Drift

Drift is an outdoor discovery and planning app built to help people stop scrolling and start going.

Instead of digging through blogs, maps, weather apps, and park sites, Drift helps users:

• discover curated outdoor experiences
• filter by travel time, vibe, effort, and family fit
• save picks into collections
• compare options side by side
• turn a good idea into an actual trip plan

What Drift Feels Like

Drift is designed to feel less like a directory and more like a smart outdoor guide.

Discover	Plan	Decide
Swipe through curated experiences	Save picks into collections	Compare tradeoffs and generate a trip plan
See why a pick fits you	Organize by board or mood	Use live weather and timing context
Get weather-aware suggestions	Build shortlists fast	Go outside faster

Product Tour

Welcome

Sign in and step straight into a personalized outdoor shortlist.

Onboarding

Set your home base, travel range, and outdoor vibe so the deck starts tuned to you.

Discover

Swipe through curated experiences with live weather, Drifty guidance, and clear "why now" context.

Collections

Turn saved picks into a planning board with featured options, sorting, and trip-planning flows.

Core Experience

1. Onboarding

Users pick a home base, travel range, and activity preferences so the experience starts personalized.

2. Discover

The main screen is a swipeable outdoor deck with:

• personalized recommendations
• live weather context
• local-first filtering
• keyboard-friendly desktop controls
• Drifty, the mascot guide

3. Detail View

Each experience has a richer editorial view with:

• why this fits
• why now
• maps link
• share support
• save-to-collection flow

4. Collections

Saved experiences become a real planning workspace with:

• custom collections
• featured picks
• compare mode
• trip-planning modal
• board-level sorting and filtering

Why We Built It

Nature is meant to be explored, but choosing what to do is often harder than the adventure itself.

We built Drift to reduce that friction and make outdoor planning feel:

• faster
• more personal
• more timely
• more fun

Tech Stack

Frontend

• React
• Vite
• JavaScript

Backend

• FastAPI
• Python
• Supabase Auth

APIs and Services

• Anthropic API
• Open-Meteo API
• Supabase

Data

• Seeded outdoor experience dataset for demo reliability
• Local persisted user state

Project Structure

.
├── frontend/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── components/
│   │   ├── data/
│   │   ├── lib/
│   │   └── theme/
├── backend/
│   └── app/
├── docx/
└── AGENT.md

Local Setup

1. Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Frontend runs on:

http://localhost:5173

2. Backend

cd backend
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
uvicorn app.main:app --reload

Backend runs on:

http://localhost:8000

Environment Variables

Frontend

Create frontend/.env.local

VITE_SUPABASE_URL=...
VITE_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY=...
# Optional
VITE_API_BASE=http://localhost:8000

Backend

Create backend/.env

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
RIDB_API_KEY=...
SUPABASE_URL=...
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=...
RATE_LIMIT_MAX_REQUESTS=5
RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS=60

See:

• frontend/.env.example
• backend/.env.example

Current Highlights

• desktop-first discovery flow
• Drifty mascot integrated into the experience
• compare mode for collections
• local fallback trip planning when live AI planning fails
• per-user onboarding persistence
• live weather for supported seeded locations
• seeded data fallback so demos stay reliable

Demo Flow

If you want the fastest repo walkthrough, use this order:

1. Open the welcome screen
2. Sign in with Google
3. Complete onboarding
4. Swipe through Discover
5. Open an experience detail page
6. Save it into a collection
7. Open Collections
8. Compare picks
9. Generate a trip plan

Notes

• The frontend is intentionally optimized for a polished desktop demo.
• The app supports live weather, but also falls back gracefully when outside services fail.
• The seeded experience catalog exists so the product still feels full and stable during demos.

Team

Built by:

• Shaan Kal
• Viswas Vallabeneni
• Raghav Senthilkumar

Status

Drift placed 3rd at the Cursor Hackathon at UW-Madison, and we are continuing development.