Orbit Vacations

AI-powered travel planning that revolves around your budget

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Inspiration

Most travel apps show you beautiful destinations and then surprise you with the cost. Orbit Vacations flips this — you set your budget first, and AI finds the perfect trip that fits. The name comes from the domain orbit.vacations (name.com Domain Roulette challenge) — destinations orbit around YOUR budget like planets around a sun.

What it does

Enter your budget, where you're flying from, your travel style (backpacker/comfort/luxury), and your vibe (beach, culture, food, adventure). Before the AI plans anything, Orbit Vacations uses Nimble to search the live web for real hotel prices and flight costs to your destination — so the plan is built on what things actually cost right now, not a model's stale guesses. The AI then generates a complete, actionable plan grounded in that live data: hotel recommendations with real nightly rates, a day-by-day itinerary with real place names, estimated flight costs, a detailed budget breakdown, and money-saving tips — all kept strictly within your stated budget.

How we built it

Next.js 14, React 18, and Tailwind CSS on the frontend. Generation runs server-side in two steps: first, Nimble's Search API fetches live hotel and flight prices from the web (two parallel searches per trip); then the Claude API turns that real-time data into a budget-constrained itinerary, behind a flexible provider layer that can swap to other LLMs. Save & Share is backed by AWS DynamoDB, accessed keylessly via Vercel's OIDC federation (no stored AWS keys). Deployed on Vercel with all API calls server-side to keep credentials secure.

Challenges we ran into

Ensuring AI-generated budgets are realistic and don't exceed the user's limit. Designing a 5-step flow that feels fast without overwhelming users

What's next for Orbit Vacations

A destination comparison mode showing 2–3 budget-matched options side by side, deeper Nimble queries (live event and activity pricing, not just hotels and flights), and multi-currency support.

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