OVERVIEW
Problem
The emotional gap in trip planning
Most travel tools treat planning like a search-and-click task, but users are on a journey to emotionally trust a place. They want to explore it through local eyes, build understanding at their own pace, and feel supported through uncertainty.
Current platforms (ChatGPT, Reddit, even TripAdvisor) either dump too much data or offer rigid outputs. There’s a gap between information and insight.
Travelers told us...
“I wanted to ask someone if the event was still going, but didn’t know where to ask.”
“I use Tiktok but it’s full of influencers’ ads and fake info.”
“I looked up this food stall on Reddit, but it was permanently closed when I went.”
“AI tools give me a plan, but I don’t trust it. There is no ‘human’ feeling.”
With all the social media and AI travel planning tools, planning a trip is still challenging.
?
How can we build trust in every step of the journey?
Solution
Wanderly is a lightweight Q&A platform that connects travelers with locals and experienced explorers to get real-time, personalized travel advice, just like Reddit for travelers. Whether you’re planning a trip, currently traveling, or just returned, Wanderly helps you ask quick questions, browse curated tips, and share your own experiences, all without the noise of ads or generic travel guides. Designed to be trust-driven, Wanderly makes meaningful travel information more accessible through community knowledge and simple interaction.
My Role
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Team
2 Developers
1 Product Manager
Timeline
Apr - Aug 2025
Context-Aware Onboarding
Discover who you are as a traveler before your journey begins.
Wanderly’s onboarding is designed to help you figure out what you want from your trip. Through simple, situational questions, we guide you to reflect on your travel style, preferences, and current travel status. Whether you’re still dreaming or already on the road, we tailor everything from recommendations to interactions right from the start.
A Home Feed That Knows You
Explore content that changes with your mood, timing, and destination.
After onboarding, your Wanderly home page becomes a personalized travel companion. Planning a trip but haven’t picked a place yet? We’ll give you cultural inspiration, trending Q&As, and upcoming festivals. Already packed your bags? Expect real-time help and hyper-local tips. The content adapts to your interests: foodie, architecture fan, or spontaneous explorer, and your moment.
From Browsing to Asking
Scroll through local answers, then ask your own questions.
Wanderly makes it feel easy and intuitive to join the conversation. As you browse questions and answers from other travelers and locals, you’re naturally encouraged to ask your own. Behind the scenes, smart suggestions help you discover related discussions before you even type, saving time and helping you ask better.
Share What You Know, Earn Trust
Locals (and experienced travelers) get recognized and rewarded.
Your knowledge has value. Wanderly lets you update your profile to reflect the cities you know well. And once verified, your answers carry a special badge. The more you help others by answering questions, the more coins you earn. It’s a community that thrives on generosity, credibility, and a shared love for travel.
JUMP TO PROTOTYPE
Our Approach
01 Research
Competitive Analysis
Interviews
User Decision Journey
Personas
02 Design
Ideation Process
Concept Validation
Wireframes
High-Fidelity Design
Interactive Prototype
03 Reflection
Future Development
RESEARCH
Competitive Analysis
There are already countless solutions aiming to make travel easier, but users still struggle across different stages, from planning to navigating real-time needs. To understand the landscape of travel advice platforms, we examined several existing tools like Reddit, ChatGPT, Tiktok, and Go Ask a Local.
We found that:
Reddit, tiktok, and Xiaohongshu offer rich, community-driven travel content, but the information is often overwhelming, unverified, and not tailored to trip timing or user intent.
ChatGPT provides instant answers, but lacks emotional context, lived experience, and location specificity.
Tripbff and Go Ask a Local focus on social connection or expert 1-on-1 advice, but both are time-consuming or require a high barrier to entry, not suitable for quick questions or lightweight exploration.
Most platforms fail to distinguish between the needs of travelers at different stages: before, during, or after a trip.
Therefore, we saw an opportunity to design a lightweight Q&A platform where travelers can ask casual questions and receive contextual tips from locals and peers. Unlike traditional platforms, Wanderly adjusts based on travel phase and blends AI assistance with community insight for faster, more trustworthy discovery.
Interviews
To better understand travelers’ current challenges with planning and navigating trips, I initiated a series of user interviews before designing any features. I spoke to 10 participants with diverse travel habits, from lightweight travelers to detailed planners and cultural explorers, and 5 of them were travelers I met during my trip to Mexico and Taiwan. Based on these interviews, we conducted affinity mapping to identify patterns, unmet needs, and design opportunities for Wanderly.
We found that:
Many travelers feel overwhelmed by outdated, excessive, or overly curated information on social platforms like Tiktok, Xiaohongshu or Reddit, making it hard to extract timely and trustworthy insights.
AI-based tools, like ChatGPT, often feel impersonal and lack local context, making travelers distrust the recommendations.
Some users struggle at the start of trip planning not because they lack tools, but because they don’t even know what to search. They browse aimlessly, hoping for inspiration.
Several participants value local interactions far more than ticking off tourist spots, and feel most satisfied when travel brings cultural or personal resonance.
Travelers always face challenges when planning a trip, but actually they don’t hate planning a trip. On the contrary, most travelers enjoy the process of planning a lot.
Because of these challenges, many travelers either fall back on generic recommendations, miss out on meaningful local experiences, or spend excessive time navigating scattered, impersonal sources, leaving them overwhelmed, disconnected, or unsure of their choices.
Five Stages of User Decision Journey
Based on user interviews and inspired by McKinsey’s Customer Decision Journey model, we developed a five-stage Traveler Planning Journey to better capture how modern travelers plan for a trip. This model reflects both behavioral insights from real users and a proven framework used in customer-centric industries. It also helps us design targeted product experiences at each stage.
