5 ms·

I had founded Flights With Friends for group travel planning shortly before this post. I read it when it came out but knew the point about travel being rare was

• munificent 5y ago
  Said more succinctly: It's hard to make a successful product that reduces the time people spend doing something they love to do. Some ways I could imagine addressing this and the problem the article talks about: * Aim to make travel planning not easier (i.e. less time-consuming) but more fun. Treat the app more like a game or media app where users spend more time planning their trip by using the app in enjoyable ways. Put a ton of discovery and browsing ideas for things to do in it. Pinterest for vacations and activities. Basically Instagram, but with a "book this" button next to that pretty sunset photo. * Focus only on the parts of travel that aren't fun. Haggling over fares, logistics, reaching consensus with travel partners, etc. * Support use cases beyond just travel planning. If it's also a commute planner, or "what do this weekend in town" planner, it may get used frequently enough to stay in a user's mind.
  • basch 5y ago
    Even more succinctly: establishing consensus should be fun in and of itself. People dont know what they dont know. They dont want to plan. They do want to daydream. Make voting addictive and make the tally results easy to interpret, and aggregated. Not only what restaurants got picked, but a sum of them by type. Popeyes may have gotten 3 votes, but "Mexican Cantinas" may have gotten 4, albeit 4 different restaurants. Things like "what cities I want to visit with my friends" may or may not change between years.
    • JKCalhoun 5y ago
      I was thinking "travel", "plan" ... these two words do not go together. "Travel", "explore". "Travel", "serendipity"....
  • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    I dunno. I am surprised that there isn't something like "walk score" for a "visit score" - especially one where the score is based on what you want to do on your visit. I get that when you're traveling to a new city, you usually have an idea for what neighborhood you want to stay in. A lot of cities - there's only 1-3 neighborhoods that are walkable and good for tourists. Still, I'm surprised there's not an easy way to see what things there are nearby with some sort of ranking order based on what things you want to do.
    • kipchak 5y ago
      It didn't do much in terms of ranking or customizing things based on your interest but Niantic's Field Trip app was somewhat like that. I think if it hadn't been killed off it might have evolved into something like that.
    • silverpepsi 5y ago
      As someone who travels full time, Google's introduction of yellow blobs on the maps in the past year or two has been an absolute game changer for me. I used to look up the name of a known walking street and then try to make sure I'd mastered all that was worth seeing by doing the perimeter including ended up spending hours on alleys that lead to nothingness (car coridors or residential areas of 0 interest at the edge of the area worth exploring) Now, I just make sure I've walked the yellow blobs and I can be sure I've seen it all. It's a joy. Way less FOMO at the end of my trips as well.
      • mikevm 5y ago
        what are these yellow blobs?
        • silverpepsi 5y ago
          Does Google track everyone's phone location with Android to be able to give traffic info? Well I guess similarly they track the foot traffic and can indicate where in cities there is extremely concentrated foot traffic ... I.e. perfect areas to walk and explore.
  • jimbokun 5y ago
    Then you would probably want to fold it into something like Lonely Planet or a Rick Steves property. Or of course a feature in AirBnB.
    • jorpal 5y ago
      One of my favorite things to do is explore a foreign city with a recent Lonely Plant book to guide me. I think there’s something fantastic about that experience that can’t be replicated by an app or website. When I’m traveling one cool tech thing I’d like is an AI assistant that could actually place calls in any language to book hotels, tickets, or just check operating hours for places I find in the guidebook.
    • azalemeth 5y ago
      I love the Lonely Planet guides, but I don't like the budgeting that comes with them. I'd quite like an app into which you could say "I have a budget of $THIS_MUCH, plus or minus $THAT_MUCH for the day. I am in $LOCATION and I would like to experience $THESE_SORTS_OF_FUN_THINGS. Please generate, perhaps pseudo-randomly, an itinerary of fun for the next $NUMBER of hours with all that in mind".
  • aabbcc1241 5y ago
    Maybe a hotel "ig shop" would be a more popular choice. In my region people abuse ig for all kind of use cases.
• clairity 5y ago
  i once produced the annual catalog for a traditional travel package company, filled with pictures and enticingly-crafted copy (at merely-high to outrageous prices). the whole thing was designed to move potential customers from rational to emotional decision-making and apply simple price discrimination mechanics to maximize revenue. low tech but effective. it seems like most travel planning software fails due to the too-common misapplication of technology to solve marketing problems.
• ezfe 5y ago
  The other thing is that travel planning is flexible and uncertain. Computers are inherently specific. Creating a program that doesn't interfere with this "maybe we'll do this, and if we do this then the trip will be X days, but if we do that then it will be Y days" isn't easy.
