Around Us - Who we are
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.
