Hi guys, I'm the founder of whimsy - a new travel startup that aims to answer the common 'where should I go on holiday?' question.
We're in beta for now but please let me know any thoughts/feedback you might have!
Thanks and hope you enjoy :)
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@adrianogalardi love it! I often browse holidaypirates.com however the way they structure and present deals leaves a lot to be desired. This on the other hand looks great. Have you any plans for linking this up with hotel/airbnb prices? Accommodation cost often far outweighs flight cost.
@adamcudworth thanks Adam! Design has been a priority for us, especially as a way of de-cluttering the often messy travel platforms.
We'll definitely be offering some form of accommodation booking down the line, it just needs to be the right match. Airbnb is on our minds though so stay tuned...!
Thank you @corleyh :) The short answer is that I love to travel and discover new places, and am constantly on the lookout for inspiration/ideas on where to go next.
The problem for me is that traditionally inspiration has been disconnected from the booking process (I browse on Instagram, Pinterest, Condé Nast Traveler etc., but then book on Kayak). Some websites have picked up on this and and have tried offering 'Explore' features for those unsure of where to go, such as Kayak and Skyscanner. Their solution remains intangible though and doesn't offer the visual element which we need for our wanderlust to truly kick in!
We offer a curation element and truly hand pick each destination we show which we hope will entice users to discover places they never would have thought of going to.
The 2 other main factors we take into consideration are price and weather. Our algorithm uncovers affordable airfare to (pretty much) all four corners of the globe, though you're limited on the dates. The algorithm also factors in macro weather conditions to avoid you having to perform yet another separate search or finding yourself in a dream destination in the monsoon season.
This is awesome.
Found the "scrolling" through the results a little bit unintuitive, but overall the concept is great.
Some of the information available is great (& awesome visual design), but made me work harder than I expected to access it; be cool if you surfaced some of the info quicker, without me having to click & then go back..
What's next in-store for the product?
@isaacsrda Thanks for the feedback. We've tried to make it as intuitive as possible by removing superfluous options and keeping only the essential. Sometimes finding the balance between too much and too little can be tricky though so we'll keep working at it.
What's next is to scale it up and open more departure points. The initial voting is for us to see where the most demand is coming from (you can probably guess ;) so we can target our expansion. There is plenty more functionality coming but I'll keep that under the hood for now!
Just a heads up, you have background music playing on the site. This is crazy bad practice on the web. My speakers started blaring music while my room mates were sleeping this morning when I loaded up your site. I don't think I've seen background music since 2001. I highly suggest you reconsider that feature of your site.
I really like the concept.
I can think of 2 feedbacks:
1. All the last minute flights are for International locations. I wish it was more local. A use case I personally would have is that if I find that I have no plan for a weekend. I would come on this and find somewhere interesting to go to fill my weekend. But going to Vietnam for 7 days isn't really an option.
2. I wanted to report a small front end issue. The video in the background is really killing my browser. As a result, everything is very laggy and borderline unuseable.
@sidazhang Thanks for the feedback. You're absolutely right about local and you'll notice as we get into Spring, more regional destinations appearing! Noted regarding the lagging, I will pass on the comment to the dev team.
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@adrianogalardi - Nice! Love the visuals! Waiting for local destinations as well as ability to travel out from USA, India, etc. :)
I was also wondering whether it would be possible for you to include an average cost of staying at that location for that period. Might help users to take faster decisions and reduce people from looking at other sites for ideas and never coming back.
Thanks @rohinivaze10 ! Glad you like it :)
Working on opening up more departure points so stay tuned!
You're right, that's a nice idea. We're actually working on a more 'complete offering' that should provide enough information for users to make a decision (and therefore avoid losing them). Definitely on the right wavelength though!
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@adrianogalardi :) Looking forward to what you guys come up with
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