Founded in Austin, CooMo Travel relieves the stress of vacation planning (Credit: Tyler Moyer)
Everyone has a dream vacation in their mind. Admit it: you know exactly what countries you’d visit, the activities you’d schedule, and how long you’d want to stay.
But moving from dreaming to actually planning a trip can be tricky. There are flights to book, hotels to find, food options to salivate over. It’s stressful!
Well, stress no more. CooMo Travel, founded here in Austin, is an online travel website that incorporates crowd-sourcing to make trip-planning easy.
What Is CooMo Travel?
Founder and CEO Tyler Moyer plays with a tiger in Phuket, Thailand (Credit: Tyler Moyer)
CooMo Travel is an interactive travel website launched in September 2018. CooMo stands for “Cool Moments,” an ode to the great experiences users have while exploring anywhere and everywhere. Through the website, users create personalized trips, planning and booking all travel and activities within the platform.
CooMo gives you multiple options to pick out activities and accommodations. Users can archive their travels, allowing other users to recreate someone else’s itinerary, or build from it. For busy people, this is an absolutely fantastic concept because it means less stress while planning a trip. It’s already been done for you by a fellow traveler.
Users can also choose activities based on what’s trending at the time, essentially experiencing the hippest places like a local would.
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But one of the greatest things about CooMo is the social side, which allows users to interact with each other. Have a question about your trip? You can submit an open question, inviting others to give feedback on where you should go, based on their personal experiences.
For example, if someone is traveling to Austin and they’re interested in visiting Jacob’s Well, then another user can chime in to let the traveler know they’ll need to reserve well in advance if they want to get in.
If a CooMo user gives enough recommendations and suggestions for certain cities, they can become a City Expert, earning points on the website.
CooMo’s social factor allows you to receive suggestions from other users, based on their personal travel experiences
If you set your trip to public, then you can discover other Coomo users who are visiting a location at the same time as you. This lets users connect in person if they want, making travel an opportunity to interact with others in real life settings.
Combating Mental Health Issues With Military Relocation
Moyer started planning his dream vacation during his second deployment to Afghanistan (Credit: Tyler Moyer)
While CooMo Travel is a platform meant to be used by anyone, it has a special purpose of combating mental health issues associated with military relocation. CEO and Founder Tyler Moyer was active duty Army for seven years. Within that time frame, he moved seven times and was deployed twice to Afghanistan.
Moving so often meant starting over time and time again, having to make connections in new cities. Constant relocation is one of the leading causes of suicide in the military.
CooMo Travel hopes to be a platform that makes moving to a new area easier and less stressful for servicemen and women, by allowing them to view trips that have been experienced in their new location. Military members will also be able to connect and meet real people, allowing them to escape the barracks and interact with the community.
It was during Moyer’s second deployment to Afghanistan that he started thinking about his dream trip, something he called his “Seven in Seven.” He wanted to visit all seven continents within the span of seven months–all without hopping on a plane.
To ensure he had the greatest trip of his lifetime, he originally planned to create a website with a world map that traced his journey. He wanted to share with friends and family, so they could offer travel tips through comments on the site.
He spent the next six months developing the functionality of the website. Then, he was off! Moyer backpacked through Asia, Europe, and South America. While talking to other travelers, he learned they had the same issues with trip planning. With no idea on where the true jewels to visit were hidden, these travelers would go to hostels and meet with locals to figure out how to make the most of their journeys.
Through these discussions, Moyer realized his website was something that could be shared with everyone.
Launching the platform was a bit of an adventure. From changing developers to selling houses to help fund his venture, Moyer maintained his dedication to sharing this passion with the world. And what traveler wouldn’t want to use such a cool website?
@theAustinot wants to know:
What’s your dream vacation?
