Section 01
Our
mission
Nepal, Curated Differently.
"Archive Group exists to curate intimate spaces and experiences that reconnect travelers to the deeper cultural rhythm of Nepal through design, storytelling, and small-batch exploration."
We exist to slow people down. To replace checklists with conversations, souvenirs with stories, and ordinary tourism with genuine access.
We do not aim to impress with scale. We aim to resonate with meaning.
At Archive, Nepal is a layered experience where landscapes, culture, history, and emotion come together.
Section 02
Our
vision
"Archive Group is built to grow slowly, with intention. We are a story-driven hospitality brand that expands only when the story can be preserved, the design can remain authentic, and the experience can be personally protected."
Our ambition is not rapid scale.
It is enduring identity: a brand recognized for cultural depth, emotional resonance, and disciplined expansion.
Foundational Trio
The Founders
Archive Group was built by three people who did not plan a hospitality brand. They planned a life in Nepal, and the brand followed from that.
Co-Founder — Chief Executive and Commercial Strategist
Carson Cook
Carson drives brand vision, international partnerships, investor relationships, and overall business strategy. He is the one who sees Nepal from the outside and translates it for a global audience.
Carson Cook did not come to Nepal looking for adventure. He came out of curiosity and stayed because something about the country refused to let go. Coming from Vanuatu and driven from an early age by business and the architecture of growth, Carson spent his early career launching international ventures across multiple continents. Over the years, he traveled to more than fifty countries, studying markets, understanding people, and building companies from the ground up.
In 2013, Nepal became different. It was not just a destination. It was a decision. What began as exploration became commitment. Carson and his partners built a successful U.S.-based merchant processing company, supported by an outsourced call center headquartered in Kathmandu. That operation grew to more than 200 employees, forming not just a business, but a community.
Through that growth, his connection to Nepal deepened. Over the past decade, Carson has been involved in ventures spanning alcohol distribution, industrial development, social initiatives, and hospitality. Beneath all of it has remained one constant conviction:
Nepal is one of the most misunderstood gems in the world. Beyond the trekking routes and the postcards lies something far more layered: a country of alleyways, rituals, humor, contradictions, resilience, and quiet beauty.
Archive was born from that realization. It is not simply a hospitality brand. It is an invitation.
Carson Cook did not come to Nepal looking for adventure. He came out of curiosity and stayed because something about the country refused to let go. Coming from Vanuatu and driven from an early age by business and the architecture of growth, Carson spent his early career launching international ventures across multiple continents. Over the years, he traveled to more than fifty countries, studying markets, understanding people, and building companies from the ground up.
In 2013, Nepal became different. It was not just a destination. It was a decision. What began as exploration became commitment. Carson and his partners built a successful U.S.-based merchant processing company, supported by an outsourced call center headquartered in Kathmandu. That operation grew to more than 200 employees, forming not just a business, but a community.
Through that growth, his connection to Nepal deepened. Over the past decade, Carson has been involved in ventures spanning alcohol distribution, industrial development, social initiatives, and hospitality. Beneath all of it has remained one constant conviction:
Nepal is one of the most misunderstood gems in the world. Beyond the trekking routes and the postcards lies something far more layered: a country of alleyways, rituals, humor, contradictions, resilience, and quiet beauty.
Archive was born from that realization. It is not simply a hospitality brand. It is an invitation.
"Let me show you my Nepal: the one you do not see on the first visit."
Co-Founder — Chief of Operations and Hospitality Director
Shramir Rajbanshi
Shramir oversees property development, day-to-day operations, guest experience, and local partnerships. He is the bridge between vision and what actually gets built and run on the ground.
If Carson discovered Nepal, Shramir returned to it with purpose.
After studying and living abroad in Australia, Shramir Rajbanshi chose to come home. Not out of necessity, but conviction. Nepal, for him, was never something to escape. It was something to build within.
He began in construction, learning the physical craft of shaping space. It was during this period that he met Carson, a partnership that grew first into friendship and eventually into family.
Shramir quickly emerged as a natural leader within the Centrix organization, helping scale operations while maintaining a strong local foundation. At the same time, he pursued his own entrepreneurial path, developing respected hospitality destinations in Kathmandu, including The Beach House Bar and Dining, that became gathering places for both locals and travelers.
For Shramir, hospitality has never been about service alone. It is about atmosphere. About belonging. About making someone feel they have arrived somewhere real.
Through Archive, Shramir brings something essential: authenticity without performance. He understands both the local nuance and the international expectation, and how to honor both without compromising either.
If Carson discovered Nepal, Shramir returned to it with purpose.
After studying and living abroad in Australia, Shramir Rajbanshi chose to come home. Not out of necessity, but conviction. Nepal, for him, was never something to escape. It was something to build within.
He began in construction, learning the physical craft of shaping space. It was during this period that he met Carson, a partnership that grew first into friendship and eventually into family.
Shramir quickly emerged as a natural leader within the Centrix organization, helping scale operations while maintaining a strong local foundation. At the same time, he pursued his own entrepreneurial path, developing respected hospitality destinations in Kathmandu, including The Beach House Bar and Dining, that became gathering places for both locals and travelers.
For Shramir, hospitality has never been about service alone. It is about atmosphere. About belonging. About making someone feel they have arrived somewhere real.
Through Archive, Shramir brings something essential: authenticity without performance. He understands both the local nuance and the international expectation, and how to honor both without compromising either.
"You never visit Nepal only once."
Co-Founder — Chief Experience Officer and Cultural Curator
Ashish Aryal
Ashish leads the curation side of Archive: the journeys, cultural programming, the story behind each object and space, and relationships with remote communities. He is the soul of what makes Archive feel different from other hospitality brands.