  • nicbou 5y ago
    Yes, doubly so if you have your own vehicle. You might end up visiting other countries on a whim.
• thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > most people are always planning their next trip in their mind. You may not be thinking of a representative sample of people.
• gverrilla 5y ago
  I disagree. Most people love to imagine vacations, but then they realize they have to pay for it. It's only a minority that is "always planning their next trip in their mind", at least where I live. We all have a vague idea of where we wanna go next, but going from vague idea to realization is not very fun for most people. Realization is fun, or at least should be. Tourism is actually dead, and most people feel that deep in.
  • mlac 5y ago
    I don’t find being a “tourist” is fun. It’s superficial experiences that aren’t the actual culture of a place and often are designed to take money from you as quickly as possible (Tourist Traps). It’s also long lines, crowds, influencers taking selfies and vlogs, and, one of the worst things I’ve found: experiences designed to make it feel like you’re a “baller” having a special night out. These will be 3 star quality experiences that are charged at 5 star prices. How much you paid is almost supposed to be a bragging right. But the problem is, getting “off the beaten path” only works for so many people before the beaten path changes. Same with “the best kept secret” or “local hangouts”. These can only take so many people before they are no longer a secret or the scales tip to no longer be for locals. And blogs about unique experiences at a place work, but then fall apart if too many people do them. Don’t get me wrong - tourism has its place, and I appreciate doing the classic “tourist” stuff at certain locations. But my best meal in Paris? A restaurant counter off the beaten path. The worst? A top 20 Yelp restaurant where they routed us to the tourist dining room filled with other Americans looking for a quintessential Parisian experience. But finding a few locals to make solid recommendations would be quite useful before going to a new city. Google maps is good for that, but we still miss certain things. Lastly, it’s extremely beneficial to know what to avoid and what to seek out in a given location. Like some people may not know that there are certain months to get crabs in Maryland. Or that crawfish season is in the spring. Or that, like an idiot, you shouldn’t order a lager off the menu at a restaurant in London without knowing that you’re about to be handed a £5 can of Brooklyn Lager from their imports (we could not find a local pub, and I could not find local beer…).
    • rtkaratekid 5y ago
• geoduck14 5y ago
  >If someone made a tool that was better than planning your trip in your head it doesn't matter that you aren't taking a trip all the time. Because most people are always planning their next trip in their mind. My wife uses Travelocity's "book a random room" feature. You are told "random 4 star hotel in X area for $x" that is typically $10-20 less than if you use Travelocity to book that same hotel directly. She loves it because she gets really excited about saving a couple of bucks. I get anxious because I don't know what I'm getting.
  • deserted 5y ago
    They have two versions of that: One where you can figure out exactly what you are getting if you want. It shows you enough detail about the "mystery hotel" (Example: Free Parking, Gym, At least 3 star, Rating of 8+ out of 10, at least 800 ratings) that quickly referring to the search results from the area makes it clear which is which. Love it and been using for years. One where it's "One of these 3 specific hotels". I hate this one for the same reason as you because you're rolling the dice, the hotels can be very different and in different neighborhoods.
    • datavirtue 5y ago
      You should try rolling the dice with VRBO. Nothing makes a trip real like showing up half way across the world to find you have rented a flop house. Seriously, VRBO is a scam factory since there is no customer support or dispute system. Premier hosts can post anything, get paid, and never have to worry about getting docked for the scam unless someone rounds up some lawyers.
• monksy 5y ago
  Most technology products that we have these days are more about form filling and response returning than empowering the user to succeed. Want to go to Germany.. ok you're going to have to go and research the current climiate for if you'll be accepted into the country (Covid restictions), visa requirements (depending on your situation), go to google flights fill out a few forms, decide where your flight is going to go, filter out the bad flights (I.e. Spirit like options like Lufthansa), configure the search to include costs of bags, oh wait the flight doesn't exist anymore for that cost, or doesn't exist anymore. Now you have to do research on connecting through the UK.. does this require a PCR test prior? Google Flight's view of this: Well we provided a few forms and options for the users to select we're done with the mvp.
• IgorPartola 5y ago
  So what I hear you saying is that instead of software that plans a trip people might want fun software to organize the trip they had already planned? Maybe with automating some boring tasks.
• vmception 5y ago
  The few times my plans get complicated I just use my OS included notes app If I’m with someone that wants to make spreadsheets and calendars, I’m letting them do that on their own and either like them enough to go along for the ride, or go my own way completely
• pronlover723 5y ago
  > Because most people are always planning their next trip in their mind. Source? That doesn't fit my experience