Secret City Trails

What Secret City Trails does

Secret City Trails, operating under the legal entity Goosebumps Adventures (incorporated in the Netherlands), is a web-based marketplace for self-guided city discovery experiences. The platform offers 125+ curated walking trails across 50+ European cities plus Fort Collins in the USA, each composed of location-based riddles, clues and storytelling authored locally and delivered through a browser with no app download required. The service targets independent tourists, small groups and corporate clients seeking an alternative to conventional walking tours, and reports a catalog rating of 4.52/5 across 10,000+ players served. Co-founded in 2017 by Wendy Van Leeuwen and a co-founder referred to as Kristina, the company is headquartered in Lisbon and operates with 1-10 employees.

Revenue is generated through per-trail consumer purchases priced at €16-€28, multi-city bundles and gift cards, plus a Corporate Team Building vertical that delivers custom branded trails starting at €2,000 for clients such as Kairos Summit, Startup Lisboa and Pestana Hotels. A Creator Program allows local residents to design, publish and monetize trails, creating a distributed two-sided supply chain that aligns creator incentives with catalog growth. Early-stage capital was raised across four disclosed rounds between 2018 and 2020 from Speedinvest, Transavia Ventures, Techstars and Intelak Hub, with no further funding disclosed since October 2020.

Name

Secret City Trails

Legal name

Goosebumps Adventures

Website

https://secretcitytrails.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Secret City Trails (Goosebumps Adventures) is a web-based marketplace offering 125+ self-guided city discovery trails across 50+ European cities and Fort Collins, USA, serving independent tourists, small groups and corporate clients through per-trail purchases, bundles and custom team-building experiences.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

City Discovery Experiences

NAICS

Tour Operators (561520)

SIC

Services-Miscellaneous Amusement & Recreation (7990)

akta.pro primary industry

Museum & Landmark Guided Tours (Skip-the-line/Docent-led) (THAJAAAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Local & City Guide Content Aggregators (MPACAKAJ), Private Guided Tours & Personal Tour Guides (THAJALAA), Escape Room Games & Mystery Puzzle Boxes Retail (CRALALAM)

Keywords

• Self-guided city tours
• City discovery games
• Location-based riddles
• Corporate team building
• Experience gift cards

Headquarters

HQ city

Lisbon

HQ country

Portugal

HQ region

Europe

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. Individual Discovery Walk Sales: One-time purchase of individual discovery walks at €16.26–€28.46 per group (1-5 persons), valid for 3 months. Revenue is collected at point of sale through the website. Additional language versions of the same trail may be sold separately.
2. Gift Cards: Pre-paid gift vouchers at €20.33, €25.41, and €30.49 face values, redeemable for any discovery walk. One-year validity. Remaining credit can be used across multiple purchases.
3. Walk Bundles: Bundles of 3 (€60.99), 5 (€91.49), or 10 (€172.81) walks sold as one-time purchases with codes redeemable for any individual walks on the website. Codes have one-year validity on bundles.
4. Team Building Experiences — Standard: Branded outdoor treasure-hunt experiences for corporate groups of 20–150 people at €20/person minimum. Includes company branding, riddles, and self-guided gameplay. Sold directly to companies.
5. Team Building Experiences — Custom Trail: Fully customized corporate team building at €2,000+ per custom trail. Includes company branding, custom stories/facts/values/challenges, dedicated landing page, fully customized route, and unlimited participants. Reusable on different occasions.
6. Creator Revenue Share: Local creators earn a fee for building a trail plus an ongoing revenue share of each playful walk sold. This incentivizes content creation while reducing upfront content production costs for the company.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Secret City Trails sells self-guided city discovery walks delivered through a mobile web app that uses location-based riddles to guide players to hidden landmarks, local stories and curated recommendations in 50+ European cities plus Fort Collins, USA. The platform also offers fully customized corporate team building treasure hunts with company branding, and pre-paid gift cards and bundles sold through its own WooCommerce storefront.

