AasPaas

The living pulse of every city. AASPAAS (meaning "nearby") helps travelers discover authentic local experiences through real-time community insights and AI-powered travel planning.

Comment

Inspiration

Last year I started traveling, which meant I also left my previous Shipaton project unfinished.

I wanted to backpack, explore places beyond the usual tourist attractions, and experience cities the way locals do. Like most travelers, I relied on Google Maps, Reddit, blogs, Instagram, and ChatGPT to plan my trips.

The problem was that Google Maps mostly showed highly-rated tourist spots, while Reddit recommendations were often outdated, scattered across different posts, or simply unavailable for smaller cities. I spent more time searching than actually exploring.

That's when the idea for AasPaas came to me.

I realized I wasn't just looking for places, I was looking for stories and experiences.

I wanted to know where someone goes after a difficult day to watch the sunset. Which small tea stall locals have been visiting for years. Which quiet street feels magical after it rains. Which noodle vendor on the corner everyone recommends but never appears in travel guides.

I wanted travelers to experience the memories, emotions, and little moments that make a city feel alive, not just visit the places with the highest ratings.

So this year, I came back to Shipaton to build AasPaas.

What it does

AasPaas is a community-driven travel app that helps you experience a city through locals — not through star ratings.

Instead of bouncing between Google Maps, Reddit, blogs, and ChatGPT, you get the vibe, the tips, and a day plan in one place.

With AasPaas, you can:

  • Feel a city's pulse before you land — what's on tonight, what's packed, what's actually worth it
  • Read notes from people who live there (sunsets after hard days, chaat stalls with a blue canopy, quiet streets after rain)
  • Ask AasPaas tiny, location-specific questions and get answers grounded in community notes — not a guidebook dump
  • Hit Make a Plan and turn the vibe into a real itinerary that matches your time and mood
  • Unlock more planning with AasPaas Pro — Trip Pass, Travel Year, or Lifetime — because travel isn't monthly SaaS; people plan in windows

AasPaas isn't just about finding places. It's about the stories, people, and little moments that make a city feel alive.

How we built it

Mobile-first on Expo / React Native, with a Node + Prisma backend and embeddings-powered RAG so Ask AasPaas answers from real community notes instead of inventing tourist fluff.

The fun product bet: AI only when it helps. Browse and ask from locals first; generate a plan when you want a full day. Itineraries are grounded in what people shared — not generic “top 10” lists.

For Shipaton, monetization runs through RevenueCat + Google Play: one entitlement (aaspaas_pro), three ways in (14-Day Trip Pass, Travel Year, Lifetime Local). Free travelers get one AI plan; then the paywall — fair, not spammy.

We also shipped store listing assets, a timed demo video, and production Play wiring so the purchase path is real, not a mock.

Challenges we ran into

Cold-start community. The hardest part wasn't the UI — it was getting original posts from real people. Without locals sharing, Ask and Plan have nothing honest to stand on. Bootstrapping trust and contribution in a new city is still the long game.

Seeding city data without faking the soul. Empty cities feel dead; fake-sounding seed content kills trust. We had to seed enough pulse (updates, people notes, Ask answers) for Jaipur and friends so the demo feels alive — while keeping a path for real user posts to take over.

Travel billing isn't Netflix. Monthly subscriptions fight how people actually travel. Designing seasonal plans (Trip Pass / Travel Year / Lifetime) and wiring them cleanly through RevenueCat + Play took more product thinking than “add a subscribe button.”

Search vs. stories. Ranking by reviews is easy. Surfacing “the tea stall locals never leave” is harder — and that's the whole point of AasPaas.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Shipped a full loop: city vibe → local notes → Ask → Make a Plan → Pro unlock
  • Ask that answers from community notes (RAG), not pasted guidebook sludge
  • Travel-native Pro plans via RevenueCat — one entitlement, three packages, live on Play
  • A Shipaton demo that shows the entitlement path for real: free → paywall → Pro
  • Coming back after leaving last year's project unfinished — and actually finishing this one

What we learned

Community products don't start with scale; they start with one honest city and a few notes worth keeping.

AI is strongest when it's grounded — embeddings + local notes beat “ChatGPT, plan my Jaipur trip” every time.

Travel monetization should match travel behavior. People buy a planning window, not a forever subscription by default.

And finishing beats perfection: Shipaton was the deadline that turned a travel frustration into a shippable app.

What's next for AasPaas

Go global — city by city. Expand beyond the first India-focused set: more cities, more languages, more local voices.

Grow the community graph. Better prompts to share a vibe, city ambassadors, and lighter ways for travelers to leave one true tip before they leave town.

Smarter Ask & Plan. Richer retrieval, multi-day journeys, and plans that react to live pulse (“skip parking after 4,” “folk set starts in 40”).

Deeper Pro. Trip Pass experiments, group/friend plans, and offline-friendly day threads for when you're actually out walking.

The north star stays the same: help someone find the place a local whispered about — not the one with a thousand reviews.

Built With

Share this project:

Updates

Submission history