by Vas Mylko, Roman Bilusiak
Today, we are introducing the best version of Curiosio — Visual Curiosio. It’s the 17th major release of our product. Now you will get the visuals for the points and places in your trip plans. Our concept of visual is special — we designed a curious way to visualize the points and places. Only the United States, France, and Italy are visualized for now. Enjoy https://curiosio.com though we encourage you to continue reading because the story is full of curiosities.
All other countries continue working without visuals. This version is still quite slow. You will have to wait for a full minute to get good trip plans. In this making story of the Visual Beta17, we are demoing what new Curiosio can do for you, for your road trip planning, and how to use it.
The story is structured in three parts: American use cases in the 1st part, French use cases in the 2nd part, Italian use cases in the last 3rd part. Each use case teaches you specific hacks for efficient travel planning.
ROAD TRIPS IN THE UNITED STATES
The first visualized country is the United States. We will demo for you short Round trips by your own car. We will introduce how serendipity occurs when you are genuinely following your curiosity. The direct link to the curious US is https://curiosio.com?iso=us.
NYC-Poconos Road Trip
We are New Yorkers. We are going to the Poconos for a few days. Mount Pocono town is a point that we know and use to start off. In Curiosio, select the United States page, Round trip, enter New York City as the starting (and ending point), enter Mount Pocono as a waypoint, set 4 travelers, 3 days.
Curiosio will build a trip plan from NYC to Mount Pocono and back to NYC, and will propose other interesting points and places. Curiosio will show you visuals of some points and places on top of the trip plan, pretty much as it already worked for signature trips. Below is a trip plan in the given requirements, with visuals.
Notice that besides Mount Pocono you got Hickory Run State Park which has an interesting boulder field, pristine Varden Conservation Area, and the cool town of Scranton. Those who watched The Office shall instantly recognize the red brick tower of the paper company. Now you have got an opportunity to visit it and have fun.
Boston-Maine Road Trip
I am a Bostonian, going for a short road trip in my Tesla S to Cape Elizabeth. Two of us are going. We would like to visit more cool points and places in the vicinity. Below is what Curiosio proposes in these requirements, one trip plan is open for preview.
You asked for what you knew and wanted, and you got it, and you got even more in the context — Cushing, Maine, and Olson House and the fields. We call it serendipity, and this is by design. Much more curious and serendipitous to come from Curiosio when you are en route or in-destination.
Curiosio is about curiosity & serendipity. You are traveling by following your curiosity, and experiencing serendipity.
Christina’s World is a 1948 painting by American painter Andrew Wyeth in Cushing, Maine. It is present in the 1968 science fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey written by Arthur C. Clarke, hanging on the living room wall to which the astronaut David Bowman is transported after passing through the Star Gate:
“The space pod was resting on the polished floor of an elegant, anonymous hotel suite that might have been in any large city on Earth. He was staring into a living room with a coffee table, a divan, a dozen chairs, a writing desk, various lamps, a half-filled bookcase with some magazines lying on it, and even a bowl of flowers. Van Gogh’s Bridge at Arles was hanging on one wall — Wyeth’s Christina’s World on another.”
The painting is also part of the post-apocalyptic action-adventure film Oblivion 2013, present in the house in the “radiation zone”. The dusty cornfields at the beginning of epic science fiction film Interstellar 2014 and then curved within the huge space station — are all sprouting from the same Christina’s World.
From this example, you could learn that Curiosio shows you panoramas besides common photos and the paintings of the places by the artists.
Austin-Boca Chica Road Trip
Alright, looks like we are into the cosmos now. Let’s have a look at what the new Curiosio can do in the scenario described in the Beta16 making story. You are an Austinite. You are planning a road trip to the edge of the Earth — 21st-century spaceport in Boca Chica called SpaceX Starbase. You are traveling in your own car. My Car option means you are traveling from home, so Austin and its environs are excluded.
Besides the spaceport, Curiosio proposes to you other interesting points and places on the route and builds the entire trip plan. Each trip plan consists of the header, interactive route on the map, itinerary. Almost everything in a trip plan is clickable, including grey text, everything is interactive. Below is one of those trip plans opened.
ROAD TRIPS IN FRANCE
The second visualized country is France. In France, we will show you the Rental Car option and One-way trip case. And a powerful function how to take somebody’s trip you like and customize it to the trip you need. It’s called Supertrip. The direct link to curious France is https://curiosio.com?iso=fr.
Lyon-Arles-Marseille Road Trip
Remember that second painting hanging on the wall in the Space Odyssey? It was Die Zugbrücke (Drawbridge in Arles) by Vincent van Gogh. Let’s go to Arles in France. You are flying with a low-cost airline. These airlines often don’t operate symmetric flights or don’t operate them on daily basis. You have 5 days and you are looking for the flying options yourself. So, you are flying to Lyon and leaving back from Marseilles. You rent a car, with pick up in Lyon and drop off in Marseille. Rental Car means Curiosio will offer you See & Do at the starting point and its environs.
This concludes our “art in space” odyssey. Maybe you are interested in van Gogh’s art? He lived in the South of France and painted many of his masterpieces there. Keep going…
Road Trip in the South of France
There is a famous local and a New Yorker Fabrice Grinda who outlined Things to do in the South of France. Curiosio has a signature trip based on those points. Let’s take that trip and customize it to include van Gogh’s places. All you need to do it to hit a red [Supertrip] button in the signature trip plan and the search form will be pre-filled for you automatically. Then, you add more points, set your dates, travelers, etc.
We set 4 travelers, 10 days, $3500 budget, Rental Car. Expectations are to get the maximum overlap with the original trip, get our van Gogh points, and get more interesting points and places that are available in our case. Here are search results with one trip plan opened.
ROAD TRIPS IN ITALY
The third country that was visualized is Italy. Let’s run a few road trip planning cases in Italy. We will show/remind you how to use Perimeter. We will show you a couple of Destination trips because use cases in the US and France were either Round trips or One-way trips. The direct link to curious Italy is https://curiosio.com?iso=it.
Milan-Sacra di Saint Michele Road Trip
This time we are traveling from Milan to the West. We want to visit Sacra di San Michele — the monumental abbey served as one of the inspirations for the book The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. It is going to be a Round trip, Rental Car, Custom Perimeter.
Naples Road Trip
The first Destination trip use case will be demonstrated with Naples. You are flying to Naples and leaving from Naples, 2 travelers, with 6 days of stay there. You want a car to explore the environs such as Pompeii, Capri, so you are selecting the Rental Car option. Below are examples (link, link) of the trip plans in this context.
Florence Road Trip
Our final destination in the making story of Visual Beta17 of Curiosio will be Florence. You are flying to Florence and leaving from Florence and staying/sleeping in Florence. You are exploring your options for See & Do in Florence and for roadtripping its environs. Here are the search results, one trip plan is open for preview.
Ah dear, flying saucer in the medieval painting? The Madonna with Saint Giovannino with UFO is an XV century painting in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. There is a saucer and a man observing it.
This is Curiosio at its best. We are building the smartest ever trip planner for curious travelers. Today we have introduced you to our latest Visual Curiosio. Enjoy it, and always follow your curiosity, because it leads to serendipity.
One more thing…
In a trip plan, when you encounter a travel geek with rich reflections in the glasses then you’d better be sure you hit it right while clicking/tapping!
