FARON – a private travel diary
FARON is a private travel diary on a map for road trips, motorhomes, vans and roof tents. Save trips, overnight stops, stops along the way, photos and places, and build your own travel archive.
Translated from Swedish · Show the original
”I wanted somewhere our trips actually stayed. Not just photos in the camera roll, but the nights, the stops, the map and the small details you want to remember next time.”
The story behind FARON – a private travel diary
Why I built it
I was missing a simple way to gather our road trips in one place. The photos were in the camera roll, places in Google Maps and notes somewhere else. After a while it was hard to remember which overnight spot was actually good, what the entrance looked like, or which stops we wanted to return to.
FARON started as a private travel diary where trips, nights, stops, photos and notes belong together on the same map. The focus is on what you choose to save yourself, rather than automatic GPS tracking in the background.
How it's built
FARON is built as a web app with React, TypeScript and Vite, with Supabase for the database, authentication, storage and server functions.
Large parts were developed through vibe coding in Lovable together with AI, but the work has gradually become far more structured: its own tests, documented core flows, code review, version history and clear rules for what the AI is allowed to change.
AI is used for development, debugging, testing and content work, while product decisions, features and priorities are still made by hand.
The hardest part
The hardest part has been everything that surrounds the simple idea of “saving a trip”. Photos have to work on different phones, maps and routes have to be fast even on long journeys, offline mode must not lose data, and shared trips have to stay private until the user decides otherwise.
Another challenge has been to keep building quickly without the vibe coding making the codebase hard to maintain. That is why the project has grown clearer tests, documentation and rules for small, safe changes.
Up next
The focus ahead is making the travel archive better the more you use it. More ways to rediscover old trips, better planning before you leave, smarter maps and more ways to do something with the photos and notes afterwards.
At the same time the work on import, offline support and features for longer road trips continues. The goal is for FARON to work just as well when you are planning next weekend as when, several years later, you want to find your way back to one particular overnight spot. The next big feature is an automatic physical travel diary.