Wanderpin - I deleted the spreadsheet

You open the app or you can :) (check it out - https://wanderpin-ecru.vercel.app/ ). A night-side Earth, city lights glowing, a slow spin. You drop a pin in Paris. Another in Tokyo. The arc draws across the globe, and right next to all of that, a panel quietly tells you your dream weighs 2.2 tonnes of CO₂.

That panel was killing the magic. This phase was about fixing it.

The shift

I stopped showing the numbers on the dream surface. Same numbers, just hidden one click deep behind a “Trip details” disclosure. In their place: one warm line that grows with the trip - “4 stops · 4 countries · An adventure taking shape.” You build a journey. The app reacts like it’s excited about it.

Surprise me, the most fun thing the app could do, was buried under a dice icon. It’s the front door now: Take me somewhere. The empty state stopped being homework - “Your map’s a blank canvas, click to start” - and became an invitation: “Where are you dreaming of?”

Drop your very first pin and the app whispers back: “Your journey begins in Santorini ✨”. Hover over a stop and a small card appears: “Why go - its iconic caldera is the rim of a colossal volcanic eruption.” Hit Play and the screen goes cinematic. Full-screen overlay, place name, vibe, progress dots, the route lighting up beneath.

The trip used to be a spreadsheet. Now it’s a memory you haven’t made yet.

The mobile catch

Almost shipped a bug that would’ve made this look broken. On a phone, the empty-state “Take me somewhere” lives inside a bottom sheet. Tap it, and the surprise card was rendering behind the still-open sheet. To the user, nothing happened. To me, a testing pass on an iPhone-shaped viewport caught it the morning of. One-line fix. The kind that disappears in the diff but would have left every mobile user thinking the button was broken.

Where it stands

Empty state, surprise card, first pin, the reel - all warm now. The numbers are still there for the planners, behind one small toggle. The dreamers don’t see them at all.

When Play ends, the camera pulls back, the whole route lights up, and the same numbers I just buried come surging back as a celebration - “You crossed 4 countries. Today, that’s a journey.” Same data, different feeling. The closing frame becomes a postcard you can share.

The whole phase is one belief: people don’t open a travel app because they want to know how many kilometres a trip is. They open it because they want, for a minute, to imagine going somewhere. So show them the somewhere.