English
A few years ago, I was a university student with a massive appetite for travel and a very modest budget. While my friends were booking guided tours and fancy experiences through platforms like TripAdvisor and Viator, I was looking at price tags thinking "there has to be another way."
And there was — sort of.
The Google Maps Ritual
Every time I landed in a new city, I had the same routine. Open Google Maps. Search for "attractions" or "points of interest" or "things to do." Then the real work began.
I'd scroll through dozens of pins on the map, clicking each one individually. Check the rating. Read a handful of reviews. Look at photos. Try to figure out if this was actually worth visiting or just a random pin that Google decided to show me. For every city, this process took at least an hour — often more.
Then I'd cross-reference with blog posts. But here's the thing about travel blogs: they're all different. Some are 3,000-word essays about the author's spiritual journey at a temple. Others are listicles with no real substance. Some have great info buried under paragraphs of SEO filler. The format was never consistent, and it was incredibly hard to quickly skim and compare attractions across multiple posts.
So usually, I just went back to Google Maps and made my decisions there. Not ideal, but at least it was consistent.
The "Aha" Moment
One evening in Prague — after spending over an hour doing my usual research routine for the next day — I thought: why doesn't something simple exist? A tool where you just type the city you're visiting, and it gives you a clean list of the top attractions with their ratings, reviews, and a quick summary of what makes each one special?
Not a 1,000-word Wikipedia article. Not a sponsored blog post trying to sell me a $60 walking tour. Just the essential facts. A quick recap of each place. Maybe one interesting fact that I'll actually remember years later.
That's when the idea for City Buddy was born.
Building for Myself
I started building City Buddy as a side project. The core idea was dead simple:
1. Enter a city — just type it
2. Get a curated list of top attractions with Google ratings and review counts
3. Quick facts for each place — not an essay, just the stuff you actually need
4. One special highlight — that memorable detail you'll tell your friends about
No account required. No upsells. No "book this experience for only $89." Just the information a curious, budget-conscious traveler needs.
Why It Actually Works
Here's what I think makes City Buddy different: I'm not building it as a business first. I'm building it because I'm the most active user of this product. Every time I travel — which is often — I use City Buddy to plan my days. And every time I use it, I notice something that could be better.
"It would be nice to see how safe this city is." So I added safety scores.
"I wonder what the local dishes are." So I added traditional food recommendations.
"What's the beer price here?" Added that too.
"Is the tap water safe?" Yep, that's in there now.
The product evolves organically based on what's actually useful when you're standing in a new city with your phone, trying to figure out what to do next.
What's Next
I'm constantly expanding City Buddy. Weather forecasts, walking tour recommendations, more detailed overview data for each location. The goal isn't to become the next TripAdvisor. The goal is to remain the fastest, cleanest way to discover what's worth seeing in any city — whether you're a broke student like I was, or just someone who values their time and doesn't want to scroll through 47 blog posts to find the top 5 things to do.
If you've ever felt that frustration — standing in a new city, phone in hand, not knowing where to start — City Buddy was built for you.
Because it was built for me first.