The Travel Dashboard
Designing Experiences Beyond Work
How a start page can support the way we prepare, anticipate, and remember travel.
Travel planning has its own kind of chaos.
You compare flights across multiple tabs, check accommodation details, confirm arrival times, and search for entry requirements. In a normal browser session, this information spreads out quickly. What starts as research turns into a stack of tabs you’re afraid to close.
I noticed this pattern in my own workflow. The week before a trip, my browser stopped looking like a workspace and started looking like a temporary command center. That observation led to a simple idea: what if the start page could adapt to that mode intentionally?
In start tooolo, I use Focus Slots to create a temporary travel layout. When I switch into what I think of as “Travel Mode,” I replace my usual work links with essentials: Flight confirmation, Accommodation details, A shared map with saved locations, and Entry forms or visa pages.
Instead of searching through history or email, everything is visible the moment I open a new tab. It reduces friction at a time when details matter.
The Management of Details
In the weeks before a trip, anticipation builds quietly. Seeing a D-day counter on the dashboard reshapes even an ordinary workday. You open a tab to handle a routine task, and you’re reminded: there is something ahead of you. That subtle reminder changes the emotional tone of the day.
The Memo section became unexpectedly useful in this context. Rather than digging through email for a door code or scrolling for a check-in instruction, I paste key details directly into the related bookmark. Host contact numbers, gate information, transportation notes — all stored alongside the link itself and synced through Supabase. It’s not a complex feature, but during travel it becomes practical.
Memory and Reflection
After returning, the dashboard serves a different role. A “Since Event” counter — for example, 120 days since a mountain trek — works like a quiet record. It marks experiences without turning them into social posts. Over time, these counters reveal patterns. Sometimes they even suggest that it might be time to plan another break.
"A travel dashboard helps you prepare, reminds you what you’re looking forward to, and quietly records where you’ve been."
Technical Context
There were technical challenges behind this simplicity. Travel exposes edge cases quickly, especially with time zones. A departure at 23:55 in one country and an arrival at 06:10 in another can break naive date logic. To avoid that, I implemented timezone-aware handling using date-fns. The dashboard calculates upcoming and past events based on the user’s context rather than assuming a fixed reference point.
Designing for Clarity
Design also plays a role. Airports, red-eye flights, unfamiliar environments — these are moments when clarity matters. A restrained layout, strong contrast in dark mode, and consistent spacing reduce cognitive load. The goal is not to impress, but to remain reliable when you’re tired or in transit.
Beyond Work
Productivity tools often focus exclusively on work. But most people work in order to support something else — experiences, relationships, travel, rest. If a start page only reflects deadlines, it captures only half of that reality.
Over time, your browser becomes more than a workspace. It becomes a timeline of intention. Wherever you’re headed next, you can make space for it — before you even leave.
