Interview Series

An Interview with David Feldsott of PanTrek

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david feldsottToday we’re talking to David Feldsott, the founder of PanTrek; which is a free inter-city bus and ferry search and booking engine for Latin America
One of our primary goals at Oh Hey World is to connect like-minded people with each other. Given one of my personal interests is learning more about other entrepreneurs building travel tech companies, we’ve been profiling the founders in the travel industry to learn more about who they are, what they are working on, and what makes them tick.

Here is a bit about David…

1) What do you do?

I am the Founder / CEO of PanTrek. PanTrek is a free inter-city bus and ferry search and booking engine for Latin America. We compile in-depth company profiles, ratings, and user & editor reviews, to make travel decisions easier for backpackers, tourists, and locals. We plan to cover up to 18 countries, from Mexico down to the tip of South America.

Personally, as CEO, I wear many hats, such as coder, UX designer, and growth hacker. My background is in finance/business, but I’ve been working hard over the past few months to acquire better technical skills as a developer.

2) Why do you do what you do?

The idea for PanTrek started when I was planning an extended trip through South America. It was quite difficult to locate the best travel routes, schedules, and costs. I thought “there has to be an easier way to do this,” so I decided to do it myself! I love travel and am a nomad at heart, having lived in 5 different cities across the US in just the last 5-6 years. When creating a travel tool, you must always think how changes to the platform will impact the end-user. Since I know I will use this tool often myself, it excites to make progress everyday towards its completion. I can’t wait to test it out myself!

I’m an entrepreneur because I enjoy pushing the boundaries. Also, after having worked in the corporate world for 5 years, it’s frustrating to see your hard work not lead to tangible results. As an entrepreneur, nothing can go to waste; everything you do must get you one step closer towards your end-goal. Lastly, to be honest, I’ve realized that I just can’t go back to working for anyone else 🙂

3) What are you most excited about right now?

I’m excited to have just received an invitation to my friend Ana’s wedding in a small town called Pahuatlan, Mexico. It’s a beautiful area in the mountains, a few hours outside Puebla, far away from tourists. Before and after the wedding, I’ll be spending some time in Mexico City meeting with both locals and backpackers to conduct some consumer research. I’ll also be holding business development meetings with a few Mexican bus companies to gauge their interest in becoming partners. There’s nothing better than testing your ideas, collecting feedback, and seeing the excitement in your customer’s eyes.

4) What’s next for you?

Two things:

  1. I’m creating the specs for the enterprise side of the PanTrek web application. Being a frequent traveler myself, I understand the end-user’s needs quite well. However, I’m still learning about the needs of the bus companies, so it’s an exciting journey to try to figure out the best solution for my business partners.
  2. I plan to apply to 1 or 2 accelerator programs, such as Startup Chile or RunUp Labs. I want to continue to build out my South American network as well as my travel network, and both of these programs, respectively, would be great for that.

5) What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

I don’t have much free time lately to devote to causes, but when I do, I’m quite passionate about fighting to protect Civil Liberties. In my opinion, the backbone of the United States is freedom and most early immigrants came to this country for a better life; either more rights or the opportunity to earn a better living. Without the protections that the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution provide, this country won’t be able to continue as the superpower that it’s been for the last 200+ years.

Protecting Civil Liberties is not just a US problem, it’s a worldwide problem as well. Freedom is a way out of poverty for many of the world’s poor and we should all help lay the foundation for success for future generations.

A big thanks to David for sharing his current passions and projects, if you’d like to connect or find out more about David, you can find him on his OHW profile.

To learn more:

PanTrek on Twitter or Facebook

We’ll be featuring a number of other travel tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks as a part of our interview series. If you’re an entrepreneur in the travel vertical and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “travel tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld dot com).

Interview Series

An Interview with Sarah Neill of DOODAD

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SARAHNEILLToday we’re talking to Sarah Neill, the founder of DOODAD; which delivers
“INTERNATIONAL DATA THAT YOU WON’T HATE”. One of our primary goals at Oh Hey World is to connect like-minded people with each other. Being a co-founder of a tech company in the travel industry, one of my personal interests is learning more about other entrepreneurs building travel tech companies. The other day, I saw a tweet from my friend Jessie Speilvogel that included #travel and #tech to Sarah — and instantly sent out a tweet to Sarah to see if she wanted to be profiled here. I’m happy she obliged.

If you’re keen to connect with Sarah further, you can find her current location on her OHW profile.

Here is a bit about here…

1. What do you do?

We give travelers access to mobile internet they don’t have to worry about.

