5 ms·

I don't like any of the existing travel sites, so even had to write one for friends and family (we like pick a random place and just go): http://www.somewheren

I don't like any of the existing travel sites, so even had to write one for friends and family (we like pick a random place and just go): http://www.somewherenice.net/ http://www.somewherenice.net/ This was put together over several weekends, so don't be too harsh on me. :)

andrewcross 14y ago
Go for all the feedback you can get, harsh or not ;)
- photorized 14y ago
  OK thank you :)
- photorized 14y ago
  My current goal is to minimize, and have 5 words and 2 graphics on the home page, nothing else. TLDR etc. don't know how yet.
jngreenlee 14y ago
I like it, I've been looking for something like this. Some features (dreaded feature creep!) I'd love: 1. Map interface with little lines from my home base airport to the possible destinations - It's just fun to see. 2. Sliders to increase/decrease budget - Dynamically adding/removing routes as I change the $$ limit. Maybe these would only take another weekend to add? </joke>
- calbear81 14y ago
  kayak.com/explore solves this problem for ya.
  - photorized 14y ago
    no it doesn't, not for me or anyone I know at least. I can elaborate.
    - calbear81 14y ago
      Ahh, I see that it didn't draw the lines but it handles the budget constraints while dynamically updating the map.
      - photorized 14y ago
        Main problem, in my opinion, is that most solutions are airport-centric. Say you want to Ski in Alta UT. You can't typically book travel from NYC to Alta, you have to specify "from" JFK/LGA (or NYC) to "SLC", assuming you know exactly where you are going, what the best airport is to fly to etc. Some let you select "ski" destinations (as Kayak Explore does), so it may send you to SLC (Salt Lake City), show you weather for Salt Lake City, then try to up-sell you on a hotel in Salt Lake City (or maybe Sandy UT). Mine's is destination centric. Where you fly to, where you check the weather, where you ski, and where you book your hotel (or even buy lift tickets from) are not necessarily the same "place". Make sense?
- photorized 14y ago
  jngreenlee: I was actually thinking about the map yesterday, but couldn't think about a good way to visualize so it doesn't look like another google maps mashup with pins. Your idea with air routes is interesting, hope you don't mind if I just go ahead and borrow them? :)
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    Also note that the distance to travel is proportional to the amount of time to get there. Perhaps you can do a shaded contour showing travel time? (Spending 8 hours on a plane is essentially a whole day gone.)
    - photorized 14y ago
      That's a very good point, thank you.
- photorized 14y ago
  I am hesitant about including budgets, mainly because they can be so misleading, and it's hard to actually get that price once you start booking. I had included "staring from $xxx RT", but then commented it out just prior to launch. But you just gave me another idea.
zalew 14y ago
I'm working on a travel (many)weekend(s) project myself yet to launch, so I won't be too harsh, but... :P I put Warsaw in, and the suggested airports were Okecie (correct) and Babice (it's in Krakow), Modlin was missing. And all the result were in the USA. I like the design theme with all the backgrounds etc. and the logo, cool idea. You should leave some way to contact you with feedback on the page. Keep on, good luck.
- photorized 14y ago
  zalew: airports - the UI lets you add your own. But I will look into Warsaw... I am currently looking at airports within a 50 mile circle, is Modlin farther than that? About the results: if there's no snow, a ski resort will most likely not be shown to you. The destinations were hand-picked, e.g. 2012 Best All-terrain, or best night life, or... But the list is growing, we just started to add European locations.
  - photorized 14y ago
    ... hmm Modlin to Warsaw is 22.6 miles. You may have found a bug, thank you.
  - zalew 14y ago
    http://goo.gl/maps/hWc9q http://goo.gl/maps/hWc9q Modlin is a recently opened low cost airport, a few months ago. maybe your data source is not current. oh, hand picked, I get it. I thought they were scrapped but maybe capped for US-only.
- photorized 14y ago
  zalew: try again, I added it. Apparently that airport just opened in July 2012, and formerly was a disused military airfield? That's why I didn't have it. Thanks again.
  - zalew 14y ago
    WMI — Warsaw-Modlin WAW — Okecie EPBC — Babice modlin now appers, but still don't know what babice are doing there :) yep, as I said, it was just recently opened as a passenger airport, and major european discount brands fly from there so by now it should be in every db. if you want me to help you sort out these issues, feel free to drop me an email; I've had various ideas around travel websites (the one I'm working on is not competing with yours) so I'll be happy to test it out or just chat.
muratmutlu 14y ago
This is great, what's your traffic like? Where did you get your data from?
- photorized 14y ago
  Thank you, I just "launched" the site a couple of days ago, so nobody knows about it except my FB friends. Airport data is open-source, although it needed some cleaning (to filter out things like railroad stations etc), weather forecasts are from Wunderground, but the main asset is Destinations. They've been hand-picked (a la Mechanical Turk), although the list is growing. Mainly focusing on ski destinations now, so the starting data set is places that I find interesting for whatever reason. I am experimenting with a couple of other data feeds, trying to gauge their relevance. The list of recommendations you are shown is not random, more interesting places (with better conditions at the time) bubble up. Traditional travel sites are airport-centric. Say you want to Ski in Alta UT. Most would try to send you to SLC (Salt Lake City), show you weather for Salt Lake City, then try to up-sell you on a hotel in Salt Lake City (or maybe Sandy UT). Mine's is destination centric. Where you fly to, where you check the weather, where you ski, and where you book your hotel (or even buy lift tickets from) - are not necessarily the same "place". Does this clarify things somewhat? P.S. Just checked real-time Google Analytics, you guys (HN are awesome, stress testing the site :). Do you think I should do a "show HN" at some point?
  - muratmutlu 14y ago
    I love that you're using Mechanical Turk. Thanks for the explanation and congratulations on launching! I would love to have my own flight search engine, I think there's still loads of room for improvement even with Kayak (a billion dollar + comapany), Hipmunk, Skyscanner out there
    - photorized 14y ago
      Thank you. I found a few areas that none of the existing travel solutions seem to have addressed, v2 and 3 will be more interesting. :)
  - 14y ago

