Touring
p/touring
The ultimate app for travellers, works literally everywhere
Rohan Chaubey
Touring | Explore the world β€” The ultimate app for travellers. Works literally everywhere.
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β€’
Touring is a private tour guide available 24/7 wherever you are.
Built with 20% AI, 30% human curated content and 50% of magic πŸͺ„. Can be addictive, use with caution.
Replies
Hello everyone! The time has come to summarise what happened during this launch. Here's a few numbers! The launch on Product Hunt got impressive numbers! - 3000+ unique visitors - 100+ different countries - 18 different newsletters features us - 70% of you used the online playground - 500+ signups to become early adopter! - more than 700 upvotes and 200 comments on Product Hunt - a highly accurate model estimated that each team member has drunk 7 espressos during the launch day We did not know what to expect when we started down this road, and man, did you guys surprise us. Because of the number of early adopters, we've had to change our approach a bit to not sacrifice the quality of the experience for any of you. The team and I thank you from the bottom of our heart! Here's a personal short thank you video:
If you're not an early adopter yet, consider signing up at https://touringapp.eu What's next? We have already started onboarding some of you and we will continue doing so bit by bit. We'll try and give all of you access as soon as possible. Follow us on Twitter/X: we'll be posting updates and it will be the place to go for interacting with us: https://twitter.com/touring_app
Hey, fellow product hunters πŸ‘‹πŸΌ The team and I are super excited to launch Touring! 🀨 What is Touring? You can look at Touring as your personal tour guide, who is always available for you and knows about any place on Earth. It's packaged into a handy mobile app so that you can bring it with you everywhere. ❓Why Touring? We started working on Touring to satisfy a need that we had while travelling: we often felt like we had to either buy a guided tour (which is pre-made and not entirely personal) or walk around staring at our phone to find information through articles and blogs. βš™οΈ How does it work? Touring leverages generative AI, geolocation, 3D spatial information, speech synthesis and human-curated content to produce real-time insightful narrations tailored to you. Just put your headphones on, walk and enjoy. πŸ“± Can I use it today? We're rolling out Touring bit by bit, and we'd love your help to refine it. Become an early adopter – help us improve Touring and enjoy early access, all for free! 🌍 Experience the Simulator Curious about our narrations? Test-drive the Simulator for a sneak peek. Remember, it's just a limited example – Touring's full capabilities are boundless. You can find it on the landing page. πŸ™‹πŸ™‹πŸ™‹ We need your insights! - What do you value most in a travel guide app? - How can we enhance your Touring experience? - Would you prefer more interactive features? Your thoughts are invaluable. Let's make Touring great together! Join the conversation and become a part of Touring's journey! Cheers, The Touring Team P.S. We know of a possibly annoying bug on the simulator: on iOS - even if you turn on the volume - the audio is not reproduced when you visit a location. Exiting silent mode (with the physical side button) solves the issue. Sorry, we could not manage to fix it in time πŸ™πŸ™
@gabriele_mazzola great to see the launch of Touring! It sounds like a fantastic concept 🌍 I'm curious to know: what sets Touring apart from other travel guide apps on the market, and how do you plan to ensure that the narrations provided are not just informative but also engaging for users during their travels? πŸ€”
Simone Colucci
@michelepomposo thanks for the feedback 🫢. We tried a lot of audio-guide apps but we were never satisfied with the quality. You're even more constrained than traditional walking tours, and the narration can easily sync off with what you want to see. Therefore we are basically investing on a far superior traveller experience. Also, there's a matter of coverage. Having a semi-automated supply means we can work everywhere and with every language from day one.
Simone Colucci
@michelepomposo the entertainment, on the other hand, is probably the least challenging part. We already tested pieces of tours online and our version scored higher than extracts from traditional tours, especially on the entertainment angle. Let's say GenAI does not lack in fantasy, and it's most challenging to limit it than to utilise it.
Timo Spring
πŸ’‘ Bright idea
@gabriele_mazzola Excited to see Touring make its debut here! The concept of a personal tour guide app that combines AI with real-time information is truly innovative. The ability to have a tailored travel experience without the constraints of a pre-made tour or the distraction of constantly looking up information resonates with the modern traveler's desire for both spontaneity and depth. The integration of generative AI and 3D spatial information sounds like a game-changer for immersive travel experiences. I'm particularly interested in how the speech synthesis will add to the overall user experience. It's great to hear that there's an opportunity to be an early adopter and contribute to the refinement of Touring. I've checked out the Simulator on the landing page, and even though it's a limited example, the potential of Touring is evident. As for the feedback: In a travel guide app, I value intuitive navigation and personalized content that learns from my preferences over time. To enhance the Touring experience, consider incorporating user-generated content to add a personal touch from a community of travelers. Interactive features like AR to bring historical sites to life or social features to connect with fellow travelers nearby could be exciting additions. Looking forward to seeing how Touring evolves and glad to be a part of the journey! Cheers to the team for this innovative step in travel tech!
