Flexible Itinerary

Following a tight schedule can be tricky but the Flexible Itinerary will automatically adjust the amount of time spent and alert group members if plans fall behind.  

Lifestyle Preferences

What kind of a traveler are you? Vacation can mean "spa day" to one person or "rugged outdoors" to another. Personal preferences make sure you'll be experiencing the trip you're expecting.

Shadowing

Shadowing is Wanderlust's preference and prediction feature. By intermittently geolocating whereabouts and tagging destinations, the app can predict the places, things, and types of activities a traveler would most likely be interested in.

Pre-Visualizing

Pre visualizing one event to the next maximizes the day by allowing group members to prepare. It also lets some members who wants to fly solo know where to meet up depending on the itinerary.

The Challenge

How do we get people of various traveling personalities, place familiarities, personal preferences, and varying interests to collaborate, compromise, and make decisions? This was the challenge.

The Goal

This project sought to understand the way people collaborate, compromise, and make decisions during group travel. 

A Bit of Research (*but check my Process Below*)

Motivational Emotions / Why do people travel?

I began my research by understanding the emotional drivers that motivate people to travel and the practical experiences they want. There are 4 motivations: 1 / Escape reality 2/ To spend quality time with each other 3/ Discover a new place  4/ Create experiences & have memories to share.

Levels of Familiarity / Where do people go?

Then I asked, what type of experiences do people want? How do experiences change depending on they familiarity of a place?  I discovered 5 different levels of Familiarity. 

Stages + Pain Points / How do people travel?

What are the stages in traveling? Preplanning, planning, experiencing, and re experiencing were the typical ways in which people generally experienced a trip.

Planner personas / Who is the voice of the vacation?

My eureka moment is when I discovered the Planner Persona. I wanted to translate the Planning Persona and their apt planning abilities into the voice of the app itself. They ask their group, "Where do you want to go now?" and Wanderlust essentially becomes that persona while motivating people to be more involved. 

Freemium Trial

Wanderlust will provide a free trial trip to new users.   

$19.99 Family Plan with In-App Purchases

Wanderlust is priced at $19.99 indefinitely with Additional City Add-ons at $4.99 due to its collaboration tools and innovative offerings. Other City Guide Offerings are priced from $1.99 to $15.99. All of them range in the type of information provided but none providing a collaboration aspect or the Flexible Itinerary Builder. Wanderlust would be the first app of its kind, making the $19.99 pricing competitive (And costs less than a checked bag at the airport!!)

Metered Access Paywall

When users travel outside the city, example: San Francisco into Napa County, they could pay a small fee of $1.99 for 24 hour access.

Roll out Plan

1-6 Months: City Specific Guides

In the next 12-18 months, we aim to Launch the App. Within the first 6 months, we are looking to build a team, test in San Francisco, build collaborations with the hospitality industry, build relationships with the Tourism Board and launch. With the amount of development needed, we would need $300,000 to start.

6 Months: Corporate Travel

Wanderlust will expand their offerings by providing a Business Travel oriented guide for group travel. Features will include everything in the family app with addition to adding and tracking Expense Reports, Travel Itineraries for business, linked communication back at the office.

Year 2: In-Car Roadtrip

As the smart car / autonomous vehicles are introduced to the market, Wanderlust will be one of the first In-Car Roadtrip apps. It will not only guide within the car, but will also work concurrently with the smart phone app. Features include: Voice guided driving tours, Vehicle to Vehicle communication for larger parties, and Car camping guide.