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I had been building http://wishcan.com http://wishcan.com, a drag-and-drop travel planner, and will hand it off to someone willing to continue the work. Trip p

I had been building http://wishcan.com http://wishcan.com, a drag-and-drop travel planner, and will hand it off to someone willing to continue the work. Trip planning is difficult to get right, and notoriously hard to find a business model for. I think it's simply because no one has gotten the UI/UX perfect. I am now working on an IoT platform called http://smartxlab.com http://smartxlab.com

fovc 10y ago
Cannot agree more with wishcan. I sketched up a few different ideas for something like this, but never pushed on because I thought integrating with hotels, airlines, etc. Would painful. Also figured I'd need to automatically parse email confirmations, which would be a PITA. What is it written in and how much work is left to do?
- soneil 10y ago
  Parsing emails seems to have got a whole lot easier - most I interact with have started moving to schema.org microformats (eg, https://schema.org/FlightReservation https://schema.org/FlightReservation and https://schema.org/LodgingReservation https://schema.org/LodgingReservation for flights & hotels respectively). It seems google/gmail are backing this quite extensively, which is how it's finally found traction.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Never heard of https://schema.org/ https://schema.org/ before. Looks like a great resource thanks!
- sixdimensional 10y ago
  I often wondered if automating the pain point you mention above (integrating with hotels, airlines etc.) and providing a singular, specialized API for that would be an amazing business opportunity. Seems like one of the existing travel companies could do it, or a travel agency.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  Strikes me that you could turn this around somewhat... When people are publishing what they want, that looks to be a good starting point for travel/lodging companies to come in and make offers to these folks. "You're looking to stay in Bucharest on Sept 18 and 19? Our hotel can offer you XZY for $ABC on those nights." Sort of like lendingtree-model for travel. Not quite sure why that's not taken off yet, other than, perhaps, larger company IT systems? This could possibly work well for smaller regions - contact a local chamber of commerce and have them have all the local businesses make offers to people looking to stay in areas on specific days. Basically... define a format and let them integrate with you if they want access to the market you've defined, not the other way around.
wiradikusuma 10y ago
hey it looks polished! my wife and i are planning for a trip to Taipei mid-Sep, so i'm wondering if your app is usable (at least until end of this month).
supster 10y ago
WishCan is incredible - really well done! Any thoughts of open sourcing it? I would love to host a private version for my parents. Thanks.
alexstoick 10y ago
WishCan is super well done!
xer 10y ago
Good job so far, just add some airbnb hook there and you got income.
hoodwink 10y ago
Definitely like the user interface here. I normally do this kind of planning in Excel or Sheets, but it's hard to "visualize" the trip in tables. The timeline is great.
drakonandor 10y ago
Wow, that is really good.
qaq 10y ago
Looks very interesting, what options would you consider as far as partnering to have someone continue the development?
olympusmons 10y ago
I just used Sygic Travel (https://travel.sygic.com https://travel.sygic.com) to plan a very last-minute road trip in Iceland. I knew nothing about Iceland to begin with. I spent less than 8 hours planning the whole trip, and ~ 5 of them were in Sygic. It was great! Post-trip, I can attest that using it helped me make the most of my time in Iceland. I was well-informed during the trip (at least on par with most other travellers I met), and ended-up seeing most of the popular spots. I think Sygic did a great job with identifying the key user stories: 1. Ability to see a list of interesting places to generate ideas (they've partnered with Fodors, the content is comprehensive, at least for Iceland) 2. Ability to set my travel dates and schedule places that I want to visit on specific days 3. Ability to see places on a map so that I can schedule more efficiently. (I was able to schedule places in different regions on different dates, and thereby minimise driving times) 4. Ability to view and order daily itineraries (list + map) and ability to estimate travel time for a given itinerary. (This helped me avoid being over ambitious and gave me plenty of room to breathe during the trip) 5. Ability to see/book hotels on a map that have availability on my dates. I ended up making all my hotel reservations (4 nights) through their Booking.com integration. Never have I been happier to click on an affiliate link! The ability to visually plan your days and nights within the same interface really helps. Without this, I would have done what most last-minute travellers in Iceland do – book a hotel in Reykjavik (capital) for the entire stay and take day trips in/out. This would have severely limited my coverage of Iceland and cost more. 6. Ability to take my itinerary with me. They have a easy to use (free) mobile app with premium features e.g. offline maps. Paid for the premium features but didn't end up using them as internet worked great in Iceland! Overall, the interface was really well done, albeit with a 3-4 hour learning curve. I found myself needlessly bouncing back and forth between ideation and scheduling. I jotted down a few ideas while I was using it: - Break down planning into several stages: Ideation, Scheduling, Reservations. This would allow the interface to be more streamlined and reduce cognitive complexity of planning - Provide the ability to algorithmically cluster places into days and find shortest path for overall trip Anyway, wish can looks great! I'd love to contribute. I'm a pretty good programmer (iOS/Web), professionally a senior product manager, and also have decent design skills. Let me know if I can help. I haven't coded for the web in a while so would prefer to team up with someone with up-to-date front-end skills.
JulianRaphael 10y ago
How can I contact you the best?
thepredestrian 10y ago
Where can I contact you? I run a website in the vacation space that ranks well on Google for over 100 keywords. I was planning to expand my website and build a drag n drop feature like the one you did. Let me know if I can reach out to you via email, or you can send me one at thepredestrian@gmail.com
thepredestrian 10y ago
And just to add on to my previous comment (can't edit it), I have over a 1,000 email subscribers from my website. Haven't actually done anything with those emails yet, but I think marketing to them can be accelerated if I get my site to be more user-friendly and feature rich. Would definitely be interested to talk to you about it
jesalg 10y ago
WishCan looks pretty awesome. Great job! I built something very similar: http://www.travelizer.io/ http://www.travelizer.io/ - Although it's not as further along as WishCan. Interesting to see so many people attempting to solve the travel planning riddle but it's tough to get it right.

