It all started with being fed up.
Fed up with the hours spent planning a trip. Sorting the good spots from the useless pins on Google Maps. Opening fifteen blogs from 2012 that all say the same thing without ever giving the info that matters — the parking, the price, the access, the state of the trail. Clicking a tempting headline only to realise, a minute later, that it tells you nothing more than the rest.
The day it all tipped over.
One day in Spain, I spot a gorgeous cliff on the map, twenty minutes away by car. Off we go. On arrival: a barrier, and a car park five kilometres from the viewpoint. Nobody had mentioned it. Wrong shoes, not enough water, and a four-year-old to carry on the way back.
The kind of moment where you tell yourself one piece of info, in the right place, would have changed everything.
That's why SpotVib exists.
Not to replace the tools you already use — to complete them. SpotVib isn't a rival to Google Maps or travel guides: it's the layer they're missing. A layer of precise information, validated by the people who actually went there, and kept up to date. Enough to plan a trip without losing hours over it, and to arrive with no nasty surprises.
And then there's everything we miss.
While planning my own trips — close to home and across Europe alike — I realised we walk right past the essentials: the small shops, the places run by locals, the ones no ranking ever highlights. They're often the first to be forgotten.
It was while taking part in a contest around the SolAToi that I discovered this world — and it really moved me. The SolAToi is the citizen-led local currency of the Ath region, in Belgium: a currency that complements the euro, launched by volunteers so that money keeps circulating in the area and supports its local shopkeepers and independents, rather than slipping away elsewhere. I knew nothing about local currencies before that. It changed the way I see things.
From there, one thing became obvious: SpotVib should do the same — give these businesses visibility again, reconnect travellers with local life, the kind we too often pass through without ever seeing.
Behind SpotVib.
No big team, no investors. One person who loves discovery and road trips, building the app piece by piece, from Belgium. Every spot is designed to spare you exactly the kind of hassle that gave birth to the project — and to lead you to what's truly worth the detour.
We're only just getting started.
We're kicking off in Belgium, with every intention of growing. And we need the first explorers: the people who share their finds and help build the map we all wish we'd had.