5 ms·

Ask HN: HN for Travel

10 points by somada141 8y ago

After coming across these two posts today namely https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19567038 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19567129, which I found very interesting, it got me wondering : Is anyone aware of any HN-like communities/feeds related to travel that aren't simply a collection of ads for hotels/venues/tours/events/transport? I"m hoping for some well-moderated and up-to-date community much like HN.

notoriousjpg 8y ago
Interestingly, not really. I mean there's stackexchange and quora but its mostly people asking questions as they plan their itinerary. r/travel is basically r/travelpictures TA Forums seem to get worse every year, so do their reviews. Top reviews for each destination are moving towards bookable tours and guides as more and more operators realise how important reviews are and start to try and semi game the system. I'm working on something in this space that is taking a more data driven approach to travel, starting with destination discovery. Basically we're trying to solve the fact that there isn't a catalogue of travel destinations with basic info like weather, activities, safety, language. Try searching google for 'safe travel destination with hiking and wineries that is warm in december' Google will serve up pages of Top 10 lists. We developed a chatbot[1] to capture some early feedback with a simplified flow into a personalised set of results[2]. We're working on something more directly queryable. Would be interested in your feedback if you have any. [1] m.me/getcluey (sorry, facebook) [2] getcluey.com [3] https://www.getcluey.com/en/result/wK2fw48Wrh https://www.getcluey.com/en/result/wK2fw48Wrh
- somada141 8y ago
  Given the popularity of the topic I'm a little surprised that quality content independent of sponsorship has yet to surface. Quora is a big ad-fest so I wouldn't base my decisions on it. I was particularly interested in travel-related up-to-date material, such as the one about komodo island closing down. Other such topics would be "Don't go to Townsville, QLD cause there's floods" or "The amazing festival X in happening next week in Y". I had a look at Cluey and I definitely appreciate some of the key criteria you're integrating namely safety and the variety of activities. In fact I was just researching topics like "Is it safe to drive around Romania in 2019". A factual list of tips like "petty crime and muggings have gone up in Bogota, don't flaunt your 8k camera" depending on destination would be invaluable for me when planning a long-trip. I would also like to see a breakdown of how my most compatible destinations were selected after the fact (eg safety score, environmental impact score, etc). All in all I really like the idea and registered. I hope you guys launch something great so keep up the good work! PS I'd appreciate info on where stats and info are collected from when presented with results so I can evaluate whether I agree with the facts used in the calculation.
  - afarrell 8y ago
    > quality content independent of sponsorship has yet to surface Can you name some places where it does exist? The only one that comes to mind is Wikimedia, but I suspect thats because I just don't know that much about their funding. HN, for example, is sponsored by ycombinator.
    - somada141 8y ago
      Sadly that was my point, I can think of none. The standard places like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Google, etc all fall under the category of crowdsourced and highly-susceptible to advertising agendas. Sad as it is, travel is a hard category to get unbiased information on given how big an industry tourism is.
      - notoriousjpg 8y ago
        (me again) News wise I think something like this is good: https://www.predicthq.com/ https://www.predicthq.com/ but i dont think their product is necessarily built for B2C. It's more something theyd sell to the operations centre of Uber etc. Otherwise yes i agree with you, travel news isn't really news. It's basically all some form of native advertising as the wanderlust-y articles are usually surrounded by flight deals and resort packages. In terms of destination content for people planning travel, one stream of thought we'd have whilst working on Cluey is: Right now travel is very supply side driven. Millions of travelers arrive in Destination X but the local tourism operators largely sell safe, common denominator stuff. They don't have visibility of what the actual Demand is, and the operators themselves become generalists. Right now no platform can justify collecting your travel related personal information/preferences, because none of them can do anything with it. I think Cluey can (hopefully) justify asking for that information. In turn we hope that allows us to connect travelers with locals who are compatible with what you're looking for. That hopefully will remove the weeks of research needed to plan a trip, and lead to more diverse experiences in more destinations. Our thinking is still crystallizing but those are some of the ideas we're playing around with...
  - notoriousjpg 8y ago
- somada141 8y ago
  Btw you may be able to get some inspiration from, or even partner with, Rome2Rio [1] for the transportation part. I interviewed with them before and while I didn't like their tech their results are pretty impressively detailed and sourced. [1] https://www.rome2rio.com/ https://www.rome2rio.com/
jasonkester 8y ago
There used to be a popular usenet group for travel, which illustrated why you don’t see this these days. The only people who hang out in such a place are “seasoned traveller” folk, who are primarily interested in signalling that they’re the travelliest traveler. So the interaction was always the same: Newbie asks a simple question about Bangkok, somebody answers then four people jump in to battle over where in fact is the true best neighbourhood to stay in bkk. Eventually the place just gets left to those four guys fighting over the title of Alpha Traveler. It’s not a pleasant place.
- somada141 8y ago
  Yeah I bet its kinda tricky to separate bragging from actual info. I can see how seasoned travellers would have a good amount of knowledge on a topic but honestly I'd be more interested in current info as opposed to entirely subjective info eg "the best neighbourhood" or "the most picturesque hike". I bet that a location-specific events/alerts/info app would be successful. Perhaps something where you add locations of interest (in addition to the current location) and the app uses things like social media or local news sites to retrieve relevant info. I'd pay for that - hint, hint :).
hackermailman 8y ago
Big Hospitality covers the industry news much like HN covers startups but nothing exists that is user curated unless you count the various chan sites /trv/ like 4chan but then it's same problems as already discussed
return0 8y ago
r/travel r/backpacking etc

