See You On The Flip Side: A Review of the Flypside App

Note: Flypside has closed. Find other travel app reviews here!

Is anyone else loving the new Facebook memories that pop up on your timeline every so often these days? Okay, I admit it, sometimes I’m cringing instead of laughing. Still, it’s always fun to look back over your shoulder.

But what about looking forward and squinting at what’s ahead? That’s definitely my jam too.

Enter Flypside, a future-based Facebook meets friendship-based Tinder mashup that features a forward-facing timeline and the ability to connect with the right people and find cool stuff to do.

Features

When users create a Flyp, they tell other users about where they are going and when — and they also create a Flyp message that describes what they want to do when they get there.

The main timeline of Flypside is divided into three categories — the upcoming Flyps of those you’ve connected with in the app, the featured Flyps of users around the world, and your own personal timeline of soon-to-be-amazing-memory Flyps. For each of those personal Flyps, you can check out either “What’s On” to learn about concerts, parties, and other events happening in your destination on those dates, or “Find Others” to see the Flyps of other users who will be in the same place at the same time as you!

Flypside also uses hashtags to connect key groups of people. Heading to a conference? Add the hastag to your Flyp to find other attendees. En route to a specific hostel? Add the hashtag to meet your dorm mates before check in. Hoping a fellow graduate from your alma matter or a fellow Greek-lifer from your sorority or fraternity family might be in Europe around the same time? Add the hashtag and send your alumni association a snap when you meet. Looking for a dive buddy on a solo sojourn? Add the hashtag and meet someone to blow bubbles with. (As someone who has trolled Tinder in the past swiping right on anyone with an underwater photo in their profile simply to try to meet a dive boat minimum, I’m a big fan of this feature.)

Other features of the app include a messaging service to reach out to other users and a contacts page to keep track of those you’ve connected with.

Design

Flypside has a easily navigable interface and a beautifully visual timeline.

I played around with creating Flyps for a family a vacation I’m planning on taking to Chicago in August, a conference I’m planning on attending in Las Vegas in November, one for my current location in Rio de Janiero, and a few others for potential summer trips coming up. I liked getting to choose my own destination image — it’s the little things, right? — and loved scrolling through a visual highlight reel of all the fun to come in my near future!

Price

Flypside is free — and in the future, offers for travel deals could save you cash. For example, coming up, if you tagged that you’re interested in #diving in the Flyp of an upcoming trip, you might scroll through your Featured Flyps timeline and see an promotion from a dive operator offering you 15% off tours, or an offer from a local diver who’s out of the water all week for you to borrow or rent their own equipment on the cheap.

Room for Improvement

Most apps that I review here on Alex in Wanderland are fairly new to the market, and thus my one complaint is a fairly common one — the user base is still growing, and so some functions are really only going to shine once it hits a critical mass. That said, within a day of throwing up my Rio flyp, I received two messages offering me friendly advice — one from an expat currently residing in the city, and one from a local now living abroad in Milan. Not bad for a new app, eh?

Conclusion

I see so much potential for Flypside. It’s a great tool for connecting far-flung traveling members of organizations like fraternities, sororities, and colleges, and very cool for connecting like-minded people at what can be overwhelmingly large conferences, festivals, and events. It’s also got a lot of exciting uses for solo travelers who are passionate about things like adventure sports that are often best with a buddy.

I especially love the application of using Flypside to connect hostel guests and tour group members ahead of time, who might be able to share transportation or just get to say hi. I remember my Contiki group made a Facebook group after we parted ways, but it would have been fun to connect — and meet up, since many of us were bopping around Europe ahead of time — before.

But my favorite aspect of all? As a daydreamer at heart, I can’t get over the fun of scrolling through your Flyps and marveling at the colorful timeline of all your future adventures.