Made to Wander is a photo and video sharing app specifically built to inspire travellers to go somewhere new and give them directions to the places they see.
• Share photos and videos of your travels
• All posts are geo-tagged so we can give directions there
• Multi-modal route finder with time and price estimations
• Contact information for all transport companies
• View nearby posts to see if there is anything else of interest in the same area
• Search specific countries, cities, attractions and hashtags for travel ideas
• Save lists for later to make it easy to get to the places you want to go
• No ads and no secret algorithms
+ 415 others joined this month
Comments
Hi Travel Massive community!
I’m Brad from Made to Wander. Like a lot of us, I get most of my travel inspiration from photos and footage but the process of finding something interesting, working out what country it’s in and ultimately how I’m going to get there to see it for myself, is incredibly slow. A lot of us get our inspiration from social media but apart from having the benefit of shear numbers, it hasn’t really done anything to make this process faster. A lot of posts aren’t geo-tagged or tagged wrong and I don’t even bother using the search function as the top posts for a location are usually just glamour shots!
So I built Made to Wander. A platform specifically to find and share travel inspiration and what’s more, show you how to actually get there! From anywhere to anywhere, using as many modes of transport as needed.
The next feature will be to find accommodation at your destinations. The goal is to be able to find where you want to go, how to get there, what’s nearby and where to stay all in one app!
My biggest hurdle right now is that people like the concept but want to see more users. So I’m kind of stuck. I need more users but I can’t get them unless there are more users. So I would be forever grateful to hear any ideas on how to crack my chicken and egg problem!
I’d also love to hear if you find Made to Wander useful along with any general feedback.
Thanks for your time!
Cheers,
Brad
would love to try but get an error trying to install on android :/
Chicken & Egg is the big problem with community based projects. Maybe you could try to motivate users to invite friends and give them some benefits to do so.
Thanks Philip. What does the error say? Android is currently being worked on so it might have something to do with that. I'll send you a message with my email so I can get it fixed up.
I have tried competitions but it didn't get much interest. Maybe I should try a lot of small prizes though instead of one big one so everybody feels like a winner.
I'm also in the process of working with some bloggers. I'm thinking a bunch of well timed articles around a Kickstarter campaign could bring in interest with early adapters and will validate the concept if successful.
Hey Brad, good luck with the app.
I've also had a run with the travel inspiration / planning in the past and the problem was as you said bringing in users. To do that you need a huge marketing budget, and you need them to understand why stop getting inspiration from insta, TikTok and established travel content websites and use you instead . My recommendation is to see where you complete and not compete, be that extra step or part of the existing funnel travelers pass...
I wish you good luck!!!
Cheers,
Dario
Hey Dario, I appreciate the comment. It's funny you bring up where to compete and where not to. While I was building Made to Wander I perhaps naively, never thought I'd be competing against the likes of Insta and TikTok. I saw them as very different things. One was something you used to waste time and what I was building was something to save time. And even if that still holds true, clearly I was wrong about why people use them.
I still believe Made to Wander has its place and is a useful tool for travellers. I just need to prove it!
Research the topic of gen Z using TikTok instead of Google for searchingvthe web.
Hey Brad thanks for sharing Made to Wander with the Travel Massive community.
I signed up and added a photo from my local beach in Tasmania, hope that helps add some more content!
What is powering your multi-modal search results? This is a really good part of the app. I kinda feel you have two apps in one - a travel photo sharing app, and a transport app.
From a content perspective, covering the whole world is a really hard job, as I’m sure you’ve discovered. So there’s always going to be some disappointed users who can’t find content in the location they want to visit. This is where going niche helps. If you can find a pattern/cohort of users (eg they all travel to Asia, or are into hiking) then you could double down on that and be a more specific app. Being everything to everyone, especially with limited resources as a solo founder is almost impossible.
Hope this feedback helps. And don’t give up! You might be a pivot or two away from a very popular app!
Thanks for the post and thanks for the encouragement. It's very much appreciated!
It's actually the Rome2Rio API. Ideally I'd like to one day have our own that includes trails and hikes so that it can cover getting from A to B in its entirety. But priorities and all that.
I get what you mean about the two different apps but that is exactly what I wanted. I know that simplicity is usually key but they have been done on their own and I don't really want to compete there. Imagine Instagram (or does anybody remember Trover?) with only travel content and Rome2Rio navigating you to every post? Then being able to flick over to Booking.com or Airbnb and stay nearby? That sounds pretty awesome to me!
But I know it's a lot to sell which is why I'm only focussing on the posts and the multi-modal routes to get you there.
Zoning in on a particular region is something I've thought about. I've kind of been resisting but focussing on somewhere like Latin America where I've spent a lot of time and have a lot of content could be a good niche. People are always looking for information here. But Rome2Rio doesn't work as well in this region so that's also something I need to consider. I've also thought about just ditching the community side and scraping images but it doesn't sit well with me. Seems a bit soulless.
Thanks again. Seems like I have some decisions I'm going to need to start thinking about!
I thought about an app like this. Geotagged photos are often missing features in many travel apps and blogs. I totally feel your pain when it comes to attracting initial users. I'm developing travelermap.net - website about parks (different types of protected parks), where users can submit photos and reviews. I'm planning to show photos on map as well.
I like what Ian suggested in his comment, I think you should try finding your niche (location or type of travelers) and start from there. Hard to be general app without huge marketing budget.
Thanks for the comment Kacper. I agree about finding a niche region. I have a few more ideas to try and if they don't work, I think that is what I will be doing.
I read about your app when you posted it. Looks interesting. I think showing the photos on the map will be a nice addition so you can see where things are in relation to each other.