TIPS App uses purpose-built AI models and human experts to consolidates everything you need to know to feel smart and safe about your destination– so you can be on the go faster and safer.
+ 457 others joined this month
Comments
How the TIPS Travel App Started
Two years ago, I found myself in Quito, Ecuador, urgently in need of a charger, fast internet, and an ATM. Despite having traveled to over 40 countries across all five continents, I was at a loss—not knowing the plug type in Ecuador or where I could use a credit card.
Why the TIPS Travel App?
Upon returning from my travels, which extended all the way to Buenos Aires, I became obsessed with the idea that all travelers, regardless of income, should have access to essential logistics, safety information, and insights to travel better—without spending excessive amounts of money and time. During this obsession, I discovered that travelers typically wasted five hours and read over 241 pages of travel content before booking their trips. The thought of spending five hours researching was staggering, especially for those balancing kids, work, etc. I was convinced there had to be a better, faster way, using technology.
Fixing the Travel Information Gap and Research Hassle
That's why I created the TIPS Travel app. We use a blend of AI and human expertise, masterfully delivered through the app's six main features. Our human experts craft our City Briefs, which provide localized, human-written information, from areas to avoid to appropriate attire. I deliberately chose not to use AI for this—I wanted a human touch in our advice.
Our next feature, Consolidated TIPS, is an all-in-one aggregator of essential links, including those for embassies, food, and ridesharing apps, among others. It was tedious to google hundreds of websites on super slow data plans.
I realized that having well-researched information wasn't enough. We needed a way for travelers to inform one another in an accessible and reliable manner. This led to the creation of our third feature, Travelers' TIPS. Unlike Reddit and Yelp, which can be overwhelming and sometimes unreliable, we curate all the submitted Travelers' TIPS for accuracy and reliability, complete with photos and geolocation.
So by now, you might be asking about the AI. Here it is! We didn't want to just apply AI to the problem indiscriminately. Our AI-powered features include a purpose-built TIPS GPT that can answer any questions in any language about any destination—an effective supplement to our human-written City Briefs.
Our subsequent two features focus on security, assisting users in gauging the safety of a city and the potential for future unrest. I've often heard from travelers who booked trips only to find out just a day before that protests and chaos would disrupt their plans. To address this, we built an AI-powered TIPS City Security Rating, which uses on-the-ground polling to generate a safety rating, and the TIPS Political Violence Predictor Tool, which assesses the risk of political violence within the next six months.
Finally, if I can help reduce uncertainty in your travels, I can also offer AI to plan your trip. We've developed TIPS Trip Planner to provide a comprehensive travel experience.
What's Next?
I don't know yet! I hope people will try the app, provide feedback, and allow us to iterate. My goal is to simplify travel intelligence. It's about equipping you with the information you need to make your travels easier and better. Tell me what you need, what your problems are as a traveler, and I'll try to solve them!
👉 Tell me what you think, what your travel problems are, and maybe we can fix them!
Travel tips powered by App helps many travellers to get quick answer for city information search. Lets make an example for tourists who go to Arusha city, or Stone town, can get useful information like hotel deals, and attractions
Andrew-- thank you! We will add Arusha City into our slate of City Briefs to be written. Be on the look out!
Welcome! I appreciate your feedback, for Arusha city details, feel free to ask more information. And also, you can have a look at our Arusha city Guide, and start from there....www.kili-tanzanitesafaris.com/arusha-travel-guide-include-hotel-lists-available.htm
Really interesting project Kendrick! And a great strategy to create a product people really need for lesser marketed destinations. Looking forward to seeing your idea develop and will try out the app myself!
Hi Marjorie,
Thank you. Let me know what you think, and I appreciate any feedback you have for us to improve. We are really just trying this out :)
Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for all the feedback and comments. We have worked on a lot of things since I last posted. I partnered with Duffle, and we added TIPS Booking capability. We are also about to release a very cool and awesome feature this week. Please stay tune! If you have feedback, comments, or thoughts on the app or want to partner up, please message me.