Most final-year projects are built to be graded. I wanted mine to be built to be used. Explore Together — my B.Sc Computer Science capstone — turned the idea of solo travel into something social and safe: an app that matches travelers by destination, dates, budget, and interests, then helps them plan together.
#The Core Idea
Solo travel is growing, but it can feel isolating and unsafe, especially for first-time travelers. Explore Together connects people heading to the same place at the same time, giving them a structured way to meet, chat, and coordinate — with safety and shared interests at the center.
#Features That Made It Real
- Travel matchmaking by destination, trip dates, budget, and interests
- An interactive map to filter trips by location, budget, and duration
- Real-time individual and group chat for trip coordination
- A Gemini AI assistant for personalized travel questions and recommendations
- Trip sharing for photos, itineraries, and moments
- Admin analytics to track user growth and engagement
#Building It
The app is built with Flutter and Dart for cross-platform reach, Firebase for authentication and real-time Firestore sync, Cloudinary for media optimization, OneSignal for push notifications, and the Gemini AI API for the travel assistant. The modular architecture kept each concern isolated, which mattered a lot when one developer was responsible for everything.
#What I Took Away
- Treat academic projects like real products — the habits carry forward
- Real-time sync and matchmaking are hard; Firebase removed most of the pain
- An AI assistant is only useful if it answers the questions users actually ask
- Scope ruthlessly: ship the core loop before polishing the edges
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