McKinsey’s customer journey model
1. Awareness – Initial spark of interest or destination inspiration
2. Exploration – Browsing ideas, looking for options
3. Trust Building – Verifying what’s credible and real
4. Decision Making – Finalizing itinerary, bookings
5. Advocacy – Staying engaged post-trip, sharing or reflecting
Most existing tools jump users straight to decision, without helping them build trust or gradually form mental models about a place. For example, many AI travel tools generate full itineraries, but users feel detached from the results due to lack of emotional investment or local context.
Personas
To better guide our design and enable everyone on the team to empathize with our users, I further synthesized the interview results and came up with the following personas:
Travel Style:
Eric travels for cultural immersion. He takes 2–4 international trips per year, each lasting 1–3 months. His trips focus on experiencing the local culture deeply.
Behaviors & Needs:
Researches local holidays, customs, and community life before traveling.
Hopes to meet people with genuine local stories, beyond what’s available online.
Keeps detailed travel journals, takes photos, and shares stories through writing or content creation.
Enjoys hidden gems and avoids overly commercialized experiences.
Pain Points:
Hard to find real local voices or access authentic, lived-in advice.
Most platforms feel surface-level. He wants deeper context, not top-10 lists.
Wants to connect with like-minded travelers, not just follow tourist checklists.
Lacks a space to share meaningful stories without the pressure of social media.
Eric
The Cultural Seeker
Based in San Francisco
31, Freelancer
“I don't want to see what tourists see. I want to experience a place the way locals do, eat where they eat, go where they go. Those are the memories that stay with me.”
Charlotte
The Weekend Wanderer
Based in Tokyo
24, Project Manager
Travel Style:
Charlotte loves using her weekends to explore new places, like nearby cities. She travels 1–2 times a month and often starts planning just a few days ahead.
Behaviors & Needs:
Doesn’t dislike making itineraries, but often feels stuck at the starting point, unsure what to search or how to narrow things down.
Browses platforms like Xiaohongshu or Instagram, hoping for sparks of inspiration, but quickly gets overwhelmed.
Enjoys curating her own experiences once she has direction, preferring to make her own plans rather than follow pre-set AI itineraries.
Pain Points:
Too many choices, not enough time. Hard to decide what’s truly worth it on a short trip.
Most travel platforms are either too overwhelming (Reddit, blogs) or too influencer-driven (Instagram, Xiaohongshu).
Can’t ask quick, specific questions like “Where to eat near my hotel at 8pm?”
Wants to contribute her own discoveries, but doesn’t like the performative nature of social media.
“I don’t hate planning. I actually enjoy it. But when there’s too much out there, I just freeze. I wish something could gently point me in the right direction.”
DESIGN
Ideation
With the research findings, personas, and the rough solution idea in mind, I invited other team members to brainstorm the detailed solutions together. We tried to come up with as many ideas as possible without considering feasibility at this stage.
To evaluate the feasibility of our MVP, we identified Q&A knowledge exchange as the core feature. Instead of jumping straight into design, we tested the concept using WhatsApp as a no-code prototype. I created a group chat connecting travelers from Shanghai heading to Mexico City, and vice versa, to simulate Wanderly.
Validating the Concept: A Real-World MVP Test
The result was organic and lively: users immediately began sharing insider tips, from hidden food spots to navigating local transport. Conversations often evolved into cultural exchanges, confirming a strong need for real-time, human-centered travel advice.
Interestingly, even when the information existed online, travelers still preferred asking locals to confirm and personalize their plans. Follow-up interviews during and after the test reinforced our belief: travelers are naturally motivated to share and seek knowledge when given the right space. This MVP became a compelling proof of concept for Wanderly.
Eventually, we settled on the following core functionalities:
Personalized Travel Feed
Show tips, Q&As, and collections from locals based on user’s traveler type, travel stage, and destination preferences.
Ask & Answer Questions
Let users ask location-based travel questions and answer others, with smart tagging and search suggestions.
Context-Aware Onboarding
Guide users with simple, situational questions to understand their travel mindset and deliver a tailored first experience.
User Profile & Local Verification
Users can list places they know well and receive verified local badges, which helps build trust in the community.
Post-Trip Sharing & Reflection
Encourage users to share their experiences through quick notes to help future travelers.
Travel Stage Awareness
Help users update their travel status (e.g., planning, currently traveling) to surface the right information at the right time.
High-Fidelity Design
Now, let’s step into the journey of our Wanderly user, Eric, a curious cultural explorer based in San Francisco. Eric is passionate about architecture, food, and local traditions. He loves diving deep into a place’s unique character, beyond tourist checklists.
01 Context-Aware Onboarding
It’s almost summer, and Eric is thinking about where to go for his vacation, but he’s not sure yet. He downloads Wanderly to explore his options.
02 Personalized Travel Feed
Eric landed on Wanderly home page that sparks curiosity completely personalized for him based on his onboarding answers.
03 Travel Stage Update
Eric discovered that Songkran Festival is happening soon in Bangkok, and it immediately sparked his interest. He updated his travel stage to “Planning a trip” and set his destination to Bangkok to start preparing.
04 Ask & Answer Questions
After exploring the personalized home feed for Bangkok, Eric wants to learn more about local traditions and decides to ask a question about Songkran.
05 User Profile
Wanderly is built on community knowledge, so everyone has a profile that grows with their contributions.
Here’s what Eric’s profile looks like after he’s asked a few questions and answered others. His profile showcases:
Travel expertise based on cities he’s lived in or explored deeply
Topics he’s familiar with, so others know what to ask him about
A clean record of activity across Questions, Answers, and Collections
Eric can revisit anything he’s saved under Collects, see all his contributions, and even organize helpful answers into custom boards
Wanderly’s profile system makes participation lightweight and personal, turning every user into both a traveler and a guide.
