Show HN: GridTravel- A community based travel app for users to share routes
gridtravel.app25 points by knuaym9 5 hours ago
25 points by knuaym9 5 hours ago
Hey HN,
My co-founders and I have been building GridTravel, a free iOS app for planning and sharing travel routes with turn-by-turn GPS nav. We just launched yesterday after App Store approval.
We're three 21-year-old cofounders and best friends since middle school. We built GridTravel after years of frustration navigating new cities on every trip we took together.
The idea: most people either search Google for "top 10 places to visit in…" lists or go on social media to get inspiration on where to go. GridTravel is built around user-generated routes — actual paths someone walked, that you can follow, save, download, and discover from other travelers. Users also have the ability to create private routes and collaborate with their friends.
Tech stack: Mapbox (Nav SDK + maps), Supabase (auth, DB, storage), and Swift. Native iOS for now, Android coming soon.
Our two real cost drivers are Mapbox Search (hit when users create routes) and Mapbox Navigation (hit when users use live navigation). Both have free tiers, then scale with MAU. We launched fully free to remove the barrier to entry. Revisiting pricing in Year 2 once nav costs start burning a hole in our pocket.
Current state: we're in the UGC cold-start hole. The app's value scales with route density in a given city, but route density requires users, who require routes. Classic chicken and egg. Our current plan: 1. Manually seed 25–30 routes per city, starting with 5-10 priority cities where we have personal networks rather than spreading ourselves thin. 2. Short-form content as the primary social channel (TikTok, reels, shorts). Doing A/B testing: whether route walkthroughs convert better than informational/skit videos. 3. Partnering with micro-influencers in those cities (5k-50k following) for in-app routes plus cross-posts on their channels
Curious what HN thinks. Especially anyone who's shipped a UGC product. What worked for you on cold start? What do you wish you'd done differently? Happy to answer any questions about the app, costs, etc.
App link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gridtravel-local-routes/id6762...
Awesome job! Congrats on the launch! I like the idea of exploring what others had found before. Maybe it doesn't need to be gear towards just travel but also this gives an opportunity for locals to explore places they've never knew before too? I've also recently launched a walking app - made for myself but thought others would enjoy too. I had added an anonymous collective walk counter which encourages others to keep walking. BTW, Mapbox does give sponsorships to projects/apps for displaying how their product is being used so once you get to a certain level you could submit a form for it. I know this project was sponsored by them: https://gpx.studio/ Here is my project if you are interested to checking out. Feel free to take any feature you find in there for your app.
https://github.com/walktalkmeditate/pilgrim-ios Hey man, congrats on the project! And to answer your question, the app is geared towards exploration in your city as well as others. So whether you're planning on going into downtown to explore new places or planning a trip to Tennessee, you're covered both ways! Thanks for the info on the sponsorships, that's my first time hearing about it. The more you know lol. Wow, this gives me such bittersweet feelings! This is almost 1:1 with a project we worked on several years ago. Unfortunately it never launched - founder ran out of money. It was one of my favourite projects we’ve done and I genuinely believed in the concept, so I was sad we couldn’t see it come to fruition. But glad someone else is giving it another go! Without giving away anything confidential, I can say your cold start plan is very similar. Can’t say it’s a good or bad plan because we never saw it executed in practice… but it’s not unreasonable! I think distribution and stickiness will be a challenge. Even if you get enough content that users will have a great first experience, most people don’t travel that often, so getting them to come back regularly won’t be easy. Best of luck - would love to see this succeed! Alex, appreciate the warmhearted comment. Especially from someone who's been in a similar spot, means a lot. Curious what stuck with you from that project, good or bad, if you're willing to share (contact info in profile if you want to talk privately). On distribution: agreed. Stickiness is the hard part for sure. Our angle is that the app should also work as a way for users to discover their own city through other people's POVs — not just for travel. We also built in a collaboration feature and private routes, so it doubles as a planning platform whether you're going solo or with a group. We're hoping the creation side carries the retention we're looking for. Following a route is one side of the coin. Making the route, collaborating with friends, planning places you want to visit over weeks — that's where we're estimating (hoping lol) most of our retention will come from. Can't say for sure yet, not enough data.
Thanks again for the comment! I love the idea. Unfortunately, not available in my country. I hope it to be successful and see this app in my country in the future. Thanks! Just out of curiosity, what country do you reside in? We're iOS only for now (planning to come to android in the near future) and the App Store availability is set up market-by-market, so it'd be useful for us to know where the demand is. If you are releasing for every country you might need to do a special form on the App Store for the EU region before they are allowed to distribute your app. I had found this out when I first released mine.
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