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The Wanderlust App

An app designed to help young adults navigate barriers to travel as they find a place to stay for the night and plan their trip.
January 5×5 Night at Start Garden
Voting Closes:

January 20, 2025 11:59 pm

About this idea
The idea for the Wanderlust app began when two of our founders took a road trip across the country and ended up spending one night in a national forest and drove straight through another night powered by energy drinks because they couldn’t find a hotel to stay at for the night due to hotel age restrictions. This isn’t an uncommon experience, as around 62% of hotels don’t allow travelers under 21 to check in, and this statistic ranges from 0% to 95% in any given city, therefore making navigating these hotel policies a proven headache. Our app aims to empower young adults to travel by systematically dismantling these travel barriers, first by showing hotels that 18-to-21-year-olds can check into and then helping them plan their trip around these verified hotels with our free itineraries for different destinations each month. After stepping into the travel industry with our app, we will utilize user feedback to continue tackling the most poignant and debilitating barriers to travel, including navigating car rentals and finding quality activities within a tight budget, until we are the go-to travel app for young adults, no matter where their destination is.
Impact
Despite having the desire to travel, millions of students are discouraged from it because of the stress involved in planning a trip and finding a place to stay. However, traveling should ALWAYS be a time for growth and rest—not a means for stress. Through The Wanderlust App, we will equip students for travel so that they can fully embrace their desire to travel and take personal exploration outside the classroom. We all know that traveling is fun, and trying to navigate hotel policies and restrictions is not. That’s where we come in!
What I'll do with $5,000
We are selling a lifestyle for travel, and, therefore, our highest priority is a visionary and robust advertising strategy. With $5,000, we will ignite our marketing campaign by launching social media advertisements, video advertisements on YouTube, and bringing marketing and our vision directly to the campuses of high schools and universities in the Grand Rapids area. In a fast-paced digital landscape, we plan to act with urgency to rapidly expand our user base, and heavily investing in our marketing is our strategy to do so. Another portion of the $5,000 would be directed towards fulfilling our technology and data needs. With these funds, we would be able to expand our database from 475 hotels to include thousands across the United States to empower every young adult in their travel experience wherever their destination may be.
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