Helping travellers go from "I want to travel" to a costed, visa-checked trip plan.

Would-be travellers gave up because a trip meant juggling many things across several sites.

Would-be travellers, especially first-timers, have to piece together costs, visa rules, accommodation, safety advice, trip ideas and bookings from several sites.

Our founder travels often and kept running into this, as did people he knew. Many of them gave up on trips entirely. Those who pushed through often paid more and spent longer in transit than they needed to.

For Holidayalot, the goal was to get would-be travellers worldwide from "I'd like to travel" to a finished trip plan, then offer premium plans. With no research budget, I worked from desk research, stakeholder interviews and UX best practice.

I focused the app on two kinds of travellers.

The first app concept opened with a feed of short trip-idea videos for people who didn't know where to go. We had no user-generated content and couldn't produce enough original video ourselves, so I cut the feed. Stakeholder interviews pointed to two groups we hadn't designed for yet: travellers with a destination, who lacked the requirements and costs to make a real plan, and first-time travellers, who needed guidance before a trip felt possible.

I gave each group its own way in. "Plan my trip" asks travellers with a destination for just the place and trip length. First-timers get a step-by-step trip setup, supported by our curated country guides. I then moved cost and visa checks into the plan itself: an estimate with cheaper alternatives, routes compared by cost, speed and travel experience, and the documents needed. Every traveller sees the full price and paperwork before they book anything.

The product was paused before launch, but it changed how I start every project.

Holidayalot was fully designed for iOS and Android. The CEO paused it before launch because finishing it needed funding, time and attention the company couldn't give at that point.