DOODAD is a data-only travel SIM card, that when in your smartphone or tablet will give you access to pre-paid data in 54 countries. You simply buy DOO-DATA, which lasts a year, and can be used in any of our countries. There are 4 rates, starting at 30c/MB, depending on which country you are in.

And because not many people understand how much data they want to use, we let people choose a daily budget instead. This way, there’s no scary surprise bill when you return home, and people can stay in control of what they spend.

2. Why do you do what you do?

We rely on data for a lot of things. Business, getting directions, finding where to eat, and staying in touch with people who matter. So we found it odd that when traveling internationally, data was complicated. And inaccessible. And freaking expensive.

Around 75% of people turn off ‘data roaming’ when they travel, and literally fall off the grid as soon as they leave their hotel Wi-Fi. We knew there had to be a better way. So we started DOODAD.

3. What are you most excited about right now?

Being data-only is a really new idea within Telco. But, with VoIP apps like Skype, Viber, WhatsApp people don’t need traditional voice and sms, to be able to speak to, or message people. I really believe that within the next 5 years, everything will be data only, and phone numbers as we know them won’t exist. It’s an evolving market, and really exciting to be a part of.

4. What’s next for you?

So, so much. In the next month we’ll launch our nano SIM (so people don’t have to cut our SIM down to fit their iPhone 5), start shipping internationally (at the moment we are just USA/Canada), and we’ll be announcing some more countries to add to our coverage. There’ll also be a few price drops too, in case that’s not enough.

5. What’s a cause you’re passionate about, and why?

The St. Luke Foundation in Haiti is one in particular which I think is pretty incredible, I was exposed to it through a friend who volunteers her photography skills to charities around the world. She’s done quite a bit in Africa, and recently in Haiti, where she worked with St.Luke.

I’m a big believer in using the skills you have to help others. I think my friend is a great example of how you can do this, to provide invaluable resources.

A big thanks to Sarah for sharing her current passions and projects, if you’d like to connect or find out more about Sarah:

DOODAD on Twitter or Facebook

We’ll be featuring a number of other travel tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks as a part of our interview series. If you’re an entrepreneur in the travel vertical and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “travel tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld dot com).

 

Inspiration

Taking the Plunge to Travel

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angkorwatIf it’s one thing I love seeing, it’s people taking the plunge from corporate life to the life of long term travel.

Which is why I love seeing blog posts such as this one by Matt Wald. Leaving everything behind for 6 months traveling the globe.

Truthfully, I’m not much of a fan of GroupOn. Impulse buying decisions are seldom good. Usually, it leads means buying crap you don’t need (trinkets are almost always impulse buys). However, IF it leads to people making impulse buys on plane tickets like Matt did, consider me a fan.

Congrats Matt, you executed unlike most. I’ll make a wager this is going to turn out to be the best money you’ve ever spent.

Oh Hey World Updates

Community Generated Welcome Kits for Seattle

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If you follow this blog, then you already know about Oh Hey World’s  Welcome Kits. We’ve already covered community generated Welcome Kits, tips for digital nomads in Southeast Asia, and OHW-curated welcome kits stateside — but we haven’t covered the city with the most welcome kits created.

My old stomping grounds — Seattle.

Seattle-Skyline

A Few Neat Ways to See Seattle

Have any other recommendations for people visiting Seattle? Leave them in the comments here.

Not in Seattle and want to help travelers have a better experience when visiting your own beloved city? Email Shannon to get access ahead of the general public…

Interview Series, Travel Tools

An Interview with Dan of Party with a Local

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Dan Fennessy

Today we’re talking to Dan Fennessy, the founder of Party with a Local; an innovative app that allows you to find locals to party with (pretty self explanatory). One of our primary goals at Oh Hey World is to connect like-minded people with each other. Being a co-founder of a tech company in the travel industry, one of my personal interests is learning more about other entrepreneurs building travel tech companies, which is how I came across Dan in the first place. We exchanged a few comments on Tnooz, that led to an email thread, and now we’re here sharing his story on Oh Hey World.

If you’re keen to connect with Dan further, you can find his current location on his OHW profile.

Here we go…

Part with a Local1) What do you do?

I’m the Founder of Party with a Local, a free App that connects travellers and locals who want to party. It’s a bit like Couchsurfing, without the couch. I work with two developers who do the App & API. I do pretty much everything else — strategy, biz dev, marketing, community management, events, blogging, etc.

2) Why do you do what you do?

I’m very social and love to meet new people. I love to travel and discover new places. I also like to party. I think Party with a Local is a basically a natural extension and expression of who I am.

