NicheTrip

NicheTrip Logo

Inspiration

We always found mainstream travel planners to be bland and in-genuine, giving cookie cutter plans that never allowed us to truly explore the potential destinations had to offer. Community forums such as Reddit always provided a more authentic experience when planning trips, and we set out to streamline the research process and make travel planning easier and more exciting! ## What it does
NicheTrip uses PRAW (Reddit API) to sort through the most relevant Reddit posts and their comments, providing a plethora of relevant data. Then, using Gemini API, that data is further sorted and organized into a JSON file where it is then displayed to users in a easy-to-digest tile format. ## How we built it
Uses PRAW (Reddit API) to sort through relevant content on Reddit
Uses GeminiAPI to organize data
Uses OpenStreetMap to provide a clear and concise map view to users
Uses FastAPI to host our services
Uses SQLite3 to cache previously compiled data so user experience can be faster in the future.
Uses Vercel to host website and database ## Challenges we ran into
Images had much trouble loading outside of incognito tabs due to some weird cache errors.
We had trouble implementing FastAPI as it was very new to all of us.
Searching through Reddit using PRAW was finicky as Reddit's search method was complicated and had functionality beyond just searching for a keyword which we had to remedy
Creating the actual front-end and tying everything together with clean UI took a lot of time and trial.
Using Vercel in combination with a .tech domain posed some issues with getting the site running ## Accomplishments that we're proud of
The map view is quite elegant and provides a lot of useful functionality, although it was also a foreign concept for us to learn
Even though none of us have been able to get a fully functional product in past hackathons, we were able to work together and create a fully functional service we are proud of, blending multiple aspects of web development. ## What we learned
We learned that creating an organized diagram for our site is important, as visualizing our website's processes and loops on pen and paper helped a lot when dividing tasks and keeping progress consistent
We learned a lot about using AI APIs and integrating them into services without simply making a generative AI wrapper. ## What's next for NicheTrip
We would like to expand functionality of our trip planner, adding support for fetching flight, train, other public transportation data, hotels and lodging, and more interactive map displays using the Google Places API.