fovc 10y ago

Cannot agree more with wishcan. I sketched up a few different ideas for something like this, but never pushed on because I thought integrating with hotels, airlines, etc. Would painful. Also figured I'd need to automatically parse email confirmations, which would be a PITA. What is it written in and how much work is left to do?

soneil 10y ago
Parsing emails seems to have got a whole lot easier - most I interact with have started moving to schema.org microformats (eg, https://schema.org/FlightReservation https://schema.org/FlightReservation and https://schema.org/LodgingReservation https://schema.org/LodgingReservation for flights & hotels respectively). It seems google/gmail are backing this quite extensively, which is how it's finally found traction.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Never heard of https://schema.org/ https://schema.org/ before. Looks like a great resource thanks!
sixdimensional 10y ago
I often wondered if automating the pain point you mention above (integrating with hotels, airlines etc.) and providing a singular, specialized API for that would be an amazing business opportunity. Seems like one of the existing travel companies could do it, or a travel agency.
mgkimsal 10y ago
Strikes me that you could turn this around somewhat... When people are publishing what they want, that looks to be a good starting point for travel/lodging companies to come in and make offers to these folks. "You're looking to stay in Bucharest on Sept 18 and 19? Our hotel can offer you XZY for $ABC on those nights." Sort of like lendingtree-model for travel. Not quite sure why that's not taken off yet, other than, perhaps, larger company IT systems? This could possibly work well for smaller regions - contact a local chamber of commerce and have them have all the local businesses make offers to people looking to stay in areas on specific days. Basically... define a format and let them integrate with you if they want access to the market you've defined, not the other way around.

wiradikusuma 10y ago

hey it looks polished! my wife and i are planning for a trip to Taipei mid-Sep, so i'm wondering if your app is usable (at least until end of this month).

supster 10y ago

WishCan is incredible - really well done! Any thoughts of open sourcing it? I would love to host a private version for my parents. Thanks.

alexstoick 10y ago

WishCan is super well done!

xer 10y ago

Good job so far, just add some airbnb hook there and you got income.

hoodwink 10y ago

Definitely like the user interface here. I normally do this kind of planning in Excel or Sheets, but it's hard to "visualize" the trip in tables. The timeline is great.

drakonandor 10y ago

Wow, that is really good.

qaq 10y ago

Looks very interesting, what options would you consider as far as partnering to have someone continue the development?

olympusmons 10y ago

I just used Sygic Travel (https://travel.sygic.com https://travel.sygic.com) to plan a very last-minute road trip in Iceland. I knew nothing about Iceland to begin with. I spent less than 8 hours planning the whole trip, and ~ 5 of them were in Sygic. It was great! Post-trip, I can attest that using it helped me make the most of my time in Iceland. I was well-informed during the trip (at least on par with most other travellers I met), and ended-up seeing most of the popular spots. I think Sygic did a great job with identifying the key user stories: 1. Ability to see a list of interesting places to generate ideas (they've partnered with Fodors, the content is comprehensive, at least for Iceland) 2. Ability to set my travel dates and schedule places that I want to visit on specific days 3. Ability to see places on a map so that I can schedule more efficiently. (I was able to schedule places in different regions on different dates, and thereby minimise driving times) 4. Ability to view and order daily itineraries (list + map) and ability to estimate travel time for a given itinerary. (This helped me avoid being over ambitious and gave me plenty of room to breathe during the trip) 5. Ability to see/book hotels on a map that have availability on my dates. I ended up making all my hotel reservations (4 nights) through their Booking.com integration. Never have I been happier to click on an affiliate link! The ability to visually plan your days and nights within the same interface really helps. Without this, I would have done what most last-minute travellers in Iceland do – book a hotel in Reykjavik (capital) for the entire stay and take day trips in/out. This would have severely limited my coverage of Iceland and cost more. 6. Ability to take my itinerary with me. They have a easy to use (free) mobile app with premium features e.g. offline maps. Paid for the premium features but didn't end up using them as internet worked great in Iceland! Overall, the interface was really well done, albeit with a 3-4 hour learning curve. I found myself needlessly bouncing back and forth between ideation and scheduling. I jotted down a few ideas while I was using it: - Break down planning into several stages: Ideation, Scheduling, Reservations. This would allow the interface to be more streamlined and reduce cognitive complexity of planning - Provide the ability to algorithmically cluster places into days and find shortest path for overall trip Anyway, wish can looks great! I'd love to contribute. I'm a pretty good programmer (iOS/Web), professionally a senior product manager, and also have decent design skills. Let me know if I can help. I haven't coded for the web in a while so would prefer to team up with someone with up-to-date front-end skills.

JulianRaphael 10y ago

How can I contact you the best?

thepredestrian 10y ago

Where can I contact you? I run a website in the vacation space that ranks well on Google for over 100 keywords. I was planning to expand my website and build a drag n drop feature like the one you did. Let me know if I can reach out to you via email, or you can send me one at thepredestrian@gmail.com

thepredestrian 10y ago

And just to add on to my previous comment (can't edit it), I have over a 1,000 email subscribers from my website. Haven't actually done anything with those emails yet, but I think marketing to them can be accelerated if I get my site to be more user-friendly and feature rich. Would definitely be interested to talk to you about it

jesalg 10y ago

WishCan looks pretty awesome. Great job! I built something very similar: http://www.travelizer.io/ http://www.travelizer.io/ - Although it's not as further along as WishCan. Interesting to see so many people attempting to solve the travel planning riddle but it's tough to get it right.