andrewcross 14y ago

Go for all the feedback you can get, harsh or not ;)

photorized 14y ago
OK thank you :)
photorized 14y ago
My current goal is to minimize, and have 5 words and 2 graphics on the home page, nothing else. TLDR etc. don't know how yet.

jngreenlee 14y ago

I like it, I've been looking for something like this. Some features (dreaded feature creep!) I'd love: 1. Map interface with little lines from my home base airport to the possible destinations - It's just fun to see. 2. Sliders to increase/decrease budget - Dynamically adding/removing routes as I change the $$ limit. Maybe these would only take another weekend to add? </joke>

calbear81 14y ago
kayak.com/explore solves this problem for ya.
- photorized 14y ago
  no it doesn't, not for me or anyone I know at least. I can elaborate.
  - calbear81 14y ago
    Ahh, I see that it didn't draw the lines but it handles the budget constraints while dynamically updating the map.
    - photorized 14y ago
      Main problem, in my opinion, is that most solutions are airport-centric. Say you want to Ski in Alta UT. You can't typically book travel from NYC to Alta, you have to specify "from" JFK/LGA (or NYC) to "SLC", assuming you know exactly where you are going, what the best airport is to fly to etc. Some let you select "ski" destinations (as Kayak Explore does), so it may send you to SLC (Salt Lake City), show you weather for Salt Lake City, then try to up-sell you on a hotel in Salt Lake City (or maybe Sandy UT). Mine's is destination centric. Where you fly to, where you check the weather, where you ski, and where you book your hotel (or even buy lift tickets from) are not necessarily the same "place". Make sense?
photorized 14y ago
jngreenlee: I was actually thinking about the map yesterday, but couldn't think about a good way to visualize so it doesn't look like another google maps mashup with pins. Your idea with air routes is interesting, hope you don't mind if I just go ahead and borrow them? :)
- rogerbinns 14y ago
  Also note that the distance to travel is proportional to the amount of time to get there. Perhaps you can do a shaded contour showing travel time? (Spending 8 hours on a plane is essentially a whole day gone.)
  - photorized 14y ago
    That's a very good point, thank you.
photorized 14y ago
I am hesitant about including budgets, mainly because they can be so misleading, and it's hard to actually get that price once you start booking. I had included "staring from $xxx RT", but then commented it out just prior to launch. But you just gave me another idea.