Ashish Aryal began his journey not in business, but in education. After completing his studies, he dedicated six years to teaching physics at respected boarding schools across Nepal. He believed deeply that the future of the country depended on disciplined thinking, curiosity, and moral grounding.
But Ashish has always believed that education extends beyond classrooms. His work expanded into social initiatives, founding and managing projects that blended community development with environmental preservation. Through SEC Nepal and other programs, he focused on building a future that did not abandon its roots. Hospitality entered his life through Vastu Boutique Hotel, where he began translating philosophy into space, creating environments that felt intentional, balanced, and quietly powerful.
He further expanded his ventures with Graveaty Restaurant and Bar, creating a vibrant space for dining and elevated bar experiences.
It was trekking that revealed something deeper. Ashish has spent years guiding travelers away from the obvious routes and into the quieter corners of Nepal: places that are not crowded, not commercialized, but genuinely unforgettable.
He is also the force behind Himalayan Terrain Treks and Expedition, which has evolved into Himalayan Terrain by Archive: a more specialized and curated approach to tours and trekking in Nepal.
Ashish Aryal began his journey not in business, but in education. After completing his studies, he dedicated six years to teaching physics at respected boarding schools across Nepal. He believed deeply that the future of the country depended on disciplined thinking, curiosity, and moral grounding.
But Ashish has always believed that education extends beyond classrooms. His work expanded into social initiatives, founding and managing projects that blended community development with environmental preservation. Through SEC Nepal and other programs, he focused on building a future that did not abandon its roots. Hospitality entered his life through Vastu Boutique Hotel, where he began translating philosophy into space, creating environments that felt intentional, balanced, and quietly powerful.
He further expanded his ventures with Graveaty Restaurant and Bar, creating a vibrant space for dining and elevated bar experiences.
It was trekking that revealed something deeper. Ashish has spent years guiding travelers away from the obvious routes and into the quieter corners of Nepal: places that are not crowded, not commercialized, but genuinely unforgettable.
He is also the force behind Himalayan Terrain Treks and Expedition, which has evolved into Himalayan Terrain by Archive: a more specialized and curated approach to tours and trekking in Nepal.
"Many travel to many places. But only one place travels back with them."
"Carson sells the idea of Nepal. Shramir builds the place where it lives. Ashish fills it with meaning."
Together, they cover every dimension of what Archive is: the commercial ambition, the operational foundation, and the cultural soul. No single founder could build this alone. The brand exists because all three do.
Archive Chronicle
The story
behind archive
Archive did not begin with a building. It began with time.
For more than thirteen years, the founders lived inside Kathmandu. Not as passing visitors, but as residents building businesses, forming friendships, and learning the rhythm of the city. They walked its back alleys at dusk, negotiated in crowded markets, shared tea in roadside stalls, rode mountain roads at sunrise, and sat quietly in temple courtyards long after the tour groups had gone.
Nepal revealed itself slowly. And that was always the point.
Over time, something became clear. Most travelers experience Nepal at its surface: the monuments, the trekking routes, the well-known highlights. But the deeper layer, the one carried in brick textures, aging woodwork, quiet conversations, hidden courtyards, and untold stories, often remains unseen.
Archive was created to reveal that layer. Not loudly. Not commercially. But deliberately.
Archive was envisioned to shift the journey from summit-focused travel to story-driven exploration, where every trail reveals hidden landscapes, living culture, and the deeper soul of Nepal.
The MethodologyA Different Approach
A Different Approach
to Hospitality in Nepal
A commitment to:
- 01Heritage-inspired spaces that feel rooted, not themed.
- 02Curated objects that carry provenance and story.
- 03Small-batch journeys that move at a human pace.
- 04Hospitality that feels intentional, never industrial.
Himalayan Terrain by Archive was created to move beyond summit-focused travel into journeys shaped by stories. The trekking routes of Nepal were never designed for tourism. They were ancient paths of trade, movement, and pilgrimage. Villages and tea houses exist from necessity, not design, making every step a walk through living history.
Nepal's richness lies in its diversity, with 126 languages and 142 ethnic groups creating distinct experiences across regions. Here, chaos and calm, tradition and modern life exist side by side.
At Archive, we do not simply take travelers to the mountains. We help them experience the deeper story within.
In Thamel and across the valley, boutique hospitality had begun to feel predictable. Cultural experiences were neatly packaged. Tours moved quickly. Spaces felt interchangeable.
The founders believed Nepal deserved better representation. So Archive Group was built as a different kind of hospitality ecosystem: one philosophy expressed across multiple ventures.
Not expansion for the sake of growth.
Not design for the sake of trend.
DefinitionWhat Archive
What Archive
Group Really Is
Nepal remained relatively closed to the outside world until the mid-20th century. Before the early 1950s, foreign access was highly restricted and required special permission. This gives Nepal a rare quality among destinations: a place where traditions were preserved for generations, undisturbed. A late-discovered country, still unfolding.
Nepal today reflects a visible transition between tradition and globalization. Archive is a brand that understands this balance and curates experiences within it, never trying to resolve the tension, but honoring it.
Archive Group is not simply a hospitality brand.
It is a lens: a way of seeing Nepal, and inviting others to see it differently.
It is a platform where stay, culture, commerce, and exploration intersect under one guiding philosophy: depth over volume.
Archive is not built for everyone.
It is built for the culturally curious.
For the traveler who wants to feel a place rather than check it off.
For those who understand that genuine discovery takes patience.
Nepal is not meant to be consumed quickly.
It is meant to be experienced slowly, layer by layer.
And when experienced properly, it does not end at departure.
It travels back with you.