Why we built WOM

WOM started because planning a trip had quietly become a second job. Hours of scrolling, saved posts you never find again, and a shortlist that turns out to be the same ten places everyone else was sent to.

The internet used to be good at this. Somewhere between sponsored listicles and algorithmic feeds, recommendations stopped being recommendations and started being placements. You can feel it when you land somewhere and every café on your list has the same chairs.

We wanted the opposite: a short, honest list of places we have actually been, laid out so you can use it on your phone while standing on a street corner. Not two thousand words of preamble before an address.

Every guide we publish is built from first-hand visits. If we have not been, it does not go in. That makes the guides slower to produce and shorter than the competition, which we think is the correct trade.

We also decided early that the format mattered as much as the content. Clickable links, a Google Maps list you can open in one tap, and no login. A guide you cannot use while walking is not a guide, it is an article.

People ask why we do not just put it all on Instagram. We do post there, but a feed is a terrible place to store anything. The guides exist so that the work survives longer than a week.

That is the whole idea. Less research, more of the trip you actually came for.