# Build brief — a focused alternative to Wanderfugl

> **Verdict:** Partly, if you narrow it · **Buildability:** 46/100 · **Category:** Travel
> **Source:** https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/wanderfugl
> Independent editorial assessment from Can It Be Vibe Coded? Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from Wanderfugl. Verify current pricing and capabilities before acting.

## Context

**Wanderfugl** — A web app for planning trips: itineraries, bookings and travel details in one place. It currently costs $9/mo.

Trip planning is one of the most one-shottable categories there is: it is days, places, times, notes and a map, which is a CRUD app with a calendar view. An agent can give you a local itinerary builder with day-by-day cards, confirmation numbers, an ICS export and a pinned map in a focused implementation, and it will feel better than a spreadsheet. The gap is everything that touches live travel data: flight and hotel prices, schedule changes, timezone-correct arrival math, place search with real coordinates, and inbox parsing of booking emails. If the paid product's value is mostly structure and a nice UI, self-hosting wins; if it is live data feeds or a polished phone app you use offline in an airport, it does not. Rate it kinda until you know which of those you are actually paying for.

This brief describes a focused, single-operator replacement for the part of Wanderfugl that is genuinely reproducible. It is deliberately narrower than the product it replaces, and it says so in writing. Build the useful core; do not pretend to have rebuilt the rest.

## What you are building

A local trip planner where you create a trip, add day-by-day items with times, places, links and confirmation numbers, see them on a map, and export the whole thing to calendar or a printable page.

- Build an itinerary from saved places, dates, and budgets you control.
- A responsive interface with real empty, loading, success, and error states.

## Requirements

### Functional

- Node and a browser.

### Data and integrations

- A maps tile key if you want a real map instead of a static list.
- Optional: a place search API key for coordinates.

Each of these needs a real account, credential, or quota. Set them up before writing feature code.

### Non-functional

- Accessibility: semantic markup, labelled controls, visible focus, and reduced-motion support.
- Security: server-side secrets, validated input, and no credentials in the client bundle.
- Reliability: retries with backoff on external calls, and a clear failure state when a provider is down.
- Portability: the operator can export their data and leave without losing it.

## Implementation brief

Build a local-first trip planner web app called Fugl. No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry.

Stack, non negotiable:
- Next.js with the App Router and TypeScript
- SQLite via better-sqlite3, file at ./data/fugl.db, created and migrated on first run
- Tailwind for styling, no component library
- Leaflet with OpenStreetMap tiles for the map
- Runs with: npm install, npm run dev

Data model:
- Trip: id, name, destination label, start date, end date, notes, home timezone
- Item: id, trip id, kind (flight, train, lodging, activity, food, note), title, start datetime, end datetime nullable, timezone, location name, lat nullable, lng nullable, confirmation code, url, cost, currency, notes
- Packing item: id, trip id, label, packed boolean

Features in scope:
- Trip list page, create and edit trips
- Trip detail page grouped by day, each day showing items sorted by start time, with kind icons and a running per-day cost total
- Add and edit items in a side drawer, with lat and lng entered manually or pasted from a maps URL
- Map panel showing all items with coordinates for the trip, pins numbered by day
- Packing list with checkboxes, persisted
- Export trip to .ics with one VEVENT per item, timezone aware
- Printable itinerary view at /trips/[id]/print, clean single column, no nav chrome
- JSON export and import of a whole trip
- Full text search across item titles, notes and confirmation codes

Explicitly out of scope:
- Flight, hotel or price lookups of any kind
- Email parsing, OAuth, sharing links, multi user
- Push notifications and native apps

Use .env for the optional map tile URL and nothing else. Seed one demo trip with three days of items so the UI is not empty. Write a README with run steps and a one line note that all data stays in ./data.

## Delivery standard

- Inspect the repository first, then write a short implementation plan before writing code.
- Deliver the smallest complete end-to-end workflow first; every primary control must work against persisted data.
- Use real validation and storage; never substitute fake dashboards, decorative controls, hard-coded success states, or mock integrations.
- Include responsive layouts plus genuine empty, loading, success, validation, and failure states.
- Keep secrets server-side in environment variables, provide .env.example, and never commit credentials or user data.
- Add structured logs around every external call and return actionable errors without leaking sensitive details.
- Write unit tests for the core logic and one automated test of the main user journey.
- Finish with a README covering setup, architecture, data location, backups, tests, deployment, and known limitations.

## Acceptance criteria

- [ ] A clean install starts the app using only the README and .env.example.
- [ ] The primary journey works from first visit through saved result, reload, edit, export, and deletion where applicable.
- [ ] Invalid input, missing configuration, provider failure, and an empty database each have a usable state.
- [ ] The interface works at 390px and 1440px, is keyboard navigable, and shows visible focus on every control.
- [ ] Tests, type checking, linting, and a production build all pass with no ignored failures.
- [ ] No part of the interface implies a live integration, security guarantee, or scale capability that was not actually built and verified.

## Non-goals

Do not build these, and do not claim to have replaced them:

- Live flight, train and hotel pricing or availability.
- Automatic booking email parsing into your itinerary.
- A real mobile app with offline access while travelling.
- Timezone and schedule-change handling done correctly by someone else.
- Sharing a polished read-only itinerary with travel companions.

## What you still own after launch

- Secure credentials, rotate secrets, and handle provider rate limits.
- Run migrations, backups, restores, and dependency updates.
- Test the critical journey after every model, API, or hosting change.
- Monitor failures and fix the edge cases a first prompt will miss.
- Maintain every third-party integration as APIs and OAuth rules change.

## Risk

**Operational risk.** The code is achievable; dependable data, integrations, and ongoing operations are the real cost.

Editorial confidence in this assessment: low. No reviewed project implementation is linked yet.

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Generated by [Can It Be Vibe Coded?](https://www.canitbevibecoded.com) · Full report: https://www.canitbevibecoded.com/wanderfugl