Last week there was a "progressive dinner" walking tour of Braddon, where guests ate five courses at five different restaurants and eateries. Next there'll be a trip around some of Canberra's most haunted buildings.
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This is Trajavu, a new travel app from young Canberra entrepreneur Jeanette Zhang, which connects travellers with locals who have an experience to share, a bit like Meetup or Party Like a Local. Locals can list a trip, an event or occasion and travellers can buy a ticket to join the fun.
Zhang says the name comes from "travel deja vu". The concept came to her after a roommate recounted the story of the best school trip she'd ever had. "The driver on the trip was a very old Japanese man who knew everything about Japan - and he just had very in depth knowledge of the city and that was the best trip she'd ever had," she explains. "It suddenly came to me that locals know their city really well.. and that's the kind of knowledge that travellers and other locals can find very valuable."
So she decided to create Trajavu - a platform where locals who have niche knowledge about their city can create tours and invite other locals and travellers to join them. Zhang took her idea to Stir, an entrepreneurship program run by Canberra creatives Shift One. She won a micro grant of $1000 after getting through a community vote. She's now taken the concept to ACT Innovation and is in the running for another seed grant to grow the company. Along the way she met cofounders Marshall Clifton and Reuben Khong.
Zhang is still at university, studying law and IT, but is working full time on Trajavu. One of the next set of events is run by a Canberran ghost nerd. "A few years ago he mapped out all the supposedly haunted places in Canberra. We'll be bringing him on board - he's designed a haunted capital tour," she says.
There's been plenty of interest from locals wanting to share experiences in their city - there's a Kingston food tour in the works. "We've got hiking people and camping people and there's a lot of interest on bushwalks. Locals have secrets to tell, they've lived in a city all their life, Trajavu can be a way to bring those secrets to the surface and unlock a lot of local knowledge."
See trajavu.com