Simone Colucci
@timo_spring wow, thanks for the feedback and the appreciation. I look forward to connect and see what you think of the app. Also, I'm glad you liked the Simulator, we were super worried it might confuse of distract, but we really wanted to give a taste of the immersive experience you can have. As for your feedback: valid points, and some of them are already in our roadmap. But we want to be lean and let users drive development, to see the features they want come to life
Simone Colucci
Thank you so much for all the upvotes, all the support and all the priceless feedbacks. We could not expect this level of enthusiasm and we are thrilled to move touring to the next stage πŸ₯°
Momcilo Stojkovic
Sounds like an exciting take on travel guidance with a personal AI twist. I'm eager to see how it evolves and will check out the simulator. Best of luck with the development – ready to offer feedback! Cheers to new ways of exploring!
Simone Colucci
@mocarg thanks! And consider us eager for feedback. We have a Early Adopter program in the website exactly for that
Santhosh Kumar
Congratulations and would love to see how deep you guys have dived with handling localization challenges of remote places in the globe. Is there a location /place /city simulator for us to check and see how the app resonates?
@santhosh213 Hi Santhosh, thank you for your comment! Indeed, area with difficult localization can be tough to handle, and in certain cases there literally nothing that we can do. Thankfully, though, those areas are not many and we do not think that many travellers would like to use Touring if at such location. A simulator is available, but it's meant for showing the potential of Touring's narrations, and does not provide any information about the precision of the location.
Anthony Latona
Very cool launch! Congrats :) Couple questions: How is the tour data verified for accuracy? I can imagine this working in big cities but what about smaller, lesser known locations? How up-to-date is the information? For instance, ChatGPT doesn't have up to date information, so the place you are asking about, even if it is popular, might be incorrect since it's old info... Anyway, looks awesome, looking forward to checking it out!
Simone Colucci
@anthony_latona thanks! For the accuracy we use Retrieval Augmented Generation, a technique that allows us not to rely on AI for facts. GenAI is used to create a story and a continuous and pleasant narration, but insights, facts, dates, timetables and all of that is sourced online. Which means it is as accurate as whatever you could find with several hours of in-depth research. And which means that we can be extremely up to date with the info.
Nevena Sofranic
How interesting! Is it in English only, and are you planning to add more languages?
@nevena_sofranic Hi Nevena, thank you for the question! Touring relies on generative AI and text-to-speech technologies for the presentation of the content to the traveller, therefore there is no limit to the language: Touring works with any language! And the exciting thing is that these technologies are getting better by the day, so it's only going to improve in quality!
Neel Patel
@gabriele_mazzola What a beautiful video - conveys what is does exactly! loved those creatives as well. This seems like a solid app, I've added it to my list for when I visit other country/city next :) Congrats on the launch here, Team. I hope you take the top spot today! @simone_colucci_93 @luca_micieli @elena_bullani @riccardozoncada
Simone Colucci
@neelptl2602 love your feedback 🫢. If you're interested in trying out the app there's an Early Adopter form on our website
Kate Ramakaieva
Hey Gabrielle! Congrats on the launch. I tried a similar tour guide format - it was prepared by the local guide in the Telegram chat, where the audio guide was connected with maps, images of places, and how they looked before. What should I say - I enjoyed the format, exploring the city at my own pace, and pausing for coffee whenever I wanted. It is so cool that now I can continue exploring the world using a similar format without limits! I'm traveling to Krakow soon, excited to test Touring out!
@kate_ramakaieva Hey Kate, thanks! I'm super happy to hear that you've tried this format and worked for you: I do hope you're going to enjoy the Touring experience and help us make the best app for travellers :)
Rami - Browsingbuddies.com
Great app, I think solo travelers will love this!
@kingromstar Thank you so much, Rami! We hope so too!
Naresh Meetei
Congrats on the launch Gabriele. Touring will be super helpful so many travelers. Good luck!
@nareshmeetei Thank you so much, Naresh! We do hope so!
Daniel Sudhindaran
Congratulations on the launch! This is an excellent application of AI. Could you share some of the most common use cases that your users have encountered with Touring?
