There’s something about the Pacific Northwest that seems to produce intrepid humans. That solo hiker approaching you on some dusty Arizona trail — the first person you’ve seen in days? Chances are she cut her teeth on Mailbox Peak as a teenager. The mysterious bearded fellow you glimpsed lugging his speargun and a freshly-caught amberjack to his driftwood shack on some Oaxacan beach? He almost certainly grew up somewhere between Eugene and Bellingham.
So it’s no surprise that Seattle’s entrepreneurs have created a range of startups helping to change the way we travel. The ideas behind each of the three companies listed below might seem like subtle tweaks to a traveler’s experience, but the benefits for users have huge potential.
FlightSpeak’s app gathers crowdsourced information into a pocket guide for over 400 airports around the world. The app guides you through restaurants, charging stations, family-friendly hangout areas, pet policies, art exhibitions, ground transport and even estimated wait times for security checks.
Traveling tweak: Airports usually aren’t great at communicating the services they offer to travelers. FlightSpeak aims to help travelers make use of an airport’s amenities in the hopes that we’ll stop treating flight — a technological marvel of the modern world — as such a chore. Who knows? We may even begin to enjoy it.
Stay Alfred likes the convenience and the price of an Airbnb, but isn’t too impressed with having to share accommodation with the person who, er, lives there. Based in Spokane, the platform lists centrally located, high-end apartments, condos and lofts in 23 cities across the U.S. and counting.
Traveling tweak: Stay Alfred aims to be “your place in the city” — rather than a room in someone else’s. The company focuses on listing fully-furnished apartments, so guests experience what it’s like to have their own local digs.
Trover is a cross between a guide book and a gallery, helping travelers plan their trips based on geotagged photos posted by fellow users. Conversations take place in the comment sections, and users can add shots to saved lists for future perusal. Founded in 2011, Trover was acquired by Expedia in 2016.
Traveling tweak: The internet is full of lists and recommendations, and it’s often unclear whether a writer has actually been to the place they’re talking about. Trover’s platform strips away the verbosity of Lonely Planet-like “best of” lists and lets users plan their trips around little more than an image, a short caption and a geotag.
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