Product overview

Secret City Trails operates a curated platform for self-guided city discovery walks that transform cities into playgrounds through location-based riddles. The core product is the City Discovery Walks portfolio — self-guided, web-app-based experiences playable in 50+ European cities without downloads. These walks are created by a global network of local creators. The product portfolio includes: individual city walks (Lisbon, Porto, Sintra, Budapest, and 50+ other cities) sold per group at €16-28; bundle packages (Curious Wanderer 3-pack, Urban Explorer 5-pack, City Adventurer 10-pack) offering progressive discounts; gift cards in €20/€25/€30 denominations; corporate team building games (standard 20-150 people from €20/person or fully custom branded trails from €2,000); and a Creator Program enabling locals to monetize their city knowledge. All walks are accessed via a web app that opens in the phone's browser — no app installation required.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• City Discovery Walks Self-guided city exploration experiences delivered via a mobile web app, where players follow a trail of location-based riddles to discover hidden gems, unlock local stories, and access curated recommendations in over 50 European cities. Walks are created by local creators and sold per group of 1–5 people.
• Gift Cards Pre-paid digital gift vouchers available in €20, €25 and €30 denominations, valid for one year and redeemable for any city discovery walk on the platform. Delivered via email with a print-at-home voucher template.
• Team Building Games Branded outdoor team building treasure-hunt experiences for corporate groups. Standard option supports 20–150 people starting from €20/person with company branding; fully custom trails include company branding, up to 5 company stories, a dedicated landing page, a customized route and unlimited participants starting from €2,000 per trail.

Quantifiable outcome

• 10,000+ players have played with Secret City Trails
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature4 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Viator: Viator is a large tours-and-activities marketplace owned by Tripadvisor. It competes for tourist leisure-activity budgets across hundreds of destinations, overlapping with Secret City Trails on self-guided and guided tour categories but at vastly greater scale and breadth.
• Headout: Headout is a tours-and-activities marketplace focused on in-destination experiences, attractions, and city tours. It overlaps with Secret City Trails on the tourist-discovery and booking funnel but as a broad marketplace spanning many experience categories rather than a riddle-walk specialist.
• GetYourGuide: GetYourGuide is a global marketplace for tours, attractions, and experiences across thousands of cities. It competes with Secret City Trails for tourist discovery and tour-booking spend, but as a broad marketplace rather than a niche riddle-walk specialist.
• Airbnb Experiences: Airbnb Experiences offers host-led and self-guided activities in cities worldwide, including walking tours. It is comparable to Secret City Trails on the city-experience discovery and booking layer, though it sits inside a much broader hospitality platform and is not specialist in riddles/treasure hunts.

Direct peers

• Urban Adventure Quest: Urban Adventure Quest offers self-guided scavenger-hunt tours in US cities. It is comparable on the interactive, puzzle-based city exploration format, though with a primarily US footprint and a smaller city catalog.
• Questo: Questo operates a city-game platform with self-guided riddles and treasure-hunt walks playable via mobile, sold to tourists and for team building. It is the closest direct competitor to Secret City Trails in both consumer and B2B channels, with overlapping city coverage and similar pricing model.
• GooseChase: GooseChase is a scavenger-hunt platform primarily used for corporate team building, events, and engagement. It is the most direct B2B competitor to Secret City Trails' team-building product and competes for the same corporate customer budgets with a more software-led configurator.
• Action Tour Guide: Action Tour Guide sells self-guided audio and walking tours across many cities, delivered via a mobile app. It overlaps directly with Secret City Trails on the self-guided city exploration format and tourist customer segment, differing mainly in audio-first delivery vs. riddle-based gameplay.
• CluedUpp: CluedUpp runs outdoor mystery events and treasure-hunt-style experiences targeted at team building and group outings in the UK and Europe. It overlaps with Secret City Trails on outdoor puzzle-based team-building experiences for corporate and group customers.
• GPSmyCity: GPSmyCity provides self-guided walking tours and city articles across many destinations. It targets the same independent-tourist segment with city-discovery content, overlapping with Secret City Trails on self-guided city exploration though with a more article/navigation-led format.

Market position

Strengths1 record

Weaknesses1 record

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Instagraminstagram.com/secretcitytrails

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds4 records

Investors4 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Secret City Trails