Smell The Roses

Inspiration

This website was inspired by our team's collective experiences on road trips, where uncertainty about stops and sights along the way often led to indecision. This sparked an idea. When traveling to unfamiliar places, many focus solely on the destination, missing the journey’s hidden gems. To change this, we set out to create a website that curates scenic routes, guiding travelers to unique stops and making every journey as memorable as the destination.

What it does

Our website helps you discover and plan your perfect scenic route. By simply entering your start and end destinations, the site generates the most scenic route based on your preferences. Along the way, you'll be presented with various points of interest (POIs) such as beaches, restaurants, mountains, and more, which you can freely add or remove to customise your journey. With the ability to filter POIs based on your interests, the route is tailored to suit your unique travel style. Additionally, the website generates a detailed itinerary, showing you the best order of stops, making it easy to follow your adventure step by step.

How we built it

Frontend:
React + Vite for UI
JavaScript + Flexbox + MUI + CSS

Backend:

Node.js + Express.js
Firebase Firestore for Server and Database
Firebase Authentication for login and account

APIs

MapBox SearchBox API for Map Display and Directions
OpenAPI for Trip Planning
SERP API for Image Finding

Challenges we ran into

Problems finalising our idea to work on.
API swapping due to token limits
Git merge issues right before submission

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Designing a good looking and user friendly UI that shows what our app is meant to do. Also creating a functional (albeit not very pretty) demo that gets across what we are trying to do.

What we learned

We learnt how to combine front and back end react components to create an interactable website that is not only client-sided. We also gained experience in teamwork and creating different features simultaneously to fit within the t time crunch

What's next for Smell The Roses

We would of loved to make it so you could just enter your address and find POI's around you.
Save a trip you have taken and attach photos or comments for others to view.
Properly implement saving a POI to add to a later trip.
Complete the implementation of export to google maps.
Fully implement a mobile version for users on the go.