Today we’d like to introduce you to Krishna M.
Hi Krishna, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’ve always loved traveling, especially to places that offer something beyond the typical tourist experience. Over time, that interest grew into a deeper passion for the outdoors and, especially, U.S. national parks. The more parks I visited and the more trips I planned, the more I naturally learned about them—the seasons, trails, permits, road conditions, weather, and all the little details that can completely change a trip. Eventually, I started sharing what I was learning with other travelers as well.
Astrophotography became another important part of that journey. There is something incredible about being somewhere remote, away from city lights, and seeing a truly dark sky. Photographing the night sky taught me patience and made me experience destinations differently. A place that is beautiful during the day can become an entirely different world after sunset. That led me to become more interested in dark-sky parks, stargazing locations, and preserving natural darkness.
As I planned more trips, though, I kept running into the same problem: the information I needed was scattered everywhere. One website might have permit information, another might explain trails, another might have weather or road conditions, and then I would have to search somewhere else for seasonal recommendations or stargazing information. I kept thinking, why can’t all of this be organized in one place?
That idea eventually became TrailVerse. I wanted to create a platform where travelers could discover U.S. national parks and outdoor destinations while also finding the practical information they need to actually plan the trip. What started from my own travel habits gradually grew through research, experimentation, travel content, and feedback from others.
Today, I continue exploring, learning, photographing the night sky, and sharing destination guides, practical travel information, seasonal recommendations, and itinerary ideas. My goal is simple: help people spend less time searching through scattered information and more time actually experiencing the places they traveled to see.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely hasn’t been a completely smooth road. One of my biggest challenges has been figuring out how to turn something I personally love—travel, national parks, and astrophotography—into something that is genuinely useful and trustworthy for someone planning their own trip.
My biggest concern has always been accuracy. Travel information is constantly changing. A road can close, a park can introduce a new reservation system, permit requirements can change, trails can become inaccessible, fees can be updated, and weather can completely change what is realistic for a particular trip. That means TrailVerse can’t simply collect information once and consider the job finished. Keeping things useful requires continuous research and updating.
Astrophotography introduces its own challenges. A great night-sky experience depends on much more than finding a beautiful location. Moon phases, clouds, weather, light pollution, seasonal visibility, accessibility, and whether an area is safe and accessible after dark all matter.
Another challenge is deciding how much information is actually helpful. Travelers already have an enormous amount of information available to them. I don’t want TrailVerse to become another place that overwhelms someone with hundreds of things to read. The goal is to organize the important information and help someone understand what actually matters for their trip.
Building that trust takes time. There have been ideas that didn’t work, things I’ve redesigned, and periods where progress was slower than I wanted. But those experiences have helped me understand what travelers actually need and have made TrailVerse better over time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work with TrailVerse is centered around one idea: making outdoor travel planning less fragmented.
There is already a huge amount of information about national parks online. The problem is that it is often scattered across different sources. TrailVerse brings that fragmented travel information together and organizes it in a way that helps people discover destinations and then understand how to actually visit them.
I want TrailVerse to be more than a website that shows beautiful photographs and tells people where they should travel. Inspiration is important, but once someone decides, “I want to go there,” an entirely different set of questions begins: When should I visit? How many days do I need? Do I need a reservation? Are there permits? What will the weather be like? What is accessible during that season? What should I know before I arrive?
Those are the kinds of questions I want TrailVerse to help answer.
Astrophotography has also become part of that experience. I’m especially interested in remote landscapes and dark skies, so TrailVerse also helps travelers discover locations that are good for stargazing and astrophotography. I want someone who loves the night sky to be able to discover not only a national park, but also understand where and when they might have an opportunity to experience that park beneath the stars.
What I’m most proud of is seeing something that began from my own frustration with trip planning grow into a platform covering more than 470 National Park Service locations.
What I hope sets TrailVerse apart is that combination of discovery and practicality. I want people to get inspired by a destination, but I also want to help them turn that inspiration into a realistic trip.
What are your plans for the future?
There is still so much of the United States that I want to experience personally. I’m looking forward to exploring more national parks, state parks, dark-sky locations, scenic drives, and lesser-known outdoor destinations. Traveling to these places myself is important to me because every trip changes the way I understand travel planning and the kind of information that is actually useful once you are there.
For TrailVerse, my goal is to continue building it into a resource that travelers can genuinely rely on throughout the planning process. I want to expand beyond basic destination information with better trip-planning tools, realistic itineraries, seasonal recommendations, road-trip ideas, current park information, and more resources around stargazing and dark-sky travel.
Astrophotography is something I also want to pursue much more seriously. I’m looking forward to photographing more dark-sky parks, the Milky Way, meteor showers, eclipses, and other astronomical events, while sharing what I learn so that other travelers can experience them too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nationalparksexplorerusa.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trailverseapp/, https://www.instagram.com/astrobykrishna, and https://www.instagram.com/travelswithkrishna/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/travelswithkrishna/
- Other: https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_69e9c67943c08191a37c464b803ebdbe