zalew 14y ago

I'm working on a travel (many)weekend(s) project myself yet to launch, so I won't be too harsh, but... :P I put Warsaw in, and the suggested airports were Okecie (correct) and Babice (it's in Krakow), Modlin was missing. And all the result were in the USA. I like the design theme with all the backgrounds etc. and the logo, cool idea. You should leave some way to contact you with feedback on the page. Keep on, good luck.

photorized 14y ago
zalew: airports - the UI lets you add your own. But I will look into Warsaw... I am currently looking at airports within a 50 mile circle, is Modlin farther than that? About the results: if there's no snow, a ski resort will most likely not be shown to you. The destinations were hand-picked, e.g. 2012 Best All-terrain, or best night life, or... But the list is growing, we just started to add European locations.
- photorized 14y ago
  ... hmm Modlin to Warsaw is 22.6 miles. You may have found a bug, thank you.
- zalew 14y ago
  http://goo.gl/maps/hWc9q http://goo.gl/maps/hWc9q Modlin is a recently opened low cost airport, a few months ago. maybe your data source is not current. oh, hand picked, I get it. I thought they were scrapped but maybe capped for US-only.
photorized 14y ago
zalew: try again, I added it. Apparently that airport just opened in July 2012, and formerly was a disused military airfield? That's why I didn't have it. Thanks again.
- zalew 14y ago
  WMI — Warsaw-Modlin WAW — Okecie EPBC — Babice modlin now appers, but still don't know what babice are doing there :) yep, as I said, it was just recently opened as a passenger airport, and major european discount brands fly from there so by now it should be in every db. if you want me to help you sort out these issues, feel free to drop me an email; I've had various ideas around travel websites (the one I'm working on is not competing with yours) so I'll be happy to test it out or just chat.

muratmutlu 14y ago

This is great, what's your traffic like? Where did you get your data from?

photorized 14y ago
Thank you, I just "launched" the site a couple of days ago, so nobody knows about it except my FB friends. Airport data is open-source, although it needed some cleaning (to filter out things like railroad stations etc), weather forecasts are from Wunderground, but the main asset is Destinations. They've been hand-picked (a la Mechanical Turk), although the list is growing. Mainly focusing on ski destinations now, so the starting data set is places that I find interesting for whatever reason. I am experimenting with a couple of other data feeds, trying to gauge their relevance. The list of recommendations you are shown is not random, more interesting places (with better conditions at the time) bubble up. Traditional travel sites are airport-centric. Say you want to Ski in Alta UT. Most would try to send you to SLC (Salt Lake City), show you weather for Salt Lake City, then try to up-sell you on a hotel in Salt Lake City (or maybe Sandy UT). Mine's is destination centric. Where you fly to, where you check the weather, where you ski, and where you book your hotel (or even buy lift tickets from) - are not necessarily the same "place". Does this clarify things somewhat? P.S. Just checked real-time Google Analytics, you guys (HN are awesome, stress testing the site :). Do you think I should do a "show HN" at some point?
- muratmutlu 14y ago
  I love that you're using Mechanical Turk. Thanks for the explanation and congratulations on launching! I would love to have my own flight search engine, I think there's still loads of room for improvement even with Kayak (a billion dollar + comapany), Hipmunk, Skyscanner out there
  - photorized 14y ago
    Thank you. I found a few areas that none of the existing travel solutions seem to have addressed, v2 and 3 will be more interesting. :)
- 14y ago