Lao-owned, Lao-run
02 — What we do
Everything you need for a journey across Laos.
One platform. One checkout. Tours, train tickets, transfers, slow boats — all booked direct from the Lao people who run them.
High-speed train tickets
The Laos-China Railway, booked in English, paid by card. Vientiane, Vang Vieng, Luang Prabang, Boten — and onward to Bangkok.
Minivan & bus tickets
Inter-city minivans and long-distance buses booked direct. Real schedules, real seat reservations, no markup at the guesthouse.
Mekong boat tickets
Two-day slow boats, river crossings, Nong Khiaw to Muang Ngoi, every route the apps don't list — booked direct from the captains.
Airport, train & boat station transfers
Pre-booked, fixed price, real driver. They'll meet you with a sign, and they'll wait if you're delayed. Every airport, every station, every pier.
Personal guides & drivers
Hire a guide or driver for the day, the week, or your whole trip. English, French, Mandarin, Thai, Khmu, Hmong — pick the language, pick the person.
Local boutique hotels
Hand-verified Lao-owned guesthouses, homestays, and boutique hotels in every province we cover. Visited by our team, vouched for by the hosts who use them.
Custom multi-region routes
Tell us where you want to go and how long you have. We'll design the route, match the hosts, and book the logistics — all on one WhatsApp thread.
03 — Why choose our community
A booking platform that feels like a friend in Laos.
We're not the biggest. We're not trying to be. Here's what we do that the global apps can't.
01
You meet the guide before you book.
Every host on Orchao has a profile page with their name, photo, hometown, languages, and what they offer. Message them on WhatsApp before you commit — ask about pace, kids, dietary needs, weather. You're booking a person, not a SKU.
02
One platform for the whole country.
Most travelers spend two days piecing together transport, tours, and transfers across four different apps. Orchao bundles all the Lao-side logistics — train, transfer, tour, boat — into one account, one checkout, one WhatsApp thread.
03
Real Lao prices, fairly set.
Our guides set their own prices. The price you see is the price they set — clear, honest, the same for everyone. Honest math, both directions.
04
We answer WhatsApp in 15 minutes.
Our team is in Vientiane. From 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Lao time, real people answer real messages. No chatbots, no offshore ticketing systems, no "your inquiry has been received and will be processed within 48 hours."
05
Local knowledge that scales with you.
One day in Luang Prabang? Three weeks across Laos? Our hosts hand you off to each other as you move — same standards, same warmth, no platform-hopping. A network, not a marketplace.
06
The money stays in Laos.
Orchao is a Lao company, paying Lao people, into Lao bank accounts. Every booking puts more in the local economy than the same booking on a foreign platform. That's not a marketing claim — it's just structurally true.
04 — Meet the community
A few of the people you might travel with.
Every Orchao guide is licensed, verified, and personally interviewed. Here are four of them.
B
Guide · Luang Prabang
Bounmy
Born in Ban Xieng Lek · Lao, English, French
“I'll show you the part of Luang Prabang that doesn't fit on a postcard.”
K
Guide · Bolaven Plateau
Khamla
Three generations on the plateau · Lao, English, Thai
“The motorbike loop is what I do on my days off. Coffee, waterfalls, cousins along the way.”
P
Guide · Nong Khiaw
Phou
Khmu village upriver · Lao, Khmu, English
“We trek there, we sleep there, we eat what my mother cooks.”
M
Boat captain · 4,000 Islands
Malaykham
Don Khong, born and raised · Lao, English
“I learned to fish before I learned to read. The river is my map.”
Ken FJ Her · Vientiane05 — A note from our founder
"Orchao means thank you."
I've spent fifteen years in Lao tourism — as a guide, a tour operator, and now a platform builder. In that time, I've watched the people who do the actual work — the guides, the drivers, the boat captains, the homestay families — get paid less and less while travelers pay more and more for the same experience.
The middle layers kept growing. The people on either end kept losing.
Orchao is my answer. A platform where Lao people connect directly with travelers, and the money does what money should do in tourism: stay in the country it's spent in.
The name comes from ua tsaug — thank you in Hmong, the language of the highlands where I was born. Our logo is the nop, the Lao greeting of folded hands, rising out of a lotus. It's a thank-you you can see. That's what we wanted the company to be.
Ua tsaug.
Ken FJ Her · Founder, Orchao · Vientiane, Lao PDR
06 — What we stand for
Vision, mission, and what we measure ourselves against.
Vision
A Laos where the people who do the work of tourism — guides, drivers, hosts, boat captains, families, artisans — are also the people who get paid for it.
Mission
To connect international travelers directly with verified local providers across Laos — through a Lao-owned platform that's easy to use in seven languages, transparent on price, and built for trust on both sides of every booking.
How we measure ourselves
Not on bookings volume. Not on app downloads. On three things, in order:
1
Supplier income retention
What percentage of the price the traveler pays ends up with the Lao person doing the work. On global OTAs this number is often 70–75%. Our target is 85%+.
2
Provider geographic reach
How many of Laos' 18 provinces have verified providers earning income through the platform — not just Luang Prabang and Vientiane.
3
Repeat traveler rate
What proportion of travelers book again — the strongest single indicator that the experience was worth what they paid and worth recommending to others.
Orchao is a division of Brother Tours Co., Ltd. — a Lao-registered tourism company based in Vientiane. We publish our metrics annually at orchao.com/about/impact.
07 — Common questions
Things travelers ask us.
08 — Come find us
Ready when you are.
Browse our tours, book a train ticket, or just send us a message. We'll be here.