Disclosure: I'm part of the team building where.
Every friend group has the same loop. Someone asks "so what are we doing Saturday?", six people react with a thumbs-up, and nobody actually decides. The plan dies in the group chat.
We have been building where, a web app for planning events with friends, to attack exactly that moment. The idea is simple: write one sentence, the way you would text a friend, and get back something people can actually follow. This post is a tour of what that looks like in practice.
The problem: group chats never decide
Planning is not hard because of a lack of ideas. It is hard because every decision (where, when, what order, who is coming) is a small negotiation. A plan only gets made when one person does all the work, and that person is usually tired of doing it.
So the goal was to shrink the host's job to one sentence and let the app do the legwork, while keeping the host in control of the result.
What it asks, and why only two things
I typed: "Friends after work. Somewhere we can sit."
where replied that it needed two things before it could scout anything: which city or neighbourhood, and which day and time. That's it. I answered, and it got to work.
Asking only for the city and the time was a deliberate choice. Everything else can be inferred from the sentence or edited later, and every extra question is another reason to abandon the form and go back to the group chat. (One quirk I noticed: it asked for the city even though my account already had one set.)
Real places, not invented ones
The part I care most about: the places are real. where scouts venues using OpenStreetMap data, so the stops on your route are actual places you can walk to, with addresses.
After roughly 30 seconds, I had:
- a timed route with walking legs between stops (18:00 first bar, a short walk together, 19:22 second bar)
- a poster with a title and a one-line teaser
- an AI-generated cover and a photo for each stop, with a short caption like "Keep it short. Nobody wants a hike."
You can flick through the result like a story, ending on a map, before you commit with "Looks good".
Walking legs matter
A list of places is not a plan. What makes an evening work is the gaps: how long it takes to get from one place to the next, and when to leave. The route shows each walk and its distance, so "meet at six, move at seven-fifteen" is already written down.
You take over
Nothing is locked in. You can edit the title, the times and the stops, swap a place for another suggestion, or skip the AI entirely and build the event by hand in four steps: poster, when, who, route. The manual path has a live preview of the event card as you type, and place search with photos.
Blind events: keeping a place secret
One feature I like for birthdays and surprises: a blind event. Guests see a teaser, and each place stays hidden until they unlock it with a phrase you set. Alternatively an event can be open, where the whole plan is visible on the poster. You also choose whether it is for friends only or public.
Inviting people works by link, QR code, six-character code or email. If someone does not have an account, the host can hold a guest pass for them.
On the night
Each event has a live view with the current stop, a "Walk me there" link, "Next" and "We're here" buttons, and a map. The host can also send a message or a hint to everyone. Afterwards, photos can be emailed as a gallery.
Try it
Sign-in is an emailed link, no password, and it is free to start. If you try it, I would love an honest answer to one question: does the Auto result feel useful, or generic for your city?
https://where.ltd/?utm_source=devto&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=wide&utm_content=article
Top comments (1)
tr.ee/dev-to