I developed an App from Scratch for Travellers
I define myself as a traveller. The journey started when I was 5. It was my first time in Istanbul.
I had the privilege to be on the road exploring because of my parents. I reside in Turkey, which has seven regions. I have visited each with tours. Although, it is not my cup of tea. Following a routine is quite boring. It’s easy to travel inside Turkey, which I’m a citizen of, I decided to explore outside. The idea of exploring solo and freely was always intrigued me. I booked a ticket to Switzerland in 2018 and started my solo travelling journey. I was 19 at that time. You can find the details here. I loved it. Freedom, the joy of exploration, finding yourself along the way was incredible. I told myself I should be doing this more often.
I booked another trip to Switzerland once again in 2019. I’m a bit more open to possibilities this time since I have more time to explore. Although, my budget was tight, and Switzerland was incredibly expensive. The scenery justified the price, something that I’d never seen before. I travelled by train from Zurich to Bern. I had the opportunity to see the beauty of the Swiss Alps in Gstaad.
When I plan for the trips, I have a routine. I search 10–20 websites, read blogs and journeys of other people and spend a couple of days exploring what should I expect. I was always on the budget travel side. The budget was around $100-$150/day for everything(flight tickets, accommodation, foods, museum costs, other travel expenses).
I like to go with to flow without planning this much beforehand. But, several times in past, the officers gave me a hard time at duty because of my citizenship when I travel. I had to be ready for that.
I had to use several apps along my travels. Airbnb, Booking, Turkish Airlines, Pegasus Airlines, Google Flight, Foursquare, TripAdvisor, Skyscanner, Google Maps are some of those. I need more apps to keep my budget, create a bucket list, pin places I visited, create stories of my travels etc. The problem pushed me to create. I want to have a solution for all.
I pondered about it. I created a flow chart of what to expect and which features should be for the app. The date was 12.3.2019. The following day I made a wireframe sketch, it was 13.3.2019. It wasn’t great although it was excellent for leading the road. I knew nothing about design even though I designed the app for the next week. It was 20.3.2019.
I started coding thereafter. I couldn’t find the exact date because I deleted that version but it was during 2019.
I was developing it with UIKit and at some parts, I discovered I wasn’t capable of doing that. I had so many errors, solving tons of bugs. It wasn’t an efficient way to develop like that. That’s why I gave up the development.
The first design wasn’t good. I spent some time and money learning how to design an app. I was learning how to design from the courses I took.
I was investing in my coding skills and my design skills.
I redesigned the app when it was 10.1.2020. I took a break from the development side because I had a great travel plan for Norway and Sweden at that time. I had a flight to Oslo on 23.1.2020 and another flight to Stockholm on 5.2.2020. The trip was great. I returned to Istanbul on 12.2.2020. I’m glad I did this trip before covid. It was a dream of mine for a long time. Afterwards, covid happened …
I had a flight and a plan to Denmark in May however the borders were closed. I had to cancel everything. It wasn’t good. I don’t know if I talk about this part, however, I decided to talk to. I had depression for a while, occasional one, mild. Covid made it severe. It was hard. I gave up lots of things during that time, I …
Anyways, I took a project from outside and left my project on the side. I developed a client’s app. I earned a little money to fund my next travel. I published his app in App Store around March 2021. It took 3 months and 300 hours to develop. I’m not a huge spender, I received so little from the client.
When I had to cancel my plan to Denmark I was predicting the vaccines would be available around June 2021 and I might have to travel around August or September 2021. My prediction was right. I received my two doses of vaccination and am eligible to travel when it’s July.
I was searching for flights and bookings for August and September. The prices were expensive and there were still covid restrictions. I decided not to travel during August and thought I might travel in September?
I bought my flight ticket five days previous to the trip. It was the closest ticket I had ever bought. Generally, I buy it 2–3 months in advance to find cheaper deals. I booked a 1+1 apartment from Airbnb close to the city centre. I had every document ready because I don’t want to deal with tons of questions at the border inspection.
I went there, everything was amazing. When I returned to Istanbul I had to motivation to keep going on my project of mine. I spent all I received from the project I made for a client in Copenhagen.
SwiftUI was a better decision because I don’t enjoy UIKit. I like to develop using code only and SwiftUI makes the process so easy. I started relearning it. The reason was I forgot a lot since I wasn’t developing for a few months. I read and coded all practices inside Apple’s Swift 5.4 book and took several courses. Those were enlightening.
I restarted coding at 5.10.2021.
I spent 94 hours developing Entrip, code base and UI. The designing process of the app took around 14 hours. Developing its website was 10 hours. In total, I invested 118 hours.
I felt great when I uploaded it to the App Store. I closed a chapter in my brain. I had this idea for 2 years and it’s taking huge space. Ziegarnik Effect.
It didn’t perform great in the first week. Because it’s in the early stage and I didn’t do any marketing at all. I don’t earn any money from it too, because I haven’t implemented it In-App Purchase yet. I didn’t add Ads because I hate them. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time too.
I didn’t take any projects while doing this project. I’m not great at doing a couple of things at a time. My bank account went to $0. I’ll add In-App Purchase next month, and after a good marketing campaign, I’ll earn some cash from the app. The cash flow fund my next travels. All I care about is freedom and exploring the world. It is an enormous place to explore. See you on the other stories of mine. If you like to check Entrip, here’s the link. Thank you.
