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Show HN: The best time to visit any city

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Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#1

Post by ignostic »

I wanted to build a tool to help people decide when and where to travel. As I started building, I realized that "when" and "where" need separate treatment to be most useful. The map tool handles "where" best:

https://championtraveler.com/travel-weather-map/

Clicking through each week would be frustrating for those who know where they want to travel but not when. For these people I built "best time to travel" pages using the same data.

https://championtraveler.com/best-time-to-travel/

My hope is this site will help travelers plan.

This data is taken from the National and Atmospheric Administration's global summaries of the day (NOOA's GSoD). I used an SQL database to crunch the numbers into monthly and weekly averages by station. For the "best time" pages I used and calculated several more variables. I then imported the data into Tableau and added the filters you see on the map. I also used data from the State Department regarding travel advisories.

Would love your thoughts!

The whole buildout was a solo project, but I owe Ryan Whitacker a big "thank you" for his guidance. He built a similar tool on his site (https://decisiondata.org/the-best-time-to-visit-anywhere/) in April, and was generous to offer me guidance for expanding upon his idea.

Known issues:

* I am aware that the map is bad on mobile, so my next step is to improve the mobile experience.

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#2

Post by sharkweek »

This is great - I think the search functionality could be improved a bit (a lot of results following the one I was looking for that didn't seem related, but the right one did show up first).

I wonder if there would be a benefit of a "community" element as well, as in allowing comments on the pages, to give locals the opportunity to chime in with their advice.

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#3

Post by ignostic »

sharkweek wrote: post #2

This is great - I think the search functionality could be improved a bit (a lot of results following the one I was looking for that didn't seem related, but the right one did show up first). I wonder if there would be a benefit of a "community" element as well, as in allowing comments on the pages, to give locals the opportunity to chime in with their advice.

Thanks! I agree on the search functionality. Right now this is just a WordPress search, but it would probably be wise to use Google's location API to help find the right place or the closest place to it. I have no experience here, but I can work on adding it.

Will have to think about the community option as well. I'm not sure what the best implementation would be, but it's a good idea. Thanks for the positive response and constructive feedback!

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#5

Post by Malic »

sharkweek wrote: post #2

This is great - I think the search functionality could be improved a bit (a lot of results following the one I was looking for that didn't seem related, but the right one did show up first). I wonder if there would be a benefit of a "community" element as well, as in allowing comments on the pages, to give locals the opportunity to chime in with their advice.

Love the idea, but yes, the search needs some work. For example, the search engine doesn't get "St. Louis, MO" right at all.

Iterate and carry on!

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#6

Post by stinos »

This is really neat! Only thoughts: it assumes one's definition of 'best' is 'best weather' and that in turn means it matches with what your algorithm decides is most pleasurable (which I think it does a pretty good job at). This is probably ok for most people but e.g. I like to travel to see nature and rare species of plants and whatnot, and that completely changes what 'best' is for me as it makes weather not one of the top things to consider.

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#7

Post by ignostic »

stinos wrote: post #6

This is really neat! Only thoughts: it assumes one's definition of 'best' is 'best weather' and that in turn means it matches with what your algorithm decides is most pleasurable (which I think it does a pretty good job at). This is probably ok for most people but e.g. I like to travel to see nature and rare species of plants and whatnot, and that completely changes what 'best' is for me as it makes weather not one o…

Thank you! I am very glad others find the algorithm finding the "best times" to be accurate as well. This was definitely the hardest problem to solve as some places have two seasons, some have one, and I'm trying to find the best time on a scale relative to that place.

I'm aware not everyone will be satisfied the "pleasant weather" parameters I used, but I don't think there's another way to give a range quickly. Perhaps I could add some options on those pages. I'm not sure it would be worth the extra clutter and work to catch edge cases, though, as I'll never satisfy everyone's travel preference. Right now those looking for other weather preferences can use the map, but I understand clicking through several weeks is less than ideal. Hopefully the graphs on the page offer a bit more guidance for you.

One question: are you aware of any dataset that would help locate rare species? I can't guarantee I'll use it, but I love having lots of data handy.

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#9

Post by hissworks »

Really neat application of the data. I'm the Director of Marketing at a mid-sized destination marketing organization (DMO) represented on your map (Aurora, Illinois -- we're actually a terrific place to visit in winter!). Curious to learn more about the variables used to deploy the "best time" pages and get a sense for where you'd like to take this further.

Re: Show HN: The best time to visit any city

#10

Post by andyjsantamaria »

This is super interesting idea and something I'd reference a lot. The big question I have is what are your factors for deciding the best time to visit? I'd argue setting up the context is really important because weather is a major factor but it isn't the only one. There are times of year that have cultural significance as well as annual events, etc. I like the safety advisory aspect and the population of travelers. It would be interesting to know what types of groups travel there and when. So for instance, I want to go to Hawaii but not there are going to be tons of kids and I'd like to do it cheaply and I don't care about the weather.

Lastly, I don't recommend bucketing NZ under Australia :)

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