Tag: schengen calculator

• Concept: Travel itinerary and calculator app for US citizens abroad

• Current Market Problem: Non-visa and visa requirements are quite confusing for US citizens
  • The most visited countries for Americans are all in the Schengen zone (includes 26 countries)
  • Schengen rules are complicated
    • Out of a 180 period, (that begins once you step foot in a Schengen country) you can only be in a Schengen country for a total of 90 days. These 90 days do not have to be consecutive. (e.g. you can be in Schengen for 10 days, leave for 10 days, and keep doing that. As long as you don’t spend more than the allotted 90 days out of the 180-day period) The time period does not reset when you leave the Schengen zone, but only once the 180-day period has passed.
  • Schengen rules are strict
    • Some people have received massive fines, been put in prison, and even been banned from the Schengen zone for several years due to overstaying beyond the 90-day limit.
  • The current solution for handling Schengen is other calculator apps, but the majority are buggy and shit
    • The user interface is non-intuitive, a lot of the calculators do not work properly, and some do not take into account the first day of the Schengen zone as your start of the 180-day period
  • Every country outside of Schengen also has its own rules about how long a US citizen can stay in the country with or without a visa

• Why I think I am a good person to solve this issue:
  • I am the customer. I am traveling Europe for the next year, which would be a total of two Schengen cycles (meaning I can only be in the Schengen zone for 6 months of the year). Originally I planned on spending a lot more time in the Schengen zone, but upon finding out about the law, knew I had to pivot my plans. I tried all of the current solutions in the market for Schengen calculators, saw they were shit, and then decided to build my own basic google sheet that calculated if I was “Schengen or Other Country policy clear” with my itinerary of places I wanted to visit. I still use my program when I change my travel plans (which happens often) and wish my own program was an app for easier usability

• Concerns:
  • Don’t have my PC anymore (just a Mac without excel), so I built the program in Google Sheets rather than Excel, which is what I would normally use. With this in mind, it will take time to convert the program to an overall, full-scale application.
  • Schengen countries and Non-Schengen countries could change requirements, making this program moot, or in need of an update to the backend data
  • The typical long-term traveler does not like to plan and resort to itineraries (but I bet they also don’t like getting deported or fined…)
  • Limited Market (US-focused initially). The majority of travelers in Europe are European and allowed to travel freely if they are from a Schengen area.

CityRank App

• Concept: As the name implies, this would be an app that allows you and your friends to rank the cities you visited

• Rationale: We as humans love to rank and compare things. It’s part of our nature and how we filter our reality. We decide what food we like best, what sport is our favorite, and what car we want to drive. This is included in our commonplace conversations: “Who would win in a fight: Gorilla or Lion?”, “What level of attractiveness is that person on a scale from 1-10?” As superficial or artificial as this is, it’s not going away. We enjoy it for two reasons:
  1. Entertainment’s sake (these are subjective answers)
  2. The possibility that it can actually help us in making future, more informed decisions. (If a friend said their favorite food is Octopus, and you have never tried it, you are probably more likely to now try it in the future)

• Purpose: In order to receive entertainment or education from an individual’s ranking, we need to respect their ranking framework and see how they came to their conclusion. This app completes just that, and can be used:
  1. For personal reference
  2. To share with your friends to get their opinion
  3. To analyze your friends’ rankings and determine if that’s a place you want to travel to in the future

• App Layout:
  • Tab 1 includes the framework for the city rank. It includes a list of metrics, plus the ability to customize this list based on your own personal preferences, such as:
    • Location
    • Arts / Culture
    • Shopping / Restaurants
    • Nightlife
    • Transportation
    • Outdoors / Nature
    • People
    • Architecture
    • Weather
    • Activities / Entertainment
    • Cost of Living
  • Tab 2 is the manual entry where you add in the cities you have visited, and rank that city based on the framework or metrics from tab 1
  • Tab 3 is the data visualization page, where you can see the list of your “top 10 cities” and have the ability to sort based on specific metrics or country views (e.g. best cities for Nightlife, the best city in all of Spain, etc.)
    • Once new data from Tab 2 is entered into the system, Tab 3 will be automatically updated, allowing you to share your “new city profile” with your friends through IG, FB, and other social profiles.
      • Think “Spotify Unwrapped,” but for traveling instead of music
  • Tab 4 is the feed section where you can view your friends or travel influencer city rankings, and see if you need to add a city to your next vacation/trips

The Other 2 App Ideas

• Wanderlust App:
  • Think Tinder and Pinterest, but for vacation/travel destinations
  • Swipe through profiles of places (left is pass, right is interested)
  • Only get so many swipes per day, with a collation page of all your likes
  • Becomes personalized based on your previous likes

• Bucketlist App:
  • Travel guide/checklist that includes the “top 10/20 must do” things in that city you are visiting
  • Filter by city and check them off as you complete them. (Includes google maps address for the destination for easier accessibility)
  • Feature to add in additional destination/to-dos for that city, so that way you have all of your checklist items in one place

All 4 Travel Apps Summary

• Using Google Sheets could be the easiest way to get to an MVP (minimum viable product) to test in the market
  • There are a lot of non-code based App development platforms that will connect to Google sheets or another dataset and help you develop a customized app based on your backend data
  • After researching several app development platforms, my favorite right now is Glide due to their:
    • Relatively easy user interface
    • Learning modules to get up to speed on using the software
    • Pricing (can have 100 public members of the app for free. Up to 1K members and white labeling for $25/month)
      • White labeling would remove all branding from Glide and make the app look like a full-scale, normal iPhone app that can be downloaded through the App Store
• Obviously, if any of these apps show promise or take off at all, it would definitely be worth creating the app in-house, without using a third-party provider such as Glide
• If built correctly based on control and inputs, all these apps could be dynamic programs
• Market Size and Valuation (according to Statista)
  • Total Contribution of Travel & Tourism to Global Economy: 5.81 Trillion USD
  • Number of International Tourist Arrivals Worldwide: 426.9 Million
  • Global Leisure Travel Spend: 2.37 Trillion USD
• Future monetization strategy for all 4 apps (not really thinking about this at all right now)
  • Freemium pricing (free version, with a premium version without ads)
  • Partner with accommodations (hostels, hotels, BnBs) and airlines to show deals based on the customer’s location and their liked or itinerary destinations