Find Travel Friends
Are you trying to gather or coordinate a group of strangers traveling to the same place? Or would you like to move more sustainably and healthily, but the comfort of the car takes the win? Searching for travel friends helps in such situations!
Try finding travel friends in Turku
Walking school bus to Pääskyvuori
In Turku, we are trying to see if Travel friend search could be used to gather groups of children who could go daily from Varissuo or the south side of Kalevantie to Pääskyvuori school and back with the guidance of an escort. If one of the parents can check that everyone is present and be there for support on the way if needed, the other parents don't have to take the children by car to Pääskyvuori. This will also lead to fewer traffic jams and dangerous situations. So if your child goes to Pääskyvuori school from these areas, take part in the experiment!
Join as an escort
Register to the service https://kimppakyydit.com
From the home page, select "Add your own ride posting"
Select "Combo" as the role and enter and select "Pääskyvuori school" as the destination
Write and select "Varissuo koulu" (Annikanpolku), "Talpiankuja 6" (stop), "Hemponkatu 8" (playground) or "Västäräkinkatu 3" (Keltasirkunpolku) as the starting point.
Select "Recurring" and the days of the week and departure time when you can set off with a group of children
Leave the payment as zero and add in additional description as needed and "straight line" from the additional options (because there is no car route)
Review and publish the posting
Wait for contact or browse from time to time to see if you can send your child to school with others on other days
You can form a group with the parents who have registered their children, e.g. a WhatsApp group to facilitate daily coordination
Register your child in the group
See the escorts' postings from the button above
You can contact the escort by opening the posting
You can see the escort's contact information (phone or e-mail) and you can contact them directly - however, you should first register and log in to the service, because many restrict contact information to only be visible to logged-in users
If you still don't see the contact information, you can contact him by selecting "Propose a ride", which will allow you to send him a message and your information, and he can contact you
When you have agreed on the child's participation in the group, you can continue daily coordination in e.g. a WhatsApp group
You should also think about whether you could make your own posting for one of the mornings or afternoons, if you are traveling with your own child in any case. School days end at different times, so escorts are needed.
Note: the escort is a volunteer to support the children's trip to school, but is not legally responsible for your child.
Driving together or carpooling for cyclists
In Turku, we are also testing whether people who travel by bicycle to work or elsewhere would like to find a companion for outbound or return journeys using Travel friends search, and whether it would be possible to change the bicycle ride to carpooling if necessary. So if you want a travel companion, or help people to stick to their goals to move more healthily and sustainably, or just try something new, take part in the experiment! Note: The Pääskyvuori area's Travle friend postings are probably mainly escorted trips for schoolchildren.
Making travel friend search postings and contacting the authors takes place in the same way as described above for the Pääskyvuori experiment, but you can search for postings by doing a travel search (magnifying glass in the top bar) directly between your home and work addresses. And when adding a description, you should put e.g. the following additional information in the description:
Are you looking for a more permanent cycling companionship or with a weather reservation?
If you have to change, preferably to a bus or carpool?
Are you a speedy or calmer cyclist?
What can you use Travel Friends for?
Cycling friends
What if you agreed with a co-worker or neighbor who travels the same route that you go by bike when the weather is good?
And in bad weather, you switch from bike to bus or carpool!
Festival friends
Are you going to parties alone or with a group - on foot or by bus or train or car or whatever?
You can always invite others to join, so it would be more good company!
Neighbor friends
Should you coordinate trips to play sports with your neighbors or escort children to school?
One person can announce that they are gathering a group and the others sign up to join!
The goal of the travel friends search is that everyone finds a good travel company when choosing a more sustainable and healthy way to move.
We often ride bicycles to work and hobbies in the summer, but only a few manage to continue when the weather gets colder, and wind and rain or snow and ice start to make traveling difficult. What if you knew that there are others traveling the same route who would like to continue cycling in principle, but give up on the idea? If you find each other through a service suitable for this, maybe you can persevere for a couple of weeks or a month longer and get beneficial exercise and a good mood!
And if the weather turns bad, you can both switch from the bike to the bus, in which case you already have the familiar good traveling company ready. Or switch to a shared carpool if the public transport travel chain is too cumbersome as an alternative.
Of course, you can also try searching for travel friends if you want to find travel company for more occasional trips. Most people already go to parties and events with their friends, but what if you invited even more like-minded people? This way even the lonelier ones would be able to enjoy the mood already on the way.
But there are other trips where it would be a pleasure to have a travel companion. Even if it's trips to nature, the archipelago, a museum or sports. After all, not everyone has friends who share the same interests. Through the service, you could even find them in your own corners.
How does it work?
The search for travel friends has been made to the Kimppakyydit.com service, which already has everything you need:
Notification of travel plans with additional information (route, schedule, description)
Controlled sharing of contact information (according to your privacy protection level)
Browsing announcements without registration (but some contact information is not visible)
Search using endpoints and schedules (and quick links, e.g. by workplace)
In travel friends postings, there is no separate driver and passenger, but the trip is made together and in the way that has been agreed. If you are searching for a travel companion for e.g. a weekly work or hobby trip, you can select the days of the week in the schedule of the travel posting.
If you are looking for a travel companion for an occasional leisure trip, you can select "sometimes" in the schedule of the travel posting and in the description you should write e.g.:
Are there others in the group and are you looking for more people?
Do you have the necessary equipment (e.g. a boat if you want to go to the archipelago)
What kind of schedule wishes or conditions do you have for the trip
Are you already an experienced traveler or just starting to move around e.g. in nature
Make a posting of your trip or contact the author of a travel friend posting as follows:
Register for the service
From the home page, select "Add your own ride posting"
Select "Combo trip" as the role and fill in the other information (note: some of the fields in the ride posting are not applicable for travel friend trips)
Review and publish the posting
Stay waiting for contacts or browse from time to time to see if others have interesting travel friend postings
You can contact the author of the travel friend posting by opening it
You can see the author's contact information (phone or email) or you can contact them by selecting "Propose a ride"
