Around Us - Travel guide & community

Around Us is not merely an application; it serves as a complimentary, intuitive, and accessible travel companion tailored for inquisitive and savvy adventurers. Whether you envision discovering hidden treasures nearby or exploring renowned sites worldwide, Around Us supports your journey at every turn, providing features designed to enhance and ease your travels.

What sets Around Us apart?

A dynamic, collaborative resource: Continuously enriched by an engaged community of travelers, Around Us presents over 12 million points of interest across eight languages. Every location is meticulously chosen for its significance and supplemented with insights from users like yourself.

An engaging interactive map: With vibrant icons, easily visualize local trends in an instant. In Barcelona? Visit iconic spots like Park Güell, or find unique suggestions in peaceful, authentic neighborhoods. Utilize our Tourist Score to navigate wisely and avoid common tourist traps. Experience a broader, more immersive map that extends beyond the scroll bar while maintaining compactness for seamless navigation. Effortlessly swipe vertically to reveal new locations.

Motivating shared collections: Explore compilations crafted by fellow travelers, such as a street art tour in Berlin or the top places for viewing the northern lights in Iceland. Contribute your own hidden treasures: a cozy café, a stunning viewpoint, or a secluded beach. Keep in mind that bookmarking and collection functionalities are now integrated into a single, user-friendly icon on the map.

Exceptional voice assistance: Just pose questions like, "What are the finest parks in Lyon?" or "Where can I take a swim along the French Riviera?" and let Around Us direct you.

Highly personalized filtering options: The search tool becomes central to your exploration, split into two parts: "Where?" for selecting the destination and "What?" for activating filters based on your interests. Layer numerous filters, including your bookmarks. A color-coded map allows for easy identification of your preferred spots. With more than 16,000 filters available, pinpoint exactly what you desire—from hidden national parks using the “Nature Escape” filter to family-friendly fun with the “Family” option.

Interactive Map

Visual Representation: The interactive map uses bubbles to represent locations, with the size indicating the importance of the place. This helps users quickly identify must-see sites and hidden gems.

3D Immersion: It offers immersive 3D panoramas of iconic sites around the world, giving users a virtual experience as if they were physically present.

Custom Filters: Users can refine their exploration with filters like "public gardens" or "beaches". With over 16,000 filters, it's easy to find places that match their preferences. The color-coded map further aids in spotting favorite locations.

Curated Essentials: The app curates essential spots at each destination, ensuring users don't miss out on unforgettable experiences.

Become part of an active community

Around Us does more than guide; it encourages your participation. Create and share your travel plans, motivate fellow explorers, and assist in building our repository of recommendations and insights. Around Us represents a joint effort, an unbounded adventure, and an invitation to discover in a novel way, highlighting local knowledge and authenticity.

Download the app today and experience the wonders the world has in store—right at your fingertips.

Around Us – Allow curiosity to guide your journey.

BRAND INTRODUCTION

As a travel enthusiast and lover of both natural and cultural heritage, I launched Around Us in June 2023. I initially thought of creating a free, interactive, and user-friendly global travel guide. This project aims to facilitate the discovery of monuments and natural sites, focusing on those of real interest.

Around Us was born from a dual observation: on one hand, traditional mapping applications are cluttered with millions of points of interest, of which less than 1% are truly relevant to travelers. On the other hand, creating a trip is often too complicated because the necessary information is scattered across different tools: travel guides, maps and plans, brochures, internet searches for up-to-date information, and complex reservation systems to top it all off.

The app, available on iOS and Android, allows navigation via an interactive map where popular places are indicated by bubbles proportional to their popularity. Additional zoom reveals less known but noteworthy points of interest for an off-the-beaten-path experience.

Users can explore various filters to refine their search for places to visit, ranging from remarkable trees to suspension bridges, and from leaning towers to horseshoe waterfalls.

All these combinations make for a rich and diverse discovery experience. 

Signing up on the site is not mandatory, but by creating an account, users can create their own selection or itinerary to facilitate the organization of their trip. We only collect data for the proper use of the site and app, and we commit to respecting the confidentiality of our users in accordance with GDPR.

Since its launch, Around Us has been downloaded about 1 million times across all countries and systems, a sign of its growing adoption and global potential. The app lists more than 10 million tourist locations, available in 8 languages today.

Founded alone with limited resources, Around Us is constantly evolving and reinventing itself thanks to our users. In September 2024, Stéphane Renard, also a geography and travel enthusiast, joined the company, bringing his expertise in strategic partnerships and brand development. Together, we aim to strengthen the platform and our community to deliver a useful, simple, and completely free product.

Users are encouraged to enrich the platform by adding locations, reporting errors or omissions, and sharing useful information. Around Us content is published under a Creative Commons license, thus promoting their sharing and reuse. We appreciate any contribution that helps us improve the site and correct any possible errors. Your feedback is valuable and can be addressed to jeff (at) aroundus.com or stephane (at) aroundus.com, preferably in French or English.

We are aware that developing a project of such scope takes time, often 3 to 4 years to fully establish itself. This is a lesson I learned when creating CommentCaMarche in 1999. That site, which became my main activity in 2007, allowed me to create the CCM Benchmark group by acquiring sites such as Linternaute.com, JournalDuNet.com, and JournalDesFemmes.com. As was the case for CommentCaMarche, I wish for Around Us to remain entirely free. To support this model, possibilities for booking flights, trains, hotels, restaurants, and activities will be offered, constituting a virtuous economic model that provides a free service while being useful to the user.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in this adventure so far. We hope you find as much pleasure in using Around Us as we do in developing it day by day.

Jean-François Pillou, founder of Around Us.

FAQS

How do I find places around me?

Simply open the app: the map will automatically display tourist attractions nearby. Use filters at the top to personalize what’s shown.

How do the filters work?

At the top of the screen, select filters based on your interests (castles, street art, natural sites, etc.) to refine your search.

Why can’t I see all the places?

Some places are hidden by default to avoid clutter. You can reveal them by adjusting filters or using the search bar.

What is the Tourist Score?

The Tourist Score indicates how many people are estimated to be interested in a location each month. A high score often means it’s a popular site — and likely a busy one. Zooming out will show high-score places; zooming in will help you find hidden gems.

Where does the data come from?

Data is aggregated from open sources like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, and more. It is then enriched by the community through reviews, photos, suggestions, and anecdotes.

Which platforms is AroundUs available on?

AroundUs is available on iOS, Android, macOS, Apple TV, VisionOS, and also on the web.

How can I edit a place’s page?

Open the place’s page and click on “Suggest a change”. You must be logged in to contribute. 

How can I add a new place?

Long press on the map at the desired location: a form will open to suggest a new place. You can also search for its name – if it already exists, you can suggest changes from its page. How can I add my photos? Rate the place with stars, then add your photos from the review interface.