3) What are you most excited about right now?

I’m excited about building the community of locals and travellers using Party with a Local. It’s working well in a few cities so far, but I’m excited about creating something that can be used by people all over the world. I’m excited by creating something that allows like-minded travellers and locals to connect, to have fun, and share experiences.

4) What’s next for you?

Looking to really push Party with a Local this summer in Europe. Next stop Berlin, other European cities after that, then the world.

5) What’s a cause you’re passionate and why?

The MasterPeace Alchemist Alive Project — ‘Pilgrimage for Peace’. It’s an initiative inspiring individuals to start travelling toward the pyramids in Egypt, meeting local people along the way, and making meaningful connections with them. It’s an effort to bring peace via creating thousands of new intercultural and interfaith friendships. Party with a Local is a partner of this initiative. I really believe that if more and more people around the world can just meet face to face, and get to know each other a bit, it increases cultural understanding and as a result aids world peace from the ground up.

That’s a sentiment we can agree with, that the more people inspired to travel and connect result in a more harmonious future for us all. A big thanks to Dan for sharing his current passions and projects, if you’d like to connect or find out more about Dan or what he’s working on:

Party with a Local on Twitter or Facebook
Download the app from iTunes
MasterPeace on Twitter or Facebook

We’ll be featuring a number of other travel tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks as a part of our interview series. If you’re an entrepreneur in the travel vertical and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “travel tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld dot com).

we hostels interview
Accommodations, Interview Series

An Interview with Diego from @WeHostels

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Today we’re talking to Diego Saez-Gil, the founder of WeHostels; an innovative app that allows you to book a hostel directly from your phone. One of our primary goals at Oh Hey World is to connect like-minded people with each other. Being a co-founder of a tech company in the travel industry, one of my personal interests is learning more about other entrepreneurs building travel tech companies, which is how I came across Diego in the first place. We’ve had the chance to meet in person several times, first in San Francisco at a Startup Chile meetup and then in New York for lunch more recently, and he’s as smart an entrepreneur as they come.

If you’re keen to connect with Diego further, you can find his current location on his OHW profile.

Without further adieu…

1) What do you do?

we hostels interview

At WeHostels we are working on helping travelers find affordable accommodations to stay in their trips right from their mobile devices. We connect our users to more than 40,000 independent lodgings including hostels, bed&breakfasts and budget hotels. We make it easy for them to find places around them available last-minute and book them on the go. We also feature events (festivals and concerts) that people might want to travel for and hope to connect travelers going to the same destinations.

2) Why do you do what you do?

We believe that when we travel in a genuine way we open our minds and our hearts to new realities, and this leads to making us better citizens of the world. Our mission is to inspire and help more young people to travel the world, connecting with others and becoming better persons.

3) What are you most excited about right now?

We are very excited about the widespread of Internet connected mobile devices and the empowerment that it represents. We believe that mobile brings an opportunity to create innovations needed in the travel industry. The exponential growth of mobile represents as well an opportunity for startups to reach a wide growing audience.

4) What’s next for you?

We arriving to Android and iPad this month and are very excited about it. After that the goal is to continue growing our community and keep helping them have amazing travel experiences.

5) What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why?

Besides helping people to travel, I am passionate about technology and education. I’m a member of Coderise, a non-profit organization that aims to empower kids in developing nations by teaching them to code. I believe that education can be the driver of positive change in the world at a massive scale.

A big thanks to Diego for sharing his motivations and current projects. If you’d like to connect on social media with Diego or WeHostels:

WeHostels on Twitter and Facebook

Diego on Twitter

Travel quote from We Hostels

We’ll be featuring a number of other travel tech entrepreneurs in the coming weeks. If you are an entrepreneur in the travel vertical, and want to be profiled, please sign up for an OHW account and add “travel tech entrepreneurs” as an interest on your profile — then shoot me an email (drew at ohheyworld).

thailand elephant
Asia, Local Businesses, Regions, Social Enterprises, Southeast Asia, Voluntourism

An Interview with Diana from Save Elephant Foundation

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Today we’re kicking off an interview series on OHW that will ask travelers, tech entrepreneurs, social enterprises, and more to share a bit about the work they are doing and why they’re doing it. Oh Hey World believes in not only the transformative power of travel (that’s definitely a focus of ours), but in the positive changes we can create when we connect with like-minded people (that’s the core of the OHW platform). During my travels in Southeast Asia over the years I began to learn more about the plight of the Asian elephant, conservation efforts in the region, and ways to travel responsibly in Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar . When friend and fellow travel blogger Diana Edelman slowed down her travels and began working for Save Elephant Foundation in Thailand I knew she was just the right person to kick off the interview series. 

thailand elephant

1) Tell me a bit about the work Save Elephant Foundation is doing in Southeast Asia and why it’s needed.

