A predictable travel startup… or not?
For nearly 2 years now, Nik and I have been continuously reviewing travel destinations. That is a tedious little task, even for ardent travelers like ourselves, but our hard work has paid off and the result can be seen at Travelindicator and SixTripz.
free access to the most complete and easily searchable list of travel destinations available anywhere
At first glance, both of these may seem like your average travel blog/website/startup. Pictures of beaches, superlatives thrown around here and there, what’s really new? As succinctly as I can put it: it’s about the data and how we give you access to the data.
What sets us apart
In the endlessly saturated world of travel startups, what we believe sets us apart from the competition are three things:
- The thoroughness by which we map the world (currently counting nearly 1,000 destinations in 200 countries, we aim for completeness). We aim to make available to you destinations whose existence might otherwise take a few evenings of pre-travel research for you to become aware of
- The theme mapping that we apply to destinations. Each destination is rated on 23 themes, roughly divided in three groups: scenery (beaches, forests), activities and attractions (sports, culture, history) and atmosphere (romantic, adventurous, exciting)
- The fact we are not trying to sell you anything other than giving you free access to the most complete and easily searchable list of travel destinations available anywhere
The themes are not black and white
On Travelindicator, themes are not a black and white thing. We see themes as a score ranging from nil to a hundred. A visit to Bangkok sounds pretty exciting to us, more so than a visit to Berlin, but that doesn’t exactly mean that Berlin is a totally unexciting place, does it?
And would it be fair to say that the level of excitement of a Berlin is quite similar to that of for instance Warsaw, but that the city is quite a bit more exciting than Bremen? Similar paragraphs could be typed about how Venice is the pinnacle of romance, but surely Bologna is not as unromantic as let’s say Duesseldorf (sorry)?
You can see that just rating places on one theme already gives you an idea of which locations are comparable and which aren’t. Doing so on 23 of them for a 1,000 places gives you an interesting dataset to work with, as you can now basically find the exact replica or closest alternative of any place on this globe! Like the Maldives but want a cheaper alternative? On Travelindicator, easy does it. Have a specific holiday mix in mind (mountains and culture in a family-friendly place?), it’s just a few clicks away on TI.
“You were not meant to find out about these islands on some travel website on the internet. No. The proper way to have heard about them would be by being on your fifth beer with your well-traveled backpacker friend, and him/her finally giving away their best-kept travel secret. But alas.”
That is a lot of data to work with, and we make it available to our users in two distinct ways. Surfing Travelindicator itself is much like running a database query on travel destinations. Browsing SixTripz meanwhile is a better alternative when sitting down with a glass of wine and iPad and are casually browsing where your next trip might bring you.
