Building a travel website sounds glamorous — like sipping cocktails in Bali while pushing commits. But in reality? It’s more like debugging airport transfer logic at 1 AM. This is a short story about how I helped shape a platform that takes the chaos out of corporate travel and vacation planning for people who have better things to do than compare six browser tabs of hotel options.

Setting the Scene

Treepz isn’t just about booking flights or finding a hotel. It’s about packaging the full experience: visas, car rentals, airport concierge, event tickets, e-SIMs (because roaming charges are evil), and curated trips across Africa and beyond — all bundled and ready to go.

We designed Treepz with executives, entrepreneurs, and diaspora travelers in mind — the kind of people who’d rather focus on their pitch deck than deal with travel logistics.

Things I Got Right (Thankfully)

1. Bundle It Like Netflix

People hate planning — I mean really hate it. Offering event and vacation packages as all-in-one bundles was a game-changer. Visa? Sorted. Ride from the airport? Sorted. Group trip with your college friends to Accra? Yup — sorted.

2. Booking UX Shouldn’t Feel Like Filing Taxes

We knew from the start that our booking experience had to be seamless. Minimal form fields. Smart filters. Auto-account creation on checkout (bless that UX win). The smoother the ride, the faster the conversion.

3. Pop-Ups Done Right

No, not the annoying kind. Our car rental and airport transfer bookings live in pop-up modals — keeping users on the page while they pick vehicles, toggle return trips, and fill in their preferences without breaking flow.

4. Admin Portal That Actually Helps Admins

We built an admin dashboard that supports CMS updates, user and payment oversight, and audit logs — because if a price changes or a refund gets processed, we want a trail (and peace of mind).

What Caught Me Slippin’

1. Review Integrations Are Sneakily Complex

Third-party reviews sound simple — until they’re not. We initially thought we’d just "plug them in." Turns out, review APIs vary like crazy, and caching them smartly became its own side quest.

2. Referral Logic = Brain Twister

Our Independent Travel Ambassadors (ITAs) use manual codes — and while simple on the surface, tracking and validating those entries behind the scenes was more “Excel-with-headaches” than “plug-and-play.”

3. Every Destination Has Its Quirks

Building for Nairobi is not the same as building for Dubai or Toronto. Language, timezone, and content localization taught us to bake flexibility into our architecture early — and thank God we did.

Cool UX/PM Decisions We Made

  • Mobile-first design: Executives travel. They live on their phones. We made sure the site didn’t just shrink — it performed on mobile.
  • Heatmap and Analytics: We tracked everything. From where users clicked to when they bounced. This shaped every UX iteration.
  • Dynamic filtering: Let users find trips/events by mood, not just location. Want a retreat in July under $500? Say less.

If You're Building Something Similar...

Here’s what I’d tell future-you:

  • Design your data structure with expansion in mind (e.g., support destinations across 4 continents now, not “maybe later”).
  • Group your features into atomic, testable chunks. We built bookings, payments, and pop-ups modularly — saved us during QA.
  • Don’t wait till launch to think about admin controls. Build it early. It’ll save your team hours (and therapy).

TL;DR

Treepz isn’t just a travel website. It’s a concierge, a PA, a trip planner, and a travel therapist rolled into one. Building it taught me that people want trust, clarity, and zero friction when booking. And if your platform delivers that — you’ve got a win.

Stay sharp, travel smart, and may all your UX flows be blessed.