Save Elephant Foundation is working to protect Asian elephants in Thailand and beyond. The foundation, founded by Sangduen “Lek” Chailert, a renowned animal conservationist, not only works to protect the Asian elephant, but also other animals. Elephants in SE Asia are being removed from the wild and the main goal of SEF is to raise awareness about the plight of Asian elephants and how current activities in the tourism industry impact the population of the elephants in the region. Other than the elephants, SEF also works to give people in local communities better lives by providing aid and education — particularly as it relates to elephants mahouts or elephant caretakers who, prior to working with SEF, would have their elephants working.

2) As a traveler yourself, why did you decide to stop traveling and work with the Foundation?

As a traveler, I decided to stop traveling so much and join the Foundation because I believe in what Lek is doing. When I first visited the foundation’s Elephant Nature Park in 2011, I was shocked at how little I knew about animal exploitation and animals working in the tourism industry all over the world. My time as a volunteer there really opened my eyes to the decisions we make as travelers, and the fact that most people who come to this part of the world are not aware that the decisions they make in regards to animal attractions can greatly impact an entire industry and trade. Lek’s unyielding passion and desire to make the world a better place for animals is truly inspiring. Her love knows no bounds and being able to help her raise awareness about her foundation and responsible tourism is a dream fulfilled for me. I’ve always loved to write and do PR, but to be able to use my skills to try to better the world and change people’s ideas of what is responsible tourism … it makes me so happy.

3) What work are you doing at the Foundation right now?

I do the PR and social media for the foundation. I have traveled a bit and done research regarding the human elephant interaction, and also have been a part of two elephant rescues.

4) When I visited the Elephant Nature Park, I noticed visitors could not ride the elephants, which was a new concept for me, can you share the work the Foundation is doing in this regard.

The foundation’s main focus to is to educate tourists and future travelers to this region of how their actions impact the lives of wild and captive Asian elephants. Our hope is that with this information, people will make more informed choices as it relates to the animal activities they choose. The most common mistake people make in SE Asia is not being educated. Ignorance is bliss.

5) How can both short and long-term travelers have the biggest impact in supporting Save Elephant Foundation?

Short and long-term travelers can have the biggest impact by taking what they learn from SEF and their visits to the foundation’s projects and telling others. Education can change the world, and the elephants need people to speak for them.

If you’re keen to connect with Diana on the OHW network, you can follow her check-ins and activity from her OHW profile. Other important links to connect to Save Elephant and Diana include:

Save Elephant on Twitter and Facebook
Diana on Twitter

Oh Hey World Updates

Community Generated Welcome Kits

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planning 3The Oh Hey World Welcome Kits are one of the features we debuted after our launch, and we have loved the feedback and support from the community over the past month. Although the Welcome Kits are still a new feature (and thus you have to ask for the account permissions to create them), you’ve done just that. The OHW user base is growing every day and these kits are fast become one of the more interesting ways you can see a unique lens through which to see a new city.

Today I’d like to highlight a handful of the interesting Welcome Kits created by Oh Hey World community members; each member has their own passions and interests so their tips and kits reflect that unique view (versus the OHW staff curated kits that are meant as overviews for certain types of travelers like digital nomads, outdoorsy people, etc). With these, you really get a feel for how different a city can be depending oh who you’re experiencing it with.

With that in mind, here are some of my favorite kits — we’ll be featuring more kits as soon as you create them!

Wonderful International Welcome Kits

Neat Ways to See US Cities

And these are just the beginning! We on the OHW team really love seeing your custom welcome kits (and you have me dreaming of visiting most of these cities now). If you’d like to sign up for early welcome kit access shoot me an email (Shannon@OhHeyWorld.com).

PS: Check out some of our OHW staff curated welcome kits in the US and tips for Digital Nomads in Southeast Asia. We also have community generated kits for Seattle.

Lifestyles

Finally, recognition.

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For the past five years, I have made it my life’s work to become the best beach bum I can possibly be.  Living in Seattle doesn’t help my cause.  Neither does working at a windowless steakhouse.  Neither did attending graduate school or taking up CrossFit or spending half my salary one year on clothes and shoes at Nordstrom.  All that aside, every time I leave my hometown, I head directly for a place that will help me accomplish what has become a major part of my American dream.  I love everything about the beach and everything that a day in the beach entails – from the sand to the surf to the adorable men to the kites to the sand that gets stuck in dreadlocked hair.  It’s all amazing and irreplaceable, something that I always turn back to.  The past month has been a strong reminder of why and how much I love being a part of a beach community, and Bali is absolutely a place I see myself ending up down the road (early retirement style, that is).

