Redefining Travel Guides with Data Visualization

I was planning a trip a couple months ago and struggled to plan it by myself. Trying to work within a budget, I did a lot of research on things to do, places to stay, and ways to get around. I had to consider many aspects planning this trip and it was very stressful:

- Where to stay
- Options for getting around (bus schedules, renting a car)
- Top places I should check out
- Proximity of destinations
- Checking for the best flight deals
- Where to eat
- Weather of the destination
- How much money I should budget
- How long I should go for
- Make sure things at home were looked after
- Make sure my visa was sorted

Why is this so hard? There are so many resources available online yet I still needed to do so much research. A study done in 2012 reported that pre-trip planning produced more stress than actually going on the trip. This is not surprising because planning a trip requires us to piece together a lot of information from many places. The key variables I was working around was time, money, and degree of customization. If I wanted lots of choice in what I was going to do, I needed…