Simone Colucci
@daniel_sudhindaran1 thanks! This is our first launch and we're aiming to get highly engaged early adopters from this community. But with Touring we aim at those situations where a traveller is in a new place, knows little or nothing about it but cannot / does not want to join a pre-made tour. We give them the ability to explore freely while being enlightened and entertained by a virtual tour guide
savan kharod
Pretty interesting product Gabriele
Simone Colucci
Florian Hidayat
I used to work at Handy, not sure if you've heard of them but they went bankrupt a few years ago. Basically they provided phones for hotel rooms which you could take anywhere in addition to having mobile data - one of the features was to provide tourism information about the current city. Touring reminds me of Handy, and I sure do hope this will succeed! I'll check out the app to see what you have in store. Good luck!
@florian_pranata_hidayat Hi Florian, thank you for your comment! This is very useful information for us, could you point out what the main problems were for Handy?
Florian Hidayat
@gabriele_mazzola just like every business that died - they couldn't make money. They tried several different business models and none of them worked. The tourism info is just a small subset of what they provided though, so how they failed is probably not too relevant to Touring, but good information nonetheless. Just ask away if you wanna find out more! Happy to answer with what I know as long as it's not too sensitive.
@florian_pranata_hidayat absolutely! Yeah I am more interested in - if you know and can talk about it - the problems they faced around the domain that Touring also touched. We understand it’s hard to make something like this profitable, but if you look at how much people spend in the travel industry, the pool is quite large. We can also talk privately about this matter!
Florian Hidayat
@gabriele_mazzola sure thing! just send me a DM on LinkedIn. would be really happy to see you guys succeed where Handy didn't. A little disclaimer though, I only worked at Handy for a little less than a year, but I can probably give some insights for you based on what it was like inside the company and what I read when they came crashing down.
Julien Ergan
Looks great, congrats on your launch. How many languages are your currently supporting?
@julienergan Touring relies on generative AI and text-to-speech technologies for the presentation of the content to the traveller, therefore there is no limit to the language: Touring works with any language! On the Simulator (that you can find on the landing page) we generated descriptions in Italian, English and Spanish. But the final version of the app will support any language which is supported by genAI and text-to-speech -> most languages in the world!
Darya Skorokhod
Touring looks like the ultimate travel companion, love it! 🌟 What kind of landmarks or local insights does the app highlight? Perhaps, it could offer hidden gems or local culture recommendations to make the travel experience more immersive and unique. As a tourist, I usually try to find non-obvious places to get the city soul better instead of visiting popular tourist places πŸŽ’
Simone Colucci
@darya_skd Thanks Darya! Our aim is to offer a highly customisable experience based on each traveller preferences. And even for the same traveller, it might differ from time to time. For example, if I'm in a new city for a weekend I might want to do the "popular track" of sightseeing, whereas if I have more time or it's not my first day in town I might prefer wander off the beaten track and discover hidden gems. To answer your question: of course narrating about major sites is easier and for the beta we started from that, but we're building to be flexible and help travellers find their own spots to love
Darya Skorokhod
@simone_colucci_93 that's a nice approach! It would be also great to have a future feature involving map tags or achievements for each city or country visited. Many travellers enjoy collecting these as it helps track their progress as tourists (I do that as well :)
@simone_colucci_93 @darya_skd Yes, I think some sort of gamification is a must have for Touring! I mean, just look at how it works well here on PH!
Nico Spijker
This is super cool! A walking tour in your pocket at all times?! πŸ‘€ Not sure if you already have this, but native event-specific add-ons could be extremely fun. For example, let's say I'm going to Rio for Carnival next year, would the app recognize the dates automatically and curate the content based on that or would I have to ask touring about this specifically?
@nicolaas_spijker Yes indeed it will! we use real-time information at all times to create the narrations, so this will totally be possible!
Vu Nguyen
Love the intro, the humanity touching of the product description. I believe it's under validating phase, so the experience may not fully yet. Just subscribed. I'm a startup founder and product guy myself, so would love support the team for any feedback I got
@vunq Hey Vu, thank you so much for the comment. We deeply appreciate your help and are looking forward to ship the prototype version of the app to you!
Congratulations Team Touring on your fantastic launch on Producthunt! Touring is such an innovative concept, and the blend of AI, human curations, and magic seems enthralling. I'm excited to see where this takes us in the realm of personalized travel experiences. My suggestion though would be to introduce an offline mode for those obscure places with no internet connection. That's when a guide would really come in handy. Keep up the good work!
@manmohit Hey Manmohit, thank you so much for the detailed comment! I believe an offline mode will be a must-have in the final version of Touring, to address both the places you defined as "obscure" but also to accomodate travellers who don't want to (or can't) have a data plan when they travel abroad. Of course, the tour would be a slightly lower quality than a real one, simply because Touring always tries to fetch the most updated information, but it would be a good compromise I believe. But to answer your comment, we definitely have it in the roadmap!
Elena Semenenko
Cool product! Congrats on the launch!
Simone Colucci
@elena_sem thank you so much!