10 points by somada141 8y ago

notoriousjpg 8y ago

Interestingly, not really. I mean there's stackexchange and quora but its mostly people asking questions as they plan their itinerary. r/travel is basically r/travelpictures TA Forums seem to get worse every year, so do their reviews. Top reviews for each destination are moving towards bookable tours and guides as more and more operators realise how important reviews are and start to try and semi game the system. I'm working on something in this space that is taking a more data driven approach to travel, starting with destination discovery. Basically we're trying to solve the fact that there isn't a catalogue of travel destinations with basic info like weather, activities, safety, language. Try searching google for 'safe travel destination with hiking and wineries that is warm in december' Google will serve up pages of Top 10 lists. We developed a chatbot[1] to capture some early feedback with a simplified flow into a personalised set of results[2]. We're working on something more directly queryable. Would be interested in your feedback if you have any. [1] m.me/getcluey (sorry, facebook) [2] getcluey.com [3] https://www.getcluey.com/en/result/wK2fw48Wrh https://www.getcluey.com/en/result/wK2fw48Wrh

somada141 8y ago
Given the popularity of the topic I'm a little surprised that quality content independent of sponsorship has yet to surface. Quora is a big ad-fest so I wouldn't base my decisions on it. I was particularly interested in travel-related up-to-date material, such as the one about komodo island closing down. Other such topics would be "Don't go to Townsville, QLD cause there's floods" or "The amazing festival X in happening next week in Y". I had a look at Cluey and I definitely appreciate some of the key criteria you're integrating namely safety and the variety of activities. In fact I was just researching topics like "Is it safe to drive around Romania in 2019". A factual list of tips like "petty crime and muggings have gone up in Bogota, don't flaunt your 8k camera" depending on destination would be invaluable for me when planning a long-trip. I would also like to see a breakdown of how my most compatible destinations were selected after the fact (eg safety score, environmental impact score, etc). All in all I really like the idea and registered. I hope you guys launch something great so keep up the good work! PS I'd appreciate info on where stats and info are collected from when presented with results so I can evaluate whether I agree with the facts used in the calculation.
- afarrell 8y ago
  > quality content independent of sponsorship has yet to surface Can you name some places where it does exist? The only one that comes to mind is Wikimedia, but I suspect thats because I just don't know that much about their funding. HN, for example, is sponsored by ycombinator.
  - somada141 8y ago
    Sadly that was my point, I can think of none. The standard places like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Google, etc all fall under the category of crowdsourced and highly-susceptible to advertising agendas. Sad as it is, travel is a hard category to get unbiased information on given how big an industry tourism is.
    - notoriousjpg 8y ago
      (me again) News wise I think something like this is good: https://www.predicthq.com/ https://www.predicthq.com/ but i dont think their product is necessarily built for B2C. It's more something theyd sell to the operations centre of Uber etc. Otherwise yes i agree with you, travel news isn't really news. It's basically all some form of native advertising as the wanderlust-y articles are usually surrounded by flight deals and resort packages. In terms of destination content for people planning travel, one stream of thought we'd have whilst working on Cluey is: Right now travel is very supply side driven. Millions of travelers arrive in Destination X but the local tourism operators largely sell safe, common denominator stuff. They don't have visibility of what the actual Demand is, and the operators themselves become generalists. Right now no platform can justify collecting your travel related personal information/preferences, because none of them can do anything with it. I think Cluey can (hopefully) justify asking for that information. In turn we hope that allows us to connect travelers with locals who are compatible with what you're looking for. That hopefully will remove the weeks of research needed to plan a trip, and lead to more diverse experiences in more destinations. Our thinking is still crystallizing but those are some of the ideas we're playing around with...
- notoriousjpg 8y ago
somada141 8y ago
Btw you may be able to get some inspiration from, or even partner with, Rome2Rio [1] for the transportation part. I interviewed with them before and while I didn't like their tech their results are pretty impressively detailed and sourced. [1] https://www.rome2rio.com/ https://www.rome2rio.com/

jasonkester 8y ago

There used to be a popular usenet group for travel, which illustrated why you don’t see this these days. The only people who hang out in such a place are “seasoned traveller” folk, who are primarily interested in signalling that they’re the travelliest traveler. So the interaction was always the same: Newbie asks a simple question about Bangkok, somebody answers then four people jump in to battle over where in fact is the true best neighbourhood to stay in bkk. Eventually the place just gets left to those four guys fighting over the title of Alpha Traveler. It’s not a pleasant place.

somada141 8y ago
Yeah I bet its kinda tricky to separate bragging from actual info. I can see how seasoned travellers would have a good amount of knowledge on a topic but honestly I'd be more interested in current info as opposed to entirely subjective info eg "the best neighbourhood" or "the most picturesque hike". I bet that a location-specific events/alerts/info app would be successful. Perhaps something where you add locations of interest (in addition to the current location) and the app uses things like social media or local news sites to retrieve relevant info. I'd pay for that - hint, hint :).

hackermailman 8y ago

Big Hospitality covers the industry news much like HN covers startups but nothing exists that is user curated unless you count the various chan sites /trv/ like 4chan but then it's same problems as already discussed

return0 8y ago

r/travel r/backpacking etc