People need to travel more, experience more, and do more and that’s what Wanderfly set out to help, one year ago. Today is a big day for Wanderfly , a New York City based startup that provides wanderlust Internet browsers with travel inspiration.
“This day last year, I remember feeling excited, happy, hopeful, exhausted and nervous. We were about to go live with a travel site that was more beautiful and simple than any other; we were about to inspire travelers to explore more. But…would THEY really care? Well, a year has passed and we’ve learned so much. They care and, in fact, we’ve fundamentally changed how some of them travel,” says Wanderfly’s Christy Liu.
In the past year, Wanderfly says its inspiration platform, which is the digital version of spinning a globe and throwing out your finger to pick your next destination has inspired 4 million trips from users from 217 countries. Wanderfly has won a Webby nomination, been named a Top 10 Startup by Time Inc. and Top 100 Brilliant Companies by Entrepreneur.
In February, Wanderfly closed 1 million in funding and scored several successful partnerships. It partnered with Hotels.com to power the site’s hotel search and Jetsetter for access to its hand-selected, verified vacations through its 24/7 collection and flash sales. Wanderfly also partnered with Quintessentially’s concierge service to offer travelers access to tickets and reservations in over 50 Wanderfly destinations, from New York to Abu Dhabi.
Wanderfly truly hit it big earlier this month with a partnership with The New York Times. The online newspaper launched Wanderfly’s recommendation technology across its 1,000 travel destination pages. Now, each time a reader lands on a destination page, Wanderfly analyzes its unique travel characteristics and recommends 4 similar destinations.
To celebrate, the 12-person team at Wanderfly released an infographic charting its progress, “Year of Inspiration” and a collaborative video with 500 travelers going to 500 places in stop-motion style — literally, 1 year of travel in 1 minute. Check it out here:
I’m leaving for Puerto Rico tomorrow, where will you wander to?
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