Given all the work I’ve put into my beach-sitting career – and against all the aforementioned odds working against me – I was thrilled to receive this little piece of recognition from a friend via email this afternoon.  It’s easily my most cherished diploma / award / whatever I have ever received and will likely find a spot on my wall before my BA or Masters diploma ever do.  Finally, a little recognition for years of hard work picking up freckles, combing through dreadlocks, and memorizing the tide like it’s my job (because someday, hopefully, it will be).

Awesome

In case you were wondering (I certainly was), here is the unofficially official definition of a “Beachcomber”:  [n] 1) A person who spends every waking moment of his or her life at the beach. 2) He or she is usually very tan, have lots of sunburns, or many freckles. 3) He or she usually own a sun hat and wears it to the beach often.  4) If he or she is not tan, he or she is always slabbing on lots of sunscreen, especially on his or her face.  5) When not in the water, he or she is usually eating, playing with the sand, or trying hard to earn a tan.

Which pretty much hits the proverbial nail right on the head.  Apparently nobody does it better than me. I am a winner at life.

[Note from editor: originally published at Itinerant Brooke]

Online Travel Annoyances

You Never Know Who Might Care About Where You Are

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ohw-whereareyoutoday

You see them all the time on Facebook and Twitter. The infamous travel check-in…

“San Francisco, I am in you”

“Hello Boston”

“Oh hey, Beijing”

“What’s up Barcelona”

“Tom is at LAX via 4Square”

They are often accompanied with a photo.

Why do people do it? Two primary reasons.

  1. To broadcast to their network that they are now safe in a new city.
  2. To get recommendations for things to do, events, places to eat, or people to meet.

But you know what?

The vast majority of the time — I don’t care. I care about the first, that they arrived safely, but their arrival does not directly effect me 80+ percent of the time they check-in somewhere, so it’s mostly just noise to me. Their public check-in is only achieving half of it’s purpose and, in the mean time, that update is not enriching their travel experience in anyway by me having seen it.

You know the check-ins I want to see? People I know who happen to be nearby or close friends and family anywhere. And maybe friends checking-into a place I know extremely well (such as Seattle, Santorini, or Chiang Mai).

These are the people I can help, these are the friends I can connect with other friends in that new city, or share a quick tip of my favorite Seattle coffee shop. But instead I have to sift through the noise and, lets be honest if we’re talking about the travel community, spam. The sad fact is that I just don’t end up seeing the relevant check-ins because the signal to noise ratio, so I feel frustrated by the onslaught of information and that friend/traveler checking-in somewhere loses the chance to find an amazing new experience or a new friend by not asking the right people for help.

We know there are many other people not in your Twitter stream or Facebook graph, who would be willing to help you with some great information or an introduction — IF they knew about your location. Those people could be friends of friends in that specific city, someone who went to the same high school living in the town you just arrived in, people with extended knowledge of the city or country you are in, or a local who lives in that specific town. THOSE people should have an easy way to see your check-in and provide the trusted travel information you seek.

But the ability for the right people to see those check-ins doesn’t exist today. In fact, the lack of transparency surrounding the locations of other travelers was the very original frustration I encountered in 2010 that led me down the path of creating Oh Hey World. Twitter, FourSquare, and Facebook? None of these solve the problem.

I hope we agree.

You see, transparency is good. Bringing visibility to information, databases and conversations that used to be locked  in dark silos is a common theme across successful web properties. The benefits of “one to many” compared to “one to one” are well documented so we won’t hash it out, just to say that we recognize it’s needed in the travel sphere.

There’s a basic premise behind Oh Hey World:

You never know who might care about where you are.

I first mentioned the quote in AGBeat’s piece on Oh Hey World, and it keeps popping up again and again in my mind as I run across different travel scenarios. With OHW now, we aim to ensure your location is made visible to the people who wish to know your whereabouts. A centralized system for tracking locations and future trip plans for everyone would improve the entire travel experience for millions … and most pointedly, you.

This type of platform has been tried by many, and many have failed. But the problem is still not solved, so we’ll keep trying. We know it can be done, and that it’s going to take years to execute on, and so we’re building the OHW community one step at a time. Asking the right types of travelers who share our values, those who value meeting the right people at the right time on their travels, to join the community.

Exploring the Wild Blue Yonder