TravelPlanner

Inspiration

Travel planning often involves switching between multiple platforms to manage destinations, itineraries, and budgets. We wanted to simplify this experience by building a platform that helps users organize their trips in one place and focus more on exploring new destinations.

What it does

GlobeTrotter is a travel planning application that helps users plan and organize their journeys. It allows users to create trips, manage itineraries, and track planned versus actual expenses. By bringing trip details and budgeting into one platform, GlobeTrotter makes travel planning more organized and convenient.

How we built it

We built GlobeTrotter using a modern web development stack:

Frontend: React

Backend: Node.js and Express.js

Database: PostgreSQL with Neon

AI integration: Google Gemini API for AI-powered functionality

The frontend communicates with the backend through APIs, while PostgreSQL stores trip-related data. We used a modular architecture to keep the application maintainable and extensible.

Challenges we ran into

Some of our key challenges included integrating the frontend with the backend, managing relational trip data, configuring the deployment environment, and handling database connectivity. Integrating AI functionality while maintaining a smooth user experience also required careful coordination between the application and external APIs.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a full-stack travel planning application that brings itinerary management and expense tracking together. We are particularly proud of integrating a relational database, backend APIs, and AI capabilities into a single application, creating a foundation that can be extended with more travel-focused features.

What we learned

We gained practical experience in full-stack development, REST API integration, PostgreSQL database management, deployment configuration, and integrating external AI services. We also learned the importance of debugging across multiple application layers and designing features around real user needs.

What's next for TravelPlanner

Our next steps include:

Enhancing AI-powered itinerary recommendations.

Adding destination discovery and personalized travel suggestions.

Improving planned-versus-actual budget tracking.

Integrating maps, route planning, and travel-time estimates.

Strengthening authentication, validation, and error handling.

Improving the mobile experience for travelers on the go.

Built With

• express.js
• geminiapi
• javascript
• neondb
• react.js