Show HN: Waywise – an iOS travel guide for any* city

[maxboyd]

https://waywi.se

Hi everyone

About a year ago I was travelling to Mexico for a trip and forgot to cancel my Duolingo trial (because of course I did), so accidentally committed myself to learning Spanish badly. My Spanish-speaking partner noticed that I'd been learning a slightly more latin version so it was a good thing I was going to Mexico, but it got me thinking: most translation apps/phrasebooks are one language-to-another language without much consideration for local dialects.

I'd been wanting to mess about and build a little side project so made an early prototype of a city-specific translation app using the GPT-4 API. After poking around the App Store I realised that the travel category was so saturated with AI-generated itinerary planners or tour guide resellers.

So one thing led to another and I decided to start from scratch and build an AI-augmented city guide app: Waywise. The idea being that I don't really want to "recommend" anything as such; I just want to surface useful information for travellers that will allow them to explore a city in their own way.

Some of the features:

Transport information - Detailed guides on airports and how to get into the city centre. Train and bus station and local public transit information.

Local language: Translations, colloquialisms, and a comprehensive phrasebook for all major spoken languages in the city.

Currency tips: Information on cash, cashless payments, stored value cards, tipping etiquette and a currency conversion tool.

Neighbourhood insights: Find the best places to stay, shop, party and explore the sights.

*Currently there are a handful of cities that I've verified the information for which are purchasable and downloadable for a one-off fee (all future updates included too), and the remainder are AI-generated. If there isn't a city guide available, subscribers can generate one for almost any city with a population of over 100,000.

There's scope to do lots more and I've been squeezing this in between client work so it's taken me the best part of a year to finally get out the door but any feedback would be super useful!

Cheers :)

[tobeagram]

Great job with this! Just gave Waywise a download and love the user interface – especially the localised language prompts. The different UK dialects are spot on and very funny. I'm heading to Spain soon so will give this a whirl, with the restaurant recommendations / translations.

Out of interest, have you had any problems with the AI hallucinating when generating new city guides?

[maxboyd → tobeagram]

Excellent - let me know how you get on in Spain!

I definitely had some hallucinations to start off with. Mainly when I hadn't quite nailed down the prompts and it was just making up train stations in Oaxaca (turns out there aren't any intercity train stations in Oaxaca). From my testing though they all seem to have been ironed out but I'm constantly tweaking to improve.