Chase the Sun

Find where the sun is actually shining near you and navigate there — Britain & Ireland's real-time sunshine navigator, built in four months with zero prior coding experience.

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The Idea

I'm a father. Like a lot of families right now, foreign holidays aren't happening. We're making the most of what's on our doorstep — day trips, picnics, afternoons at the beach. The problem is we live in the UK, where it rains.

I kept wishing there was an app that would just take me to the sun. Not tell me the forecast where I already was — actually navigate me to wherever the sunshine was within driving distance. It didn't exist. So I decided to build it myself.

I'm a journalist, not a developer. I had zero coding experience. But four months later, Chase the Sun is live on Google Play.

How I Built It

Every line of code was written through conversation with Claude AI. I learned React Native while building a production app — which is either brave or foolish, depending on how you look at it.

The stack:

  • React Native / Expo SDK 56
  • Mapbox (real road routing, turn-by-turn navigation)
  • OpenWeatherMap (real-time sunshine scoring)
  • RevenueCat (weekly, monthly and annual subscriptions)
  • Google AdMob (non-personalised ads)
  • Sentry (crash reporting)
  • EAS Build / EAS Update (over-the-air updates)

472 curated destinations across Britain and Ireland — beaches, viewpoints, lakes, heritage sites, gardens — each scored in real time by sunshine forecast, UV index, cloud cover and temperature.

The Challenges

  • Learning React Native from zero while building a production app
  • Five rejected Android builds before Google Play approved it — each rejection taught me something about how app stores actually work
  • Building a sunshine scoring algorithm accurate enough that users actually end up somewhere sunnier than where they started
  • Implementing RevenueCat subscriptions with a paywall that converts
  • Getting two app stores to approve a first-time developer's first app

What I Learned

That with the right AI tools and enough persistence, a journalist with no coding background can build and ship a real commercial mobile app. The cost of living crisis gave me the idea. Stubbornness got it finished.

What's Next

US expansion across all 50 states, launching September 2026. Because everyone deserves a sunny day